Where is the assembly line?

In 1974, that question was often asked by visitors to our assembly plant in Kalmar, Sweden. The short answer was there was no assembly line….as such.

An interesting point about the Swedes is their adoption of technology. No, not the way most of us adopt something, because it’s new/cool/fun to own but because their idea is finding ways to improve the way they live. Just look at their furniture – it is comfortable, economic in design and just looks good. Now, for those of you who own a Volvo, look at our seats. Clean in design and probably the best you will ever find. I think the Scandinavians were one of the first to use simple designs to improve the way we sit.

Volvo is the same when adopting technology into manufacturing. They do not see robotic assembly taking away hard, dirty work from an assembly worker, but rather that it helps to provide a better quality of work life, ensures a higher level of overall build quality, and just makes good business sense. Years ago, when we started using robotic welding and materials handling, one of the guys taking us around the plant said “… it seems Americans fight having automatic assembly, here we are always looking for ways to help employees and build better cars.” He was our host and I wasn’t going to burst his bubble with his choice of words, I just thought “fight” was a little short of reality, we just have a different point-of-view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kalmar is a beautiful coastal town south of Stockholm which is, in itself, incredibly beautiful, especially in summer. One summer I visited Kalmar but never had an opportunity to go inside our plant – everyone was on Holiday.  In Kalmar, we built an assembly facility that would create a unique work flow technology and test new thinking about a worker’s environment. Up to that point, workers did the same job (like putting seats in cars), every day. It must have been painfully boring – I get bored doing one expense report a month. So how does one build cars in a better work environment? Here is what P.G. Gyllenhammar, our CEO and Chairman of AB Volvo said: “When the planning of the Volvo Kalmar Plant started in the beginning of the 1970s, I gave a general directive for the planning work: It must be possible to create a place of work which, better than today, meets modern man’s need for meaning and satisfaction in his daily work. It must be possible to achieve this without neglecting efficiency.”

So the thinking was to build cars in teams. It was a very interesting idea, so we built an assembly line that allowed work teams to be responsible for the major elements of one car: Engine/Power Train or Interior or HVAC systems. Then to move cars from one assembly point to another we used robotic trolleys that were guided by ground embedded electrical wires.

The factory building was a star shape, with each team having their own entrance, coffee-break room and changing room. In a sense, each team area was like a craftsman studio. There were about 20 teams, each with about 15 workers. At each major assembly point, the team would break down into smaller units and work on an agreed upon assignment. The assignment could be rotated among team members and the team could work at their own pace. In a survey of teams we found that 9 out of 10 workers agreed that the team functions well, 8 out of 10 workers said that inter-changing jobs functions well, and 7 out of 10 workers take the opportunity of varying the pace of work by working up a buffer, and are positive to their work environment.

We first built 240′s then 700 series in what appears to be the peak year – 1984 – when annual production was 31,900 cars.  As I’m told, and there appears to be little historical data to pull from, the concept was good, but in practice there was little chance of making it profitable. So in 1994, Kalmar was closed.

In reading briefs about why we closed Kalmar there seems to be no  simple answer. Factors like the complexity of car models in terms of variations and amount of components needed, economics of a limited sized facility, staffing and economics of a limited production range operation were just a few. However, ideas from Kalmar would help form the Uddevalla assembly plant, just North of Gotenburg, where we built C70 Coupe and Convertible.

The following is from ‘Enriching Production. Volvo’s Uddevalla plant as an alternative to lean production’ by Ǻke Sandberg revised edition 2007:

Both researchers and practitioners in industrial organization ask themselves today whether lean production is the only possible model for the future. Enriching Production proposes a radically different alternative, which was put into practice at Volvo’s Uddevalla plant during its brief life span. Skilled workers in autonomous teams could altogether abandon the assembly line. With a work content of several hours they built cars according to customer order, with a short delivery time, thus avoiding stocks. In spite of its good performance the plant was closed after only a few years without having developed its full potential.

Enriching Production explains the design of the Uddevalla plant and tries to understand its closure against a background of organizational politics and Volvo’s production structure. In comparative chapters the NUMMI and Saturn plants in the US and European car manufacturers are contrasted to the Uddevalla model and also to Volvo’s Kalmar plant with still another form of group work. Chapters on social problems with lean production and recent developments in Japanese car manufacturing also contribute to an understanding of where the car building industry and the organization of industrial production is heading. Although the Uddevalla plant in its original form was closed, the vision of competitive systems of production that do not destroy but enhance human competencies and in a wider sense a human working life lives on. Enriching Production contributes by reminding us that under certain circumstances good and competitive ways of arranging production are possible.

In thinking about what makes Volvo unique, it’s the idea that at the core of what we do is how Volvo impacts people’s lives. Finding ways to enrich those who touch Volvo, whether it be the assembly line fellow and trying to make his work life better or whether it be those who buy Volvos and enriching their lives through safety and Scandinavian heritage.

dan

Tags: assembly line, Designed Around You, Enriching Production: Volvo's Uddevalla plant, Kalmar, Volvo heritage, Volvo History