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Trabis troubled legacy Volkswagen has revitalized the old East German car industry But familiar problems persist, says Tim Jackson.
There are three, Petra Franz worked in a huge factory in East Germany which turned millions Trabant Trabant was a terrible car; it was introduced just after the war as a short-term way to get the auto industry of a once proud nation on his feet, but the requirements of communist rule were such that the gap has never been Trabi .
His ugly form and smoke fault of his two-stroke engine has become a symbol of industrialization, is German-style as the factory press officer, Ms. Franz had little to do the basic rule is to never say anything from anyone, she recalls.
Today, she does the same job in the same factory, but instead of producing trabis the plant near Zwickau is brilliant Volkswagen Golfs, complete with metallic paint and carefully labeled biodegradable bumper Two years after the Federal Republic took control of East Germany in undisputed takeover tender offer, the plant is a symbol of success - and failures - of German unification.
Volkswagen and the Treuhand, the government body responsible for the sale of the former East German industries nationalized, struck a groundbreaking agreement and agreed that the West German car manufacturer, counting in its brands Audi, is also the largest Europe would be to build a brand new factory on the site pending a transitional society where VW would take a stake of over 12 percent climb VW Polo kits in the former next door.
Next month 2400 transition factory workers will increase production from 280 to 400 cars per day and the final objective is that they should make 1200 a day - not just bolting kits sent to the center Volkswagen nerve just across the border with the former West Germany, but actually pushing the body panels too.
Once the new plant is fully operational, the idea is that it should use such advanced technology as any in the Empire Volkswagen, and the working methods that can stand comparison with Japan that will not be a small feat on average, carmakers of Western Europe are only half as efficient as Japanese carmakers the old factory Trabant was less than half of new effective.
Thus, the company realized it had a challenge before it started shipping began with 400 of the former factory workers in Wolfsburg border for how the parent thinks cars should be made some 28 managers expatriates were sent east to run things in Zwickau was headed Gerd Heuss, an international expert who had previously run Volkswagen manufacturing operations in Yugoslavia and Changchun in China.
The scene that greeted the leaders when they arrived was just as deserted as in the poorest developing countries there was no decent roads, no houses for expatriates, as they are called, live in call telephone central office had to be done by sending someone to a phone booth in the former East-West border.
All these problems are solved now clearly A walk around the building management and factory floor shows evidence of massive investments that the German Government and Volkswagen itself put in there newly resurfaced and new roads telephone cables fiberglass obedient secretaries in the offices of producing rapid cost calculations from spreadsheets running on Compaq computers body shop in what is to be known as the factory has already Moselle 2 123 robots, and will eventually have twice as many.
Even the East German devastated the environment was given its due attention The company had felled 600 trees to make way for its greenfield plant; in return, he is now planting more than 6000 replace landscapers are working on ways to prevent the plant look like an eyesore of the village, the old dirty lignite power plant that generated electricity from the plant is replaced with a new gas system.
But it is psychological rather than physical, scars of communism that prove difficult to heal M. Heuss admits that Volkswagen made a mistake when he started to rehire former employees Trabant They had such a problem of attitude the company soon realized it was better to employ those who had no bad habits to unlearn.
He has made tremendous efforts to win the loyalty of its new workers A new bright cafeteria serves solid, good quality without German head; a special team of eight people was recruited to do nothing more than keep workers informed of developments in the global auto industry and Volkswagen itself, we are regularly in the other automakers skirts, M. Heuss says Every Monday evening the pulls desktop from staff records the names of 20 factory workers, and M. Heuss and his colleagues have an informal dinner with them.
The latest production methods of western style are already in place quality controllers walk the aisles, but workers on the assembly line are invited to do their best to prove that perfect products, and stop the line if for some reason they can not the whole plant is divided into Japanese-style teams, with the teams being responsible for the quality of their own stage of the Volkswagen production process pays a separate school to improve skills workers.
The most revolutionary of all is the fact that the plant has only nine suppliers, each of which makes deliveries just in time at the door, so that no more than a few hours of stocks must be transported short, said Mr. Heuss we are the playground any concerns.
Although workers here are paid slightly less than their West German counterparts, the results in terms of productivity are proving slow to come through Asked about the issue of the quality of the plant, M. Heuss said I must be polite; it is not so bad, but he refuses to speak of defects per car, or to say how far the plant to other VW plants Printing slowly rising productivity is confirmed on the factory floor Here, casual groups of workers are sitting around chatting as the line slides forward; in a Japanese factory, all would happily work with only seconds to spare until the next job.
For workers, one thing was a surprise, they had heard much of Western individualism, but by Petra Franz, choices of capitalism have made life increasingly bureaucratic general.
And inside the factory, the emphasis is on teamwork - back to what they were used under communism In the old days, she said, we had to produce cars in shabby condition we must work for the weekend to catch up Now we have modern machines but there is less need to be creative.
Trabis troubled legacy Volkswagen has revitalized the old East German car industry, Trabis, troubled legacy.