Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 21, 2009
Volkswagen HR manager updates CAR members on progress
Samara Litvack
The Chattanooga Association of Realtors recently convened for a meeting at the Chattanooga Choo Choo. At the luncheon, Ryan Rose, general manager for HR for the local Volkswagen Group of America, spoke to attendees about what the company has accomplished thus far, and its progress toward its projected 2011 production date.
“Before I talk about where we’re going with Volkswagen, I want to talk about where we’ve been,” said Rose. “The idea of Volkswagen, ‘people’s car,’ first came up over a hundred years ago in Germany. And the idea was to build a mass-produced, inexpensive car to give people individual mobility.”
This came to fruition in the 1930s, he said, when Ferdinand Porsche designed the original Beetle. By 1949, there were roughly 10,000 people producing nearly 4,000 Beetles each month. By 1955, Volkswagen of America was established.
“What started as a single brand, Volkswagen, has now grown into the third largest automobile company in the world,” said Rose. “It’s the largest carmaker in Europe