Nicholas Erni: May 7th
Today started at 8:00 am sharp with a nice hour bus ride to our first company visit of the trip, Hirschvogel.
Hirschvogel is a Hot and Cold forging company, which specializes in the processing of steel. Although I was not a member of the group that is presenting on Hirschvogel, I thought I could learn a good bit about some parts of the car manufacturing supply chain in their introduction and tour. One of the main things I took out from the introduction presentation for Dr. Willi was Hirschvogel’s focus on optimization. This really surrounded the engineering of the steel into lighter and more efficient parts that would go into cars. Hirschvogel would often times get an offer from a car company, design the part, and propose it back to the company in an effort to establish a contract with them. A great example Dr. Willi gave surrounding this that caught my eye was Tesla. Dr. Willi stated with the revolutionizing electric technology being placed into modern vehicles, there is a great emphasis on keeping the cars lightweight and more efficient. Due to the fact these lightweight technologies have often yet been engineered, they are quite costly. With time and standardization, the prices should fall, but this is expected to happen sometime in the future.
After the introduction presentation, our tour guide Vanessa took us through the entire Hirschvogel manufacturing plant, displaying the hot and cold forging, the storage plants, and other important areas of productions that are critical in have the company run. Before you even walk in the plants you are ordered to put on a vest that tells the workers you are a tourist, as well as a tag that tells the workers where to bring you if you get lost due to the fact the plant is so large. Also before you step in you are given ear plugs as well as headphones in order to keep out some of the noise and to be able to hear the tour guide. The second you step into the factory, you are struck by the strong odor of burning metal. The first plant we went in was a hot forging sight. It was very important to stay within the yellow lines due to the fact there we fork lifts and hot metal everywhere. The machines we could see often times had the molten metal being shaped by giant machines that would crash down and mold them with a force of 4 million pounds. An interesting story around this came from the fact before the factories were more technologically advanced, a man put his hand under one of the machines and had it flattened. Since then there have been efforts to make the plant more safe. The cold plants didn’t have much too see, just a lot of metal parts laying around waiting to get shaped, or shipped off.
After this tour we stopped in the cafeteria for a traditional German lunch. I had Sausage and some type of potato pasta. It was a great lunch and I would have given it a 7/10.
After lunch, we went back to the classroom and discussed the company further. One thing my group found interesting was the large number of very nice cars in the parking lot. This surprised us due to the fact the majority of the workers were doing manual labor, but our guide Vanessa told our group that the laborers often spend their money on cars as well as the fact they make a decent living compared to laborers in the U.S..
After the end of the tour, the whole group took a trail the houses had the tan tile roofs, with lots of wood all over them. The town had lots of little shops and cafes littered around. Our stay was short and so was the bus ride to the gondola that would take us to the breath taking peak that allowed us to view all around the Alps. The view was unlike anything I had ever seen. The mountains were covered in snow, but the weather was incredible, the sky was crystal clear and it was about 50 degrees at the peak. I will have some pictures below to show the true beauty of the Earth. After our 30 minute time period at the top of the mountain, and the large number of pictures we took, (hoping we make it onto the Pitt Business instagram), we ventured back to the hotel.
We went straight to dinner at a Donner restaurant, the food there was very similar to a Greek gyro, I would give the Donner a 8/10. After this we went looking around for an Ice shop, which is essentially an ice cream shop. When walking we stumbled upon a McLaren 650, in which won my car of the day. Also the ice cream we found was fantastic, I got chocolate and would give it a solid 9/10. Other than that the night was pretty much over, as I am writing the blog right now in the hotels lobby watching Liverpool vs. Barcelona.
