http://www.youtube.com/embed/nd5WGLWNllA?rel=0
I know its not about ford but it looks like the must beauiful place to make cars or truck...

 

I'm blown away at how clean that factory is!

And the overhead crane system? WOW!

 

Wow...now that's an incredible facility. Almost looks too good to be true and very futureistic.

 

Wow that German plant is awesome. How can they still have manufacturing jobs and such? How much of that is a source of employment for their people? Or is this just a small isolated employer? I mean so much is no longer manufactured in the USA, so why isn't Germany the same. Germany is not a third world country where workers are workng for little or nothing? So how do they do it? Maybe its just a tiny--relatively tiny--portion of their society? Blown away by their electric rail "trucking" system. We so need that here at some level, in some areas. Heavy trucks have always been a hardship on our highways and I've always thought it would be better if they-cars and trucks weren't mixed. I know we generally build highways we strengthened roadbed/truck lanes etc/but in the communities big trucks totally tear up the roads where I live/and the county/state has no money to repair/California haha Fantastic factory/wow

 

Priced out a VW lately? They aren't cheap. (They are unreliable IMO). This is an assembly plant, from what I've heard in their manufacturing plants they have a lot of foreign-born workers who don't make so much. But mostly they have a government that supports industry, and doesn't tax industry so heavily as ours. They also have a first rate education system, and an excellent apprenticeship program. Doesn't sound like here, does it?

It doesn't hurt that in their society, engineers and technicians are looked highly upon, unlike here where anyone who uses their hands is looked down on.

 

Right. That was point exactly. I'm not a technician at all/just a hobbyist and do as best possible, but I've never accepted the concept of a "service economy". Whatever the hell that is and that's what we're supposed to be. I think its crazy not to be making and selling stuff to people. And until we do we'll continue with this weird "borrow from them and then buy their products with that money"... plan. Is it just me? That's crazy!! Its like a Bad Movie/maybe like Catch22-a good movie--that pointed out similar crazy thinking!!

If the USA doesn't create a new product or industry--and it might--we've got scientists and businessman--and start selling to the world instead of borrowing from them, I can't see much of a future. And new industry/new inventions to happen. We better find something!!

 

Toured F150 plant in Dearborn a few years back and it was very clean, kinda like that without all the glass. Just wish you could see them actually making panels and engines and such. All you saw was assembly.

Paul

 

I'm making a list of US plants to tour while traveling. There's a Ford plant on the south side of Chicago that is state of the art, and a GMC truck plant in Kansas or Missouri, I forget.

PS -- VW, M-B, and BMW are all looking to build new plants in the US because their costs in Europe are too high, especially with the exchange rate. I have to wonder who is buying their overpriced POS's, must be someone who got a bailout??

 

VW is building a new production plant in Chatanooga, Tn. and will be in production in the near future.

As a retiree from a local manufacturing facility, I'll have to say that the video was either done for show or is a very low production plant. There were no workers in our plant that could move around at that leisure pace that we saw in that video. We arrived at work at the beginning of the shift and after a morning meeting the line buzzer goes off and you're running "wide open". When a vehicle comes in front of you on the conveyor line, you have x number of seconds to do your job. It was hard work and it really taxed your body over time.

 

That plant only produces 6,000 cars a year. And, as was stated earlier, it's only an assembly plant, not a fabrication plant.

On another note, they tried to sell the Phaeton here, but Americans wouldn't buy them.

 

The US needs to take some ideas from the European education system an do some of that stuff here. We let ourselves get to comfy an we got passed up in a lot of fields.

 

idk but i for one would buy a bran new car if they let me go in and bolt up some stuff. and yes everything above thats stated is true but its still a freaking cool place to go to. i will add this to my list of places must go to.

but all in all the us IS slacking and still has that "old school" mentality where everyone else is advancing in everything.

us theory: If it works why change it.
problem: it Isnt working....

 

Actually, that statement about the taxes is not really true. One benefit that does help the industry lower their cost is that Germany, like most of the top industrial nations they have universal healthcare. As for the taxes, the corporate tax rate in the US is 15% (although it is loaded with loopholes), while in Germany the effective corporate tax rate in 2010 was about 30-33%. Oh, and the rates for individuals (a progressive one like ours) ranged from 14-45%.
Germany Tax Laws Tax System Germany. - WorldWide-Tax.com

 

I think so too. I often think, and educators hate me for this(thinking), that much of or education money--especially at the highschool level and above-including college--is more to support the programs the academic community values. I remember spending years and forever getting through our university system--and high school too and wasting--in my opinion-tons of time studying ancient English writers and such. Why? I'm not a poet and never planned to be, but these kinds of classes are mandatory in most states, and they make up the bulk of undergraduate education. The liberal arts education is the bulk--it seems to me--of what one learns until post grad work when finally we're allowed to focus on our specific interest in going to school. I can't buy that.

I think its fine to make poets and writers study Beowulf and the like. Nothing wrong with that. But shouldn't it be an option? Its not in Calif. I'd like to see a movement to evaluate students individual skills and plans for the future and not have the current system that spends so much on making every high school and university undergraduate some sort of Liberal Art person. I think there should be some choices. It takes a student a tremendous amount of time and money to wade through these subjects because the academic community--believes--that what they have studied is so important. Well maybe its not to many of us, and we need to "move on".

 

I think you're describing most peoples experiences. At least mine at work. And I never worked auto assembly , but did some time with food production and packaging, and for sure one has to do whatever to keep up with that stupid machine haha. Running happens!!