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The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Mercedes-Benz Sindelfingen

Christoph Roser — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 11:00:43 +0000

My Grand Tour of German Automotive continues now with plants from Mercedes-Benz (also known as Daimler). I visited a total of four plants from Mercedes-Benz, including all three automotive final assembly plants Sindelfingen, Bremen, and Rastatt. I also had a tour at their quite good Daimler truck plant in Wörth, the largest heavy-duty truck plant ... Read more

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The Grand Tour of German Automotive—BMW Berlin Motorbikes

Christoph Roser — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 11:00:03 +0000

The last plant of BMW I visited in Germany was in Spandau, Berlin. This was different from BMW Munich and Leipzig. For one, it makes motorbikes, not cars. But its performance was also not as stellar as the best of (German) benchmark plants Leipzig and Munich. But despite some issues, it still performed on an ... Read more

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The Grand Tour of German Automotive—BMW Leipzig

Christoph Roser — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 11:00:03 +0000

The second BMW plant I visited was in Leipzig. This modern greenfield plant had a very good material flow, where especially the finger line impressed me a lot. In terms of efficiency it was the best-performing plant in Germany, shortly after Munich, and on par with Toyota. It was also exceptionally clean. The only flaw ... Read more

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The Grand Tour of German Automotive—BMW Munich

Christoph Roser — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 11:00:33 +0000

The Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, or short BMW, is a maker of luxury vehicles, sport cars, and motorcycles. As part of my Grand Tour of German Automotive I visited their plants in Munich and Leipzig, and was quite impressed. In my view, it these are the best-performing automotive plants in Germany, and close to the ... Read more

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The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Overview

Christoph Roser — Tue, 28 May 2024 11:00:43 +0000

In 2017-18, I had the chance to visit factories of all seven Japanese car makers as part of my Grand Tour of Japanese Automotive. In the last few weeks, I had the chance to repeat this for Germany and do a Grand Tour of German Automotive. Let me show you what I saw and what ... Read more

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3D Printing at Stratasys—3D Printing Markets

Christoph Roser — Tue, 21 May 2024 11:00:07 +0000

In my previous post I looked at the different 3D printing technologies available through the market leader Stratasys. In this second post, I will go much deeper into the different materials and markets where Stratasys provides solutions to customers. For me, there were quite a few surprises where I did not expect 3D printed parts… ... Read more

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3D Printing at Stratasys—Printing Technologies

Christoph Roser — Tue, 14 May 2024 11:00:39 +0000

Recently I had a chance to visit the world market leader in 3D printing, Stratasys, together with my students. We went to their location in Rheinmünster, Germany, near the Baden-Baden airport. While I always keep a bit of an eye on new developments in 3D printing, it was quite refreshing to get an update on ... Read more

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A Frequent Mistake—Undoing an Assembly Line—Part 2

Christoph Roser — Tue, 07 May 2024 11:00:58 +0000

Assembly lines are THE way to do mass production. Yet, with constant regularity people try out to undo the assembly line, only to fail in their endeavor. In my previous post I looked at examples by Volkswagen in Salzgitter, Volvo in Kalmar, and Opel in Bochum, who all tried, just to switch back to an ... Read more

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