Quattro Studio

A visit to Neckarsulm would not be complete without stopping by at the Quattro Studio. Those who have hired boutique interior design firms in SOMA San Francisco or SOHO New York to decorate their homes with fine fabrics from Persia, antique furniture from Italy, stained glass windows from Venice, Buddhist statues from India, and wooden carvings from Bali will fill at home at the Quattro Studio. Famous movie stars, musicians, sport super stars, and successful entrepreneurs have come to this place to customize their Audi beyond any one's wildest dream.

Thousands of paint sample strips fill up a wall of this studio providing the largest array of color shades to pick. One customer had asked for a mat camouflage color for his A8. And Quattro Studio satisfied his request. Hundreds of leather and fabric combination options - color, texture, and even fragrance - are available to the customers who want to create their own interior ambient color design. Many kinds of seats from super comfort to Recaro racing bucket seat are available. Even the choice for the steering wheel is abundant; a steering wheel with paddle shifter, a steering wheel with multimedia control, a steering wheel made of processed wood, a steering wheel with baseball stitches, and...you get the idea. In short, we were stumped by the customization options offered by Quattro Studio. Oh yes, you will get your personal senior designer to work with you in designing your dream car.

Neckarsulm

Neckarsulm site covers 2 miles from the south to the north occupying 168 acres. Historically, this was the original NSU factory. NSU was one of the brand the four brands that made up the Auto Union. Aluminum construction is not new to Audi. Horsch created the first aluminum engine in 1899 in Koln! This site builds A6s, A8s, and the highly anticipated R8s. 850 A6s are built in 24 hours in 3 shifts and 180 A8s are built in 24 hours in 2 shift. About 25 R8s will be built in 24 hours here in building B14. This factory consumes 500 tons of steel and 60 tons of aluminum daily.

Quattro Gmbh is located here as well. All the (R)S and the S-line cars are customized and finished here. For the S6s and the S8s, the cars don't have to travel far since they are constructed at this same site. But for the S3s and (R)S4, the cars are transported from Ingolstadt. The 4, 6, and 8-cylinder engines are built in Gjor, Hungry, and are shipped to Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt for the mating rituals. Only the W12 engine is built at the Volkswagen factory in Salzgitter. The racing engines for the DTM and Le Mans are built in Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt.

We were impressed by the cleanness and the neatness of the humongous factory floors. This place is cleaner and neater than the Silicon Valley start up offices! The engineers and the technicians wear jumpsuits or white lab coats depending on the tasks they perform. Due to 95% of automation at this site, this factory requires only 6 persons for every 618 robots! These robots work in pods. There are three robots in each pod completing a certain section - door assembly, side panel, trunk assembly, hood assembly, front, middle, and rear frames, and more - of a car. This ingenious way prevents the problem that haunts the robots in serial assembly line. When one of the robots malfunctions in the assembly line, the whole production line has to stop. In the pod model, the disruption can be minimized since there are multiple pods working on the same task.

Additionally, a robot can have different tool heads to perform a complex task. Peter Schilling, our senior factory tour guide who had worked in the factory floor for many years, showed us the pod with such robot. First, the robot used a gripper to move a door frame into a holding table. Second, it switched the gripper with a riveting tool that fastens the door shell onto the frame. Third, it replaced the riveting tool with the roll-bending tool to fold the sharp perimeter door shell edge onto the frame. Finally, it used the gripper once more to replace the completed door with the unfinished one; the cycle continued.

What's unique about the Neckarsulm factory compared to any car factories in the world is the advanced steel-aluminum and aluminum bonding technologies. Full Drilling Screw (FDS), Riveting with epoxy glue, Metal Inert Gas (M16), and laser welding are a few examples of aluminum bonding technologies that are mastered and perfected at this advanced manufacturing site since the first all aluminum A8 car rolled out of this factory in 1988.

Unlike the traditional car where a body shell is mated to a chassis, an ASF car is constructed with three major sections: the front frame that houses the engine, the middle frame that houses the driver and the occupants, and the rear frame that houses the fuel cell and the trunk space. These sections are put together with die cast joints. Then the aluminum panels are installed on the frame using the various state-of-the-art bonding techniques.

The A8 complete ASF skeleton weigh only 215 kg. With the aluminum sheets, doors, hood, and trunk lid, it becomes a whopping 280 kg! The similar A6 structure that is not fully aluminum weigh 440 kg. If Audi were to build an A8 with steel, it would weigh 200 kg more. So by using aluminum, the car is 40% lighter, and, furthermore, the ASF construction makes the car stiffer. The side panel that will be riveted and glued to the ASF weigh only 6.2 kg! My brother and took turns carrying this large panel around the room. The other benefit of the combination of aluminum and ASF is that it absorbs impact much better and more gracefully than the traditional car structure. It is so much better that the German insurance companies establish a special safety rating for the A8!

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) intelligence boxes are placed at different major parts of the car to indicate which customer has ordered which options. An intelligence box can contain information about the exterior color, the interior leather color combination, wood or carbon fiber insert, steering wheel option, wheel and tire options, and many other customization information. The intelligence box enables the required parts to be brought to different workstations in the assembly line in just-in-time fashion reducing the the time the various parts need to sit on the inventory floors to within minutes!

Quality is paramount in all Audi car construction. There are eight checkpoints in the whole life cycle of a car birth. The life cycle starts from the aluminum sheet cutting and stamping and ends in weather proofing and test driving. Laser eyed robots are used at different checkpoints as the car is taking shape to ensure that the gaps and angles between jointed parts are within tolerance in micron. No human eyes can do this task!

