As part of my Grand Tour of German Automotive, I also visited the Volkswagen Transparent Factory Dresden (Gläserne Manufaktur). This plant is something of an oddball in automotive manufacturing, very different from all other automotive plants I have seen. Its purpose is quite different from “normal” car plants, and hence it cannot really be compared to a normal car plant. But it does fulfill its purpose rather well, albeit not quite cheaply. Let me show you this unusual plant…
Disclaimer: The following is based on my personal observations and opinions and may not be accurate or correct. It is based on publicly available information and what I observed during public tours, and when I observed it. The observations may differ at a different time and place.
What Makes the Plant So Unusual
The small automotive plant of Volkswagen is located right in the middle of Dresden, less than two kilometers from the city center. This by itself is not unusual. Many automotive plants are in the middle of a city, like BMW Munich, Porsche Zuffenhausen, Audi Ingolstadt, or Daimler Untertürkheim. This happens because when the plant was built—often hundred years ago—it was far away from the city, and over time the city grew around the plant.
Not so for Volkswagen Dresden. The plant started operating only in 2002, and was purposely placed close to the city center on expensive prime real estate (a corner of the Dresden Great Garden). A planetarium and exhibition hall had to go to make space for the—admittedly small—car plant.
Many other plants also have showrooms and infrastructure like walkways for guided tours. Showrooms are usually next to the plant in a separate building, and the infrastructure for the guided tours was added after the plant was already established. Here, Volkswagen Dresden also differs, the plant was built around the showroom and the entire factory is visible from the centerpiece showroom through glass windows, hence the name Transparent Factory, or Gläserne Manufaktur.
Yes, the purpose of this plant is less to make cars, and more to show the public how cars are made. It still produces cars (currently the electric VW ID.3), and these are sold just like other VW cars. But the plant is a showcase production rather than a factory. Hence also the name Manufaktur or manufactory.
How the Gläserne Manufaktur Came to Be (My Opinion)
Around 2000, Daimler decided to build the ultimate luxury car, the Maybach. Cost was no issue, the best was only good enough, and significant losses were accepted—naturally not because the upper management wanted something really fancy to drive, but because it will sell like hotcakes and will be good for the company image… or something. Well, it sold much fewer than the expected 2000 vehicles per year. I cannot estimate its impact on the image of Daimler. But I have read that Daimler lost around EUR 439 000…FOR EACH CAR SOLD!!! (read my Lean Obituary for Maybach for more).
Anyway, this was apparently enough reason for Volkswagen to say something like “Hold my beer…,” and out came the Phaeton, a similarly ultra-fancy and ultra-loss-making car (albeit they reportedly lost only EUR 20 000 to 40 000 per car sold). Roughly ten years and many, MANY millions later (euros, not cars), both companies came to their senses. The Phaeton is no longer produced. Just like the Greek god Phaeton who borrowed his daddy’s chariot to race it across the sky, and fell after being struck by Zeus, so did the Phaeton car fail. The Maybach is now based on the S-Class with extra fanciness, rather than its own car designed from scratch.
But in the rush between Daimler and Volkswagen to outdo each other, Volkswagen added the cherry on top: a purposely built showcase factory exclusively for the Phaeton. Yes, you guessed it, that is the Gläserne Manufaktur of Volkswagen in Dresden, placed on prime real estate with the focus on impressing the visitor rather than building cars. But, admittedly, it does the job it was built for very well.
After the Phaeton production ended, the Gläserne Manufaktur switched in 2016 to producing the all-electric e-Golf and in 2021 to the all electric ID.3, which replaced the e-Golf. Since the output of the factory is small, the ID.3 is also made in Zwickau, Germany, and Anting, China, in larger numbers.
The Factory
Visiting the factory is indeed quite nice. Since the factory is small, you can see the entire process of assembling a car, from the (painted) car body to the car driving away on its own. The tour goes right up to the assembly lines, and—of all the many public tours I have made—is the only one where you walk right across the actual conveyor belt. As a general visitor, you can’t really get any closer.
