Wolfsburg's futuristic and iconic Autostadt (“car city”) is nothing less than a stage for celebrating the motor vehicle. Fans and customers experience an automotive world in a league of its own, right next door to one of Germany´s largest car factories, and Volkswagen’s main plant. The Wolfsburg plant is a complex system of more than 60,000 workers and employees assembling and finishing individual cars in a myriad of intricate steps, in the midst of which, Asset Agent plays a little known but significant role.

Volkswagen & Asset Agent Success Story
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Wolfsburg's synergistic trinity: the car, the customer, and VW

The car is the center point in Wolfsburg, in every sense. The motor vehicle is the star, and the visitor to the Autostadt is its biggest fan. Automobiles, their lovers, and designers, meet here: to celebrate the car. Then, finally, at the other end of the Autostadt, the finished vehicle is released from the car tower and presented to its new owner at the VW Customer Centre.

Customer satisfaction is top priority at the Autostadt and Volkswagen, and here is the proof: A perfectly customized, entertaining day with the crowning highlight being - handing over the car keys. "Au point", as they say in haute cuisine. The car rolls up, the handover protocol is meticulously followed, and finally the hall doors open majestically for the car and its new owner to exit on their first drive home.

Obscured from the view of the new cars' owner is the precision clockwork that behind the scenes controls the whole process at the car towers, making all this possible. The VW premises in Wolfsburg are vast, extending as far as the eye can see. Literally. Between the dozens of halls erected in dark brick and high glass facades, four-lane roads run in all directions, frequented by semi-trailers, company buses, material transporters and taxis. They all serve one purpose: to manufacture and deliver the motor vehicle.

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The Autostadt Experience

The early-winter grey of Wolfsburg transforms the Autostadt into a shiny, glittering wonderland of icy blue-white skating spaces, colorful lights, booths selling hot wine, and laughing kids sledging on a nearby hill.

Automated 3-axis robot vehicles obliviously carry out their assignments, while visitors stroll between reed-edged ponds, and pine trees, passing from pavilion to pavilion. This tableau reads like a story from some holiday resort brochure but is in fact just a regular Tuesday afternoon in Lower Saxony: dark skies, chilly winds, and all.

A test-drive course surrounds this spacious campus, which routinely changes its character from one exhibition to the next: Porsche to Seat, Audi to Skoda and then VW. Time flies fast here, and suddenly, two massive cylinders tower in front of you, encircled by red light in the burgeoning dusk: the car towers. Cars periodically exit, ready to be picked up by their future owners. Until then they are parked idle in these steel and glass containers, visible from far away in the town of Wolfsburg.

What makes this clockwork precise?

Behind the monitor sits Mr Imrock, responsible for process and vehicle control in the 'Vehicle Preparation' area. Vehicle Preparation aims to hand over to the customer "the right vehicle, in the right place, at the right time, and with the right equipment". "It's straightforward," as Michael Imrock puts it, even though the screen in front of him shows a bewildering amount of data for a layman.

The in-house software for vehicle preparation records in detail each vehicle´s, process steps and current location on the factory premises. Real-time data which enables efficient handling.

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