May, 2020—Volkswagen is not only betting its future on electric cars (we talked about this in our previous blog posts) but it is also working on restructuring its manufacturing processes through creation of an Industrial Cloud, which is supposed to improve efficiency of its manufacturing plants, and reduce production costs.
Initially by 2019 Volkswagen linked 3 plants, but now it plans to expand the project to 15 plants. Volkswagen Industrial Cloud provides standardized ways to collect manufacturing plant data, and use the data to provide predictive maintenance information and reduction of vehicle rework though the use of Artificial Intelligence applications.
Data from several hundred thousand machines and manufacturing plant items will be recorded by sensors, and fed into the AI programs that will look for patterns that could be used to improve maintenance or production quality. Overall plan calls for improving productivity of the plants by at least 30%. Presumably this will result in cost savings of billions of dollars.
Volkswagen is also planning to make the system available to other companies, presumably making it yet another profit center for VW.
The benefit to Volkswagen owners should be improved quality, and, presumably, fewer price increases – be it for cars or parts – as the more efficient and more productive plants should reduce overall unit cost of production.
In the meantime, at Russ’s Wrench we continue to welcome Volkswagen owners, and continue to offer superior Clinton Volkswagen service and repairs. All repairs are backed by 3 year / 36,000 mile warranty. So next time your Volkswagen needs service or repairs – give us a call.