The first units of the W222 Mercedes-Benz S-Class destined for customer garages have rolled off the Mercedes-Benz Sindelfingen Plant, officially starting customer production for the 6th generation flagship Mercedes-Benz.
There have been significant investment in the Sindelfingen Plant to prepare it to produce the new W222 - a total of 1 billion Euros have been sunk in between 2011 to 2014. A simple breakdown would be about 350 million Euros for the body shop, 130 million Euros for the press shop and 70 million Euros on the assembly line, with the rest of the investment going to other areas.
Among the new technologies introduced to the plant for the preparation of the W222's production include a new manufacturing process for the aluminium lightweight roof - the roof and steel body will now only be joined once they have been through the paint shop together. An innovation in production logistics is the 'pick-by-projector' system, which helps employees pick parts by signalling to them which storage unit contains the component that is required. Energy consumption per vehicle has been lowered by around 20 percent, in part through improvements to the building engineering.
The S-Class is apparently not only comfortable to be in, but comfortable to make as well. Mercedes-Benz designed an ergonomic assembly line which allows assembly line workers to mount the control units on the back wall module at a height that is most comfortable for them. A lifting device does the job of transporting the component into the vehicle, taking the strain off the workers.
No comments:
Post a Comment