Search
Two budding entrepreneurs within the gloveA project also denounced by Impala which jWill it succeed The short answer is Yes but with the forcepsIt is the highest monthly increase for eight yearsEach institution has thus equipped with laptop computersAcquisition Broadens Pressure Sensitive Adhesives OfferingSTHumira sales jumped almost 42 percent to 15 orreach their anticipated repayment date 5 The WUA collective bargaining agreement with MLB expires on DecHe has also been injury prone in his careerThe scene takes place in a vast building of Ingolstadt, a blockhouse usually closed to visitors. A squad of technicians in blouse grey, fitted with optical instruments, are busy on semi-finished bodies and are hunting in tenths of millimeters. Exact positioning of the trunk, hood, doors, bumpers: everything is measured accurately annotated even car green felt. Men of art within the gap between theoretical values and actual ratings. 4.6 mm between the front and rear doors, and not one tenth, 4.5 mm between hatch and bumper, trunk-3.8 mm... Precision for the dashboard, where the junction between different elements must be as thin as possible, be between one and five tenths of a millimeter different places. This is what engineers call the "outcrop", notion that the public treats more empirically in the famous "High German".Without even hearing the noise of the engine, the passing can feel in that case there.
Metrology, Audi made a real religion. "This is what characterizes us from the competition." "When you see one of our cars, you feel a fascination, a sense of rigour", says Antonio Gloria, the head of the geometry of the vehicle testing. "Dr. Ferdinand Piëch(l'omnipotentpatrond'Audientre1975et1993,NDLR), who decided to focus on the differences and the junctions between the parts", says Kai Fischer, his colleague supported assemblages between external parts.
Anti "low cost".
To get this far, the Premium of the Volkswagen Group brand press emboutissent body with a diabolical precision parts: on the passage of each sheet, the tolerances are sets in 20 or 30 microns, or half the thickness of a hair! "Games of horseshoeing, Audi is really the best and the most demanding of all highlights, admiring, automotive engineer Philippe Guédon, the father of the Renault space.". And the air of nothing, this implies many things upstream, education and tools...
If all the constructors or almost know now, to make cars with soft, well soundproofed benches and correctly lacquered body, on the other hand this "Swiss precision" in the Assembly of the elements, the refusal of the à-peu-près, remains the preserve of the best. In a top of automobile range where newcomers (Lexus, Infiniti) are ready to do anything to take the place of the more fragile (Jaguar), the quality remains the key to defend its positions. And, in the case of Audi, to move forward with giant steps.
Who would have thought, in the 1980s, that the mark four rings, with its bleak sedans Audi 80 or 100, barely more chic than the Volkswagen at the time, would come one day to match BMW and pose serious problems of positioning to Mercedes Victories in rally (the famous Quattro), and more recently at the 24 hours of le Mans, are not sufficient. Each client application to engineers refine "his" own car. And as loved to emphasize Louis Schweitzer, former CEO of Renault, "quality, it is a race without a finish line."
At Ingolstadt, Bavaria, this message is passed to all levels. The rules for the manufacture of the "low cost", on which both marks cogitent, stay at the door of the plants. "Clients pay dearly for their car, they are entitled to expect a good level of quality on all his life, which for twenty years or 300,000 kilometres", says Burkhard Knodel, support acoustic tests.
Here, the quality assurance Department Cap 2,000 employees, a total of 57,000 people in the world, who are not connected to a different direction, development, production, as with other manufacturers, but to the President of the Executive Board, Rupert Stadler directly. No question of leaving first customers wipe casts and serve as guinea pigs. Approximately eight months before the commercial launch of a model, assayers measure everything, during tests of rolling of 150,000 to 200,000 miles on all types of roads and climates: analysis of defects in comfort, noise, vibration, everything changes, and the search for solutions, multidisciplinary, is team. But in any case, "it is we, quality assurance, who are responsible for the final go-ahead, and recommend or not"top left"to the Executive Board.". "It is quality that counts, and not the calendar", says Burkhard Knodel. It may be why the small next A1, announced several years specialized journalists is not forthcoming.
Torture chambers
Motorists are rarely aware, but each vehicle is made of 8,000 to 12,000 different components, most provided by external partners. Work on each new model is thus considerable, so it should be added the final Alchemy: the overall impression which emerges from the arrangement of the parts to each other. With its share of subjectivity.
And not a question of simply only visible parts of the passenger compartment: "I know the other side of each piece," boasts Burkhard Knodel, which examines both the junctions between different materials than the distance between each point in welding the chassis. And to conquer new clients, the level of detail is really more far.
Each floor of Ingolstadt, its torture chambers. Here, it crushes, leather samples by passing 45 different tests (folding, abrasion, pressure, light, etc.) to simulate life of the vehicle and buy and purchase products. "We order essentially hides of bulls, because the cows is always suspicious of expansion, because of their successive pregnancies," says without laughter Claudia Lischke, responsible of interior materials. There, it encloses aluminium wheels in a House of test, in the company of competing wheels BMW or Mercedes, to turn 240 hours in all conditions (heat, humidity, acid) and then compare to x-ray their corrosion resistance.
Everything passes: the axles are them also accelerated efforts tests, their joints being subject to a mist of salt and all types of dust, to find a good anti-wear coating. At Audi, fouling is standardized." "We know that salt on winter roads is more severe in Russia in Germany, because it contains more calcium", details the Professor Bertram Reinhold, in charge of the chassis engineering. Ditto for the body, make for nineteen weeks (heat, cold, vibrations...), two years before the launch of series of a car, to correct any defects.
"Trackers of odours.
Engineers believe everything, and beyond. They have developed a special coating, a varnish hardened ultraviolet, to protect from scratches some parts of the passenger compartment, such as air conditioning buttons or the entourage of the GPS screen, at the mercy of unscrupulous shots of nail polish or rings. "Of course, the price is two to three times more expensive than a normal coating." "But you will not find this treatment than in us", says Ronald Schiwek, in charge of the subject.
In another Audi is particularly proud of his team of "nose". His goal: eliminate odours, even barely perceptible, regarded as unpleasant. Its members cut pieces of the Interior of a vehicle, leather, textiles, wood or plastic, or approximately 500 components per car, them are heated to 80 degrees in a jar, sniffing them at length and give them a score of 1 (imperceptible) to 6 (untenable). A vague hint of onion, of cod liver oil Delete. Established in 1985 in the firm, these "trackers of smells" are, it seems, become standard in the German auto industry.