Quattro Studio

A visit to Neckarsulm would not be complete without stopping by at the Quattro Studio. Those who have hired boutique interior design firms in SOMA San Francisco or SOHO New York to decorate their homes with fine fabrics from Persia, antique furniture from Italy, stained glass windows from Venice, Buddhist statues from India, and wooden carvings from Bali will fill at home at the Quattro Studio. Famous movie stars, musicians, sport super stars, and successful entrepreneurs have come to this place to customize their Audi beyond any one's wildest dream.

Thousands of paint sample strips fill up a wall of this studio providing the largest array of color shades to pick. One customer had asked for a mat camouflage color for his A8. And Quattro Studio satisfied his request. Hundreds of leather and fabric combination options - color, texture, and even fragrance - are available to the customers who want to create their own interior ambient color design. Many kinds of seats from super comfort to Recaro racing bucket seat are available. Even the choice for the steering wheel is abundant; a steering wheel with paddle shifter, a steering wheel with multimedia control, a steering wheel made of processed wood, a steering wheel with baseball stitches, and...you get the idea. In short, we were stumped by the customization options offered by Quattro Studio. Oh yes, you will get your personal senior designer to work with you in designing your dream car.

Neckarsulm

Neckarsulm site covers 2 miles from the south to the north occupying 168 acres. Historically, this was the original NSU factory. NSU was one of the brand the four brands that made up the Auto Union. Aluminum construction is not new to Audi. Horsch created the first aluminum engine in 1899 in Koln! This site builds A6s, A8s, and the highly anticipated R8s. 850 A6s are built in 24 hours in 3 shifts and 180 A8s are built in 24 hours in 2 shift. About 25 R8s will be built in 24 hours here in building B14. This factory consumes 500 tons of steel and 60 tons of aluminum daily.

Quattro Gmbh is located here as well. All the (R)S and the S-line cars are customized and finished here. For the S6s and the S8s, the cars don't have to travel far since they are constructed at this same site. But for the S3s and (R)S4, the cars are transported from Ingolstadt. The 4, 6, and 8-cylinder engines are built in Gjor, Hungry, and are shipped to Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt for the mating rituals. Only the W12 engine is built at the Volkswagen factory in Salzgitter. The racing engines for the DTM and Le Mans are built in Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt.

We were impressed by the cleanness and the neatness of the humongous factory floors. This place is cleaner and neater than the Silicon Valley start up offices! The engineers and the technicians wear jumpsuits or white lab coats depending on the tasks they perform. Due to 95% of automation at this site, this factory requires only 6 persons for every 618 robots! These robots work in pods. There are three robots in each pod completing a certain section - door assembly, side panel, trunk assembly, hood assembly, front, middle, and rear frames, and more - of a car. This ingenious way prevents the problem that haunts the robots in serial assembly line. When one of the robots malfunctions in the assembly line, the whole production line has to stop. In the pod model, the disruption can be minimized since there are multiple pods working on the same task.

Additionally, a robot can have different tool heads to perform a complex task. Peter Schilling, our senior factory tour guide who had worked in the factory floor for many years, showed us the pod with such robot. First, the robot used a gripper to move a door frame into a holding table. Second, it switched the gripper with a riveting tool that fastens the door shell onto the frame. Third, it replaced the riveting tool with the roll-bending tool to fold the sharp perimeter door shell edge onto the frame. Finally, it used the gripper once more to replace the completed door with the unfinished one; the cycle continued.

What's unique about the Neckarsulm factory compared to any car factories in the world is the advanced steel-aluminum and aluminum bonding technologies. Full Drilling Screw (FDS), Riveting with epoxy glue, Metal Inert Gas (M16), and laser welding are a few examples of aluminum bonding technologies that are mastered and perfected at this advanced manufacturing site since the first all aluminum A8 car rolled out of this factory in 1988.

Unlike the traditional car where a body shell is mated to a chassis, an ASF car is constructed with three major sections: the front frame that houses the engine, the middle frame that houses the driver and the occupants, and the rear frame that houses the fuel cell and the trunk space. These sections are put together with die cast joints. Then the aluminum panels are installed on the frame using the various state-of-the-art bonding techniques.

The A8 complete ASF skeleton weigh only 215 kg. With the aluminum sheets, doors, hood, and trunk lid, it becomes a whopping 280 kg! The similar A6 structure that is not fully aluminum weigh 440 kg. If Audi were to build an A8 with steel, it would weigh 200 kg more. So by using aluminum, the car is 40% lighter, and, furthermore, the ASF construction makes the car stiffer. The side panel that will be riveted and glued to the ASF weigh only 6.2 kg! My brother and took turns carrying this large panel around the room. The other benefit of the combination of aluminum and ASF is that it absorbs impact much better and more gracefully than the traditional car structure. It is so much better that the German insurance companies establish a special safety rating for the A8!

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) intelligence boxes are placed at different major parts of the car to indicate which customer has ordered which options. An intelligence box can contain information about the exterior color, the interior leather color combination, wood or carbon fiber insert, steering wheel option, wheel and tire options, and many other customization information. The intelligence box enables the required parts to be brought to different workstations in the assembly line in just-in-time fashion reducing the the time the various parts need to sit on the inventory floors to within minutes!

Quality is paramount in all Audi car construction. There are eight checkpoints in the whole life cycle of a car birth. The life cycle starts from the aluminum sheet cutting and stamping and ends in weather proofing and test driving. Laser eyed robots are used at different checkpoints as the car is taking shape to ensure that the gaps and angles between jointed parts are within tolerance in micron. No human eyes can do this task!