GERMANY: The foundation stone for an €8m final assembly hall was laid at Bombardier Transportation’s Bautzen rolling stock plant on June 15, in the presence of federal Minister for Economic Affairs & Energy Brigitte Zypries, Sachsen’s Minister of Economics Martin Dulig and Mayor Alexander Ahrens.
Bombardier is investing €20m in Bautzen over the next two years to enable the plant to ‘set the pace for digital production at Bombardier Transportation and set standards for Industry 4.0 production in the railway industry’, the company said.
Logistics, production, quality management and testing processes will be digitally networked, with the facilities organised so that three vehicle types can be manufactured simultaneously. The building is also expected to cut energy, maintenance, and logistics costs by €1m/year compared to the older structure.
‘We are reorganising Bombardier Transportation in Germany’, said country head Michael Fohrer. ‘We will secure our ability to compete in the long term and continue to manufacture the most modern railway vehicles in Sachsen and beyond in the future. By investing in the Bautzen plant, we will become global pioneers in Industry 4.0.’
- An interview with Laurent Troger, President of Bombardier Transportation, appears in the July 2017 issue of Railway Gazette International magazine.
