Regensburg, Germany

October 11, 2016

We made it on time to Regensburg, Germany despite all the obstacles in the river.  Today is the Audi tour and at first I was concerned I would be the only woman but there ended up being 5 of us out of about 20.  It was about an hour and a half drive and I’ve discovered we are all kind of like babies, get us on the bus, start driving and we all fall asleep.

It was a nice drive though.  We did a little site seeing in the city, but we were moving pretty fast so hard to get many pictures.  The drive was nice though and didn’t seem that long.  Finally, we arrived at Audi.  I have to say, it ended up being one of the best tours of the trip.

We walked into the visitor’s center and met our guide, Christian, who was marvelous.  Also quite handsome with silver hair and as one of the lady’s pointed out, a custom made suit.  But he was very knowledgeable and his English was quite good even though he claimed it wasn’t.  The first thing they did was make us put all cameras and cell phones into a locker – no pictures of any kind.  Wonder if any have made it to the web – I’ll have to check.

We saw a short movie about Audi and how it came to be including the circles that make up its logo.  Apparently it is a conglomerate of four auto makers and even owns 15% of Volkswagen.  We saw pictures of all the different plants around the world including the new one in Mexico.  They had considered the US, but because of free trade, it made sense to build it in Mexico and ship to the US.  Christian said most Audi’s are assembled in the destination country to reduce the tax burden to customers.  One of our waiters had told me about the plant in Hungary, he was very proud it was in Hungary, so I told him we had seen a picture of it.

From there we moved to the production floor for one of their smaller models (I don’t know all the model names which I discovered many of my travel companions did) so when he told us what it was didn’t mean anything to me.  The building we were in was about a kilometer long and we would walk all the productions lines from the beginning to the end.

Our first stop was after the basic body had been stamped out.  To robotic arms lifted the roof of the car, cleaned all the edges, then after another robotic arm had applied glue, placed the roof on top of the car.  Christian pointed out a small blue box on the car.  This contained all the details of the car – roof type, color, seat type and color, headlights, rims, car color, etc.  Everything is driven by UPC type codes.  They utilize a just in time inventory so 25 minutes before the car needs to have seats installed, they are ordered from the manufacturer who is also on their campus.  The seats are delivered minutes before the car arrives at the spot where seats are installed.  There was a constant flow of trolleys and fork lifts delivering product to the line.  He said this saved time, conserved time and reduced mistakes.  It was amazing to watch the flow of materials to the lime.

We went back and forth between lines so what we saw was not necessarily in order of installation.  We next saw where they were putting the under cover of the car on.  Two pieces of plastic, four screws.  That was all the man on the line did.  Pickup, apply, twist, twist and repeat for the other side.  I think I would lose my mind.  From there we saw the engine and the suspension installed.  It was supposed to be smooth lifting of engine and suspension into the awaiting frame, but when we got there, the person on the line was having problems getting the suspension to fit and the line backed up.  Christian said this was not normal and I sure felt bad for the worker on the line, having a problem with 20+ people watching.

We then crossed over to where they put the engine together.  Each engine has a code.  The crew working on the engine swipe the code at the entrance of a parts sections and all the bins they need to pull from light up.  They pull the product and as they do the light turns off.  All lights off, all product pulled.  The product then goes back to where it is applied to the engine depending on whether it was a gas engine, dual engine (gas and electric) or all electric.

At each section, parts were coming in just as needed and coded to match the code on the car.  We saw the doors go on, the glass go in, men/women working on the front of the car while a robot was working on the back of the car.  I saw another job where I’d lose my mind.  They apply the latch for the car door, pull off the plastic protector, close the door and check for a smooth fit and that is it.  Can you imagine doing that all day?  I’d last maybe a day, then I’d be fired because my mind would wander and I’m sure I’d mess it up.

Finally, we got to the end and got to see the final product.  They put 8 liters of gas in each car so they can start it and drive it to where it will be loaded and shipped.  A beautiful red Audi came up on the line, the man climbed into the car as we all watched – and it wouldn’t start.  They had to bring over a hand cart to slide under the front wheels and move it over to the side to figure out what was wrong.  So much for showing off for the tour.  The next car did start though.

It was amazing, all amazing.  I could have stood and watched the robots for hours, they truly were like dancers moving smoothly and complimenting the moves of other robotic arms.  Underneath each arm it looked like one big huge motherboard.  Fabulous tour.

We returned to the visitor’s center and walked over to the cafeteria.  I am not sure why, but I guess because of the change in tours, we missed lunch on the boat and weren’t supposed to, so they gave us all 20 Euros to buy lunch.  Most of us didn’t spend all 20 Euros so we came out ahead.

From lunch we had about an hour in the museum.  It was great, it started with their first cars and motorcycles all the way to the newest models.  What was cool is they also had the history of what was going on in the world as each model was introduced.  I finished up a little early and walked over to the bus, which turned out to be a good move.  About 5 minutes after I got on the bus, it started to pour rain, then turned to hail.  The hail stopped but the rest of the group had to make it through the rain to get on.  Again, it paid to be early.

Below are pictures from the Audi Museum.

Below are stock photos from the web that give you a sense of what we saw inside the factory.

Museum

Drove back to the boat – and I think we all slept going back.  But it was a fun, fun day.  Our guide on the bus, who had done the BMW tour but not the Audi tour, thought the Audi tour was better and he thought we actually lucked out by having the tour cancelled.  I don’t know, but I thought Audi was awesome.

We got back just in time for our Signature Lecture, which was about WWI and Nuremberg.  The speaker had done some of his PhD work in the States and Canada so his English was quite good, as was his humor as he spoke.  Even though it was a serious subject, he added some light heartedness to it to keep us engaged.  He was one of those speakers that when he was done you felt like saying "is that all, can't you continue on?"  He spoke about how the Nazi's did not lose the first war, they had turned power over to another political group who surrendered and the Nazi's then said they were "betrayed" but they did not lose.  He spoke of how the Nazi's rose again, providing a high standard of living for Nazi patriots, the start of persecution of the Jews, and how, as the war continued on, Hitler hid from the masses the terrible destruction they were suffering - he painted a picture of success when failure was imminent.  It prepared us for the tour I had signed up for, which was the Nuremberg parade grounds and Document center.Great tour, great friends, great day.

Parade Area - slide from speaker's presentation

Map showing the areas Germany had occupied.  This lead into his discussion of Germany trying to invade Russia since France and Poland had been so "easy".

Picture of bombed Nuremberg.  Hitler kept these pictures from the public so the average German didn't know the extent of the damage to German cities - slide from speaker's presentation