Today was an exciting day: my companies tour! Driving to Ingolstadt I was excited to see what the factory had to offer. First off, it was huge! When we first step foot into the tour, the drone footage of the sheer size of the building was crazy. The volume of cars that are produced in the factory alone prove the size of the factory (one every 30 seconds drives off the lot!).

The first step of the tour was the metal cutting area. First off, it is done in batches. Once they produce enough of one part, they switch which machines are under the hood to produce. It was very intricate. Interestingly enough, after each cut was made, the metal was collected and send back to the supplier. That means there is no waste generated in the process. Every one and awhile, we were send a video on the phones we were required to wear around our neck. It was cool to see a birds eye view of how intricate this production process was.

Next, we made our way to the production line where the actual cars were being made. Each car was specially timed to meet up with the right color doors and powertrain. There were many different cars on the line and seemingly enough when the car with the green paint came around the green doors came up from the conveyor belt below from the production line. Seeing intricate and timed all aspects of the production line were was really cool and eye-opening.

I think if I had the choice I would definitely work at a company like this. The innovation, large-scale production, and industry really intrigues me. I think seeing how every process and issue seems to have been thought about by their operations team is very cool. The tour guide mentioned that there is a rope (similar to PGH busses!) that could be pulled if anything went wrong and a production manager would come over to aid.

Overall, a super cool and interesting day. I am pumped to do my presentation on them!