Plant Manager Fred Schulze, Managing Director of quattro GmbH Franciscus van Meel and Dieter Braun, Head of Plant Logistics at the Neckarsulm site, will welcome approximately 200 guests to the topping-out ceremony for the new Audi production facility. With an area of 23 hectares, the new facility comprises roughly one quarter of the entire Audi site in Neckarsulm. It is also the largest construction project in the Heilbronn region at the moment. “The new production facility is a key element for the future viability and competitiveness of the Audi site,” said Schulze. “The construction project provides the space necessary for high-volume production in Neckarsulm.”
Body Manufacturing, Logistics and Assembly for the Audi R8 will move to the new Audi facility as of mid-2014. “All of our manufacturing expertise for the R8 will then be completely consolidated under one roof,” said van Meel. “This will enable us to optimize our production process and further expand our small-scale production expertise at the Neckarsulm site.” Some 250 employees who are already part of the Audi team will move to a new workplace at Böllinger Höfe.
In addition to the R8 production facilities, construction also includes a 325-meter-long, 115-meter-wide logistics center scheduled to begin operation in early 2014. It covers a surface roughly equivalent to five soccer fields. “This building is our response to the increasing product complexity at the site,” said Braun. “Beginning in 2014, we will handle roughly 5,000 containers for production at the Neckarsulm plant.” With the construction of the new hall, the brand with the four rings is implementing a variety of measures to conserve resources. For example, Audi will collect rain water for reuse and selected areas will be heated using solar energy.
Audi Neckarsulm is already one of the sites with the greatest product diversity in the Group and is the most complex plant in Europe. The investment in the Böllinger Höfe industrial park is an element of Audi’s Growth Strategy 2020.