The factory assembly line is on two floors with four loops. The buffer inventory with up to 220 painted car bodies places a body on the first upper floor assembly loop on a moving platform with 29 slots. Interestingly, the moving platform goes around a curve to turn at the end (similar to a luggage belt at the airport) rather than being moved sideways and back without rotating as it is common in most other car plants (same as the identical loop one floor down).
After doing one turn, the car is picked up by a hanging C-frame for the next loop. This loop adds the engine and drivetrain (the “wedding”), wheels, and other stuff that goes underneath of the car. This hanging system can rotate the car in two directions, i.e. roll up to 60° and yaw up to 90°. While there are many hangers in automotive assembly that can roll, a yaw rotation is unusual.
It is then moved down to the ground floor onto another loop with a moving platform and 29 slots for completing the interior and adding doors. After completion, the car is driven off the line to the quality control on the same floor. A third floor that is not part of the tour (the basement) is for sub-assemblies, kitting, and some inventory.
Since the focus is on showing how a car is made, everything is sparkly clean. There are no loud noises or chemical smells. There is little material, since almost all is done through kitting. An AGV brings a shelf with the kit, and places it right on the assembly line between two cars.
On a side note, since the neighbors were worried about the extra traffic from the trucks supplying material, Volkswagen supplied material through a cargo tram with the witty name CarGo Tram using the rails of the public tram network. The tram was in regular use between 2001 until the end of the Phaeton production in 2016. Afterwards, sporadic transports happened until the service ended in 2020.
The Cost…
Most automotive plants exist to make money. The Gläserne Manufaktur exists to impress visitors. Hence, efficiency is very bad. In assembly plants, I usually like to measure the percentage of value adding time of the operators (see How to Estimate Value Add for Manual Work for more). Here, this was a measly 27%, which is the worst I have ever seen in any of the almost 100 plants that I measured this metric.
This was also obvious on the shop floor. There were around 100 employees working in assembly (of around 340 in the entire plant), with lots of waiting, walking, and other idle times. We saw multiple operators sitting in the car or elsewhere twiddling with their mobile phones. Other operators were working two or three stations ahead and then seemed to take a longer break. This was possible due to many stations being without operators. The plant was built for the Phaeton, and the less-fancy ID.3 just has less work to do. For example, in the hanging C-frame loop I counted 7 active stations out of 23.
The plant is also low automation, with only a few robots. The disassembly of the doors was done by hand by one worker, unbolting the doors and carrying them to a cart by hand, four times per car. In general, there was a lot of walking. Material on the moving conveyors were placed in kits between the cars, requiring a lot of walking to the front to get stuff and then to the side to put it in the car. “Normal” car assemblies have the material on the sides for shorter distances… but then you would not be able to see the assembly as nicely.
The takt time is usually an already slow 12 minutes per car, but during our visit it was an even slower 16 minutes. This gives usually at most 38 cars per shift, but only 26 during our visit. This is not much compared to other plants where a line can easily make hundreds of cars per shift. The monitor showed a “test production” (Testbetrieb) message, and it felt like there were frequent line stops. The plant could easily produce more cars, but with this level of efficiency, every car produced is more expensive than the same car from Zwickau or China. Hence, producing fewer makes in an odd way sense to save money.
But again, this plant was not designed for efficiency, but to impress visitors. And it is doing an excellent job at showing how cars are made. However, this is a rather costly museum manufactory, and there are rumors that cash-strapped Volkswagen will pull the plug and close the plant. Visit it while you still can! Now, go out, make sure that if you want to make money with your plant it is leaner than this beautiful showcase factory, and organize your industry!
If You Want to Follow in My Footsteps
I can wholeheartedly recommend a visit, even for your whole family. Just don’t expect a lean plant. They offer a multitude of different tours, from normal tours to tours for kids or students, green tours, simple language tours, and even the option to join the assembly for 2.5 hours and assemble cars! That is definitely a Wow! factor that I have not seen before. Check out their website if you are interested. Just don’t think about how much money this plant costs. But then, I am not the one paying for it.
PS: Many thanks to Volkswagen for offering tours through their plants to the public!