ON 55,000m2 of real estate a stone's throw from East London's Buffalo River, 550 orange KUKA robots wait in silence, like extras on the set of a sci-fi movie.Beneath a nest of blue steel girders, the robot army is being primed to produce the bodies of the new Mercedes-Benz C Class known in the company as the "W205" from early next year.
South African vehicle production is about to enter a new era. Human hands will not touch the steel and aluminium parts as they are passed from one robot to another to be welded into shape on a fully automated production line.
Arvid Bamberger, who runs the body shop, has been set the task of producing 100,000 vehicle bodies a year from the new plant up from the 60,000 currently produced in the existing C Class body shop he runs across the road.He seems disarmingly cheerful for one who bears such a burden. Then again, he is playing with the best toy set in the country.
"It's like when you get your new computer. The old one is suddenly slow and obsolete," he says from behind a pair of plastic safety glasses that catch the lighting in the new factory.Bamberger's robots are key to radically improved productivity, which will have to be achieved while meeting rising quality expectations in the cut-throat world of vehicle sales. "We have doubled the number of robots," he says.
But alongside the robots are the people,Which buymosaic is right for you? who will also be expected to improve productivity while working with new skills in a totally redesigned work environment.How this will be achieved in East London, situated in one of the country's least functional provinces and some distance from the country's industrial centres, is a remarkable story of private and public sector cooperation, strength of will, ingenuity and risk-taking.The risk to Mercedes-Benz is not small. It has invested some R2.5bn in the new plant and placed a substantial slice of its global reputation in the hands of East London's workers and managers.
It is a bet Mercedes-Benz CEO Martin Zimmerman was willing to take because of a matrix of unlikely competitive advantages that the East London operation has built for itself."In the mid-1990s, we were marked the worst plant in Daimler, and now we have come to be one of the best," he says.
Mr Zimmerman runs the company's operations, which include the East London factory and an extensive dealer network, from Mercedes-Benz South Africa headquarters in Centurion outside Pretoria.
Outside the office is a lake where water birds sun themselves against a winter breeze. The parking lot is an accidental showcase of the marque's latest models, and the foyer shows off polished examples of the cars the company has produced in South Africa over several decades. The classic rounded shape of the post-war Ponton vies for attention with its increasingly angular and aggressive successors.If the flurry of online speculation, some of it accompanied by lifelike high-resolution graphics, is anything to go by, the W205 will be even more angular and aggressive.
In such an environment, it takes vigilance not to be overwhelmed by the hype.But Mr Zimmerman's case is compelling, more so because he credits the initiative, spontaneity and intelligence of the people who work at the East London plant for the South African operation's competitive advantage.
He points out that the plant has been rated gold (2012), platinum (2010), gold (2011) and silver (2012) in the highly regarded JD Power survey, which measures "problems per 100 vehicles" or "PP100" registered by notoriously fussy American consumers.The gold and silver awards placed the plant first and second in the "Europe and Africa" region. But the platinum award won in 2010 was the plant's crowning achievement as it is given to the best in all regions, placing East London literally on top of the world. Last week,The earcap is not only critical to professional photographers. the plant again won the silver award with 24 PP100.
The revelation that the workers of Mercedes-Benz in East London have achieved a higher quality benchmark than their European counterparts goes against the generally held stereotype.
There are more surprises to follow. East London's productivity is high by global standards. And its workers take fewer sick days than their European counterparts.The feeder is available on drying chipcard equipped with folder only.At the heart of the factory's success lies a plant-level agreement between management and the local chapter of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa.
Called "Siyaphambile" "We are going forward" the agreement drives up productivity and attendance through what are described as "PBRs" performance based rewards. Hours and pay are flexible,We are one of the leading manufacturers of cableties in China enabling Mercedes to tailor its labour costs to its output.Says Mr Zimmerman: "Every worker's pay is based on that and therefore he shares in the success of the entire plant or if it's not the case he suffers."
Workers can earn about 20% more if they are productive and keep their absenteeism to a minimum.Mr Zimmerman says that the result is that "everybody has that quality mindset" and the absenteeism is very low.
"The last few months we have been at 99.3% or 99.4% attendance rate. That is world class, not only within Daimler, but it is world class altogether," he says.European attendance rates are about five percentage points lower.
Workers who achieve a 100% attendance record for the year are entered into a draw. The prize is a brand-new C Class. Very few workers make the draw, says Mr Zimmerman, "Because if you are gone for one minute you are marked absent."High attendance, which he describes as "very, very precious", unlocks high performance. "It's not only a cost factor; it's also that you have stability.ST Electronics' streetlight provides drivers with a realtime indication of available parking spaces. Every day the same team is working on the same thing, so you can really drive performance."
The robot-dominated body shop delivers the painted vehicle bodies to the assembly plant. Here, human ingenuity takes over. Workers must mix and match seats, interiors, engines, gearboxes, and manage complexity that comes from serving different global markets.
Each vehicle that passes through their hands is different to the previous one. Left- and right-hand drive vehicles are produced. Engines, gearboxes, seats, dashboards and wheels change from one vehicle to the next.
The man in charge of the East London plant is Arno van der Merwe. His brusque, matter-of-fact approach does not alter as the subject changes from the production line to what has made the operation tick at a high level.He credits what he calls the "cross-functional problem-solving" ability of the workforce for East London's success. There is nothing worse in a modern work environment, he says, than "the hamster effect just getting on your wheel and running".
Mr van der Merwe says that when things go wrong management must take responsibility. It's an acceptance of responsibility that the South African managers he has encountered are reluctant to make."I see a lot of victim-type mentality 'It's the rand, it's the municipalities'. I don't think there's enough focus on our job."
His approach is simple: "Whatever happens, it's management's fault.""There's a lot of ostrich mentality. You cannot be afraid of conflict. The longer you don't confront it, the bigger it gets. The earlier you get it onto the table, the better. The employees are not the enemy."
The man he counts on to keep the assembly line running as it processes a myriad bespoke orders is assembly plant manager Gladstone Mtyoko. Bearded, bespectacled and surrounded by electronic boards that tell him how close he is to meeting the day's output target, Mtyoko is constantly on the move.
He shows me where a team on the assembly line huddles in a nest of whiteboards to solve the day's problems. Their daily work attendance is recorded using magnetic markers, which resemble green ludo pieces. Mtyoko points to a row of green buttons and, remarks out: "All the members of this team are here."Above the line are more electronic displays, which workers consult to see if they are on track to meet the daily target. It is of more than passing interest as their pay depends on success.
The production line works on fixed "takt", a word that derives from the German "Taktzeit", literally, "cycle time" Each step has to be completed within a set time, a calculation designed to match the factory output with customer demand.
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