Immaculate Conception

DRESDEN, Germany — Rich parquet floors, a 5-star restaurant, interactive displays and a climactic burst of light and music serve as the prelude — then cylindrical doors open to reveal a customer's new Volkswagen Phaeton luxury sedan, ready to be driven home.

Welcome to Die Glaserne Manufaktur, also known as the Transparent Factory, in historic Dresden, a city restored to its culturally rich past on the banks of the Elbe River.

This is where Volkswagen AG chose to assemble the all-new Phaeton — the first premium vehicle to wear the VW badge. The German auto maker invested E186 million ($212 million) in a showpiece final assembly and delivery center — a veritable work of art in a city known for its craftsmanship of Meissen porcelain.

It was deliberately named “manufaktur” because it's “not really a plant,” says Jens Neumann, the Volkswagen AG board member in charge of North America, where a long-wheelbase version of the Phaeton is set to go on sale later this year.

It certainly is not a plant by conventional definition. There is no stamping onsite, no body or paint shop, and output currently is 30 to 40 vehicles a day, compared with typical assembly plants that produce 1,000 cars a day or more.

“If you look at it as an exorbitant amount of money for a plant without a body or paint shop, yes, the numbers don't add up,” says Frank Maguire, Volkswagen of America Inc. vice president-sales and marketing. “But it is so much more.”

Die Glaserne Manufaktur's true volume is what it says about the values of Volkswagen, attention to detail and expansion beyond the “people's car.”

“It is the most modern plant of manufacturing cars in the world,” asserts Manfred Saake, CEO of Die Glaserne Manufaktur. “Our way to manufacture cars can't be compared to other plants.”

A tour confirms it.

This glass showpiece attracts about 300 visitors a day, including an average of seven taking delivery of their new sedans, and prospective buyers who are picked up from the airport if need be.

All are welcomed into a 538,000-sq.-ft. (50,000-sq.-m) customer center with a giant globe to symbolize Dresden's invention, in 1928, of the spherical house.

In the car center, guests can familiarize themselves with a Phaeton on display, take a virtual journey in a simulator and have their picture taken with a sedan digitally placed at a historic landmark.

Test drives can be arranged, the Atelier (French for attic) has fabric and material samples to help configure a car on a large screen, and it can be printed off to further contemplate while dining at Lesage, the onsite 5-star restaurant. The printout can be taken to a dealer to place the order — and the customer can return to take delivery when the car is finished.

The plant offers guided tours every hour of the pristine 3-level work area with giant oval assembly lines that inch along as workers in white lab coats build a Phaeton over the course of 36 hours.

No sounds or smells belie the fact industrial work is going on here. Cables and pipework are hidden below the Canadian pine floors; only quiet tools are employed.

It harkens back to early discussions VW had with Dresden officials in February 1998 that were met with concern about a noisy neighbor in the baroque city center.

In September 1998, VW bought 860,000 sq.-ft. (80,000 sq.-m) of land near the city's largest park to put, under one roof, marketing, sales and assembly of a luxury sedan to take the VW brand into premium territory.

Designed to usher in a new era for VW, the auto maker tapped architect Gunter Henn, the man who designed Autostadt, VW's headquarters and mobility theme park in Wolfsburg.

An additional E6 million ($6.8 million) was spent on landscaping, including a lake, and a logistics center adjacent to the factory.

Production of pilots started in November 2001, with the official opening Dec. 11, 2001, at which time German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder took delivery of the first Phaeton.

Today there are 400 employees, 250 of them on the line, producing about 40 Phaetons a day. They operate on two shifts, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with capacity of 50 vehicles per shift. Should demand warrant, a third shift could be added, bumping daily capacity to 150 — the maximum the three robots can handle.

Production is divided into four cycles, the first two on the upper levels and a third downstairs. The final cycle is testing, some of it underground.

Painted bodies arrive by truck from Mosel, Germany, about 93 miles (150 km) away, to an area that can store 150 at any one time.

The rest of the parts, including engines from Salzgitter, are sent to a giant logistics center the size of two football fields. There pre-assembly (including chassis) is completed in sequence and loaded onto a cargo tram for the 3-mile (5-km) trek along old streetcar tracks, through the city without adding to local traffic.

The tram, stretching as long as 200 ft. (60 m), carries 1,200 different parts and 34 pre-assembled sections per vehicle. Everything a single car needs is contained in a series of six baskets that are unloaded at the logistics yard, adjacent to the plant.

The baskets then start a journey, gliding along in self-guided vehicles to their pre-determined stations on the line.

Assembly takes place along a slow-moving line that stops intermittently. Workers follow one car for about 30 minutes, then walk back the short distance to the next car.

Vehicles slowly twist their way through the air suspended from a twin-track overhead conveyor system by 31 giant arched carriers known as “the Dresden garland” that transports them from storage to assembly and one level to another. They can be raised and lowered, rotated and pivoted for the optimal working angle along their 1,575-ft. (480-m) journey from station to station, while every build procedure is documented.

The three robots were specifically designed for Dresden in that they are quiet (pneumatic lines are incorporated in the floor) and painted a light metallic color to match the surroundings. The first two robots install all wheels, including the spare, the third installs glass.

The centerpiece of the plant is the “crystal cathedral” where body and engine are wed. A section of wooden floor flips 180 degrees to reveal the tooling hidden below: four giant screwdrivers programmed to tighten 40 screws.

Once this minister's work is done, the floor flips and the tooling disappears. Four poles then rise up to guide the married car back to the overhead arch while the father of the bride, the now-empty driverless floor pallet, glides away from the station so a new ceremony can be conducted as another chassis awaits its turn at the altar.

The newlywed continues on to the filling station to receive all the necessary fluids, including fuel — but not a trace of liquid or whiff of a fume can be detected in this antiseptic environment.

The second cycle ends with a quality check, and the sedan proceeds by conveyor to an elevator and back onto the overhead garland, but down one level.

Phase three includes installation of doors, seats, headliner and all final assembly. When the car leaves here, it is ready for final testing. Here the light pine floor, with vents for the water-cooled air conditioning system, gives way to smoked oak so the wheels don't leave scuff marks or show dirt when the cars return from their test drives.

Road tests begin under a roof of geraniums, in an underground area complete with uneven brick surfaces for the necessary stress tests. The botanical garden roof is maintained as part of the neighboring city park.

Testing includes spraying 92 gal. (350 L) of re-circulated water a minute against the finished vehicle to check for leaks. In a tunnel of glaring artificial lights, gloved hands search for defects during a final inspection.

The finished cars are stored in the adjacent 6-story glass tower that holds 280 Phaetons. It mimics the twin glass towers of finished vehicles at Autostadt.

Most (60%-70%) of the customers come to the Dresden plant to pick up their new car, with an hour-long private session during which the car's features are explained. These customers are escorted into a round room with a second cylinder inside that begins to spin as the music plays and lights flash to advent the emotional moment when the doors open and the car rises up to greet its new owner.

Vehicles not picked up at the factory go back to Mosel for distribution to dealers. This number will increase as shipments to North America begin later this year. VWA is looking at bringing a couple hundred early customers to Dresden for the Transparent Factory experience and an opportunity to see firsthand the craftsmanship and innovation that went into their vehicle.