Today we visited the Audi production plant in Ingolstadt. At first when we arrived, I noticed the sheer size and scale of the plant. Audi buildings for what seemed like miles on end until we finally arrived at the museum and headquarter buildings. The buildings were beautiful littered with cars I could only dream to own. The museum was amazing as it showcased Audi cars from across the years. The different styles we saw gave us a great look into their evolution into a luxury car manufacturer. My favorite part was the machine that lifted the cars between the 4 floors. I chose to include that as my picture for the day.

When we went to the production facility and checked out the factory, a few things stuck out to me. I didn’t know that Audi operated strictly on an order basis. They don’t push their product; they use a pull strategy. This is a common theme that I am seeing within the automobile industry. The automation levels where astonishing as multiple large rooms had no humans at all. Others did have a conveyer belt feel with humans working on their own parts. The lecture afterwards was easily my favorite. Learning about the plans for dealing with new tariff laws was intriguing. The group as a whole asked a ton of really interesting and intriguing questions. Patrick Will, the speakers, gave amazing answers. It was a special experience that I will look back on. The car industry right now is at such an interesting crossroads with the all the electrical vehicle talks and hearing from Will helped to consolidate a lot of that information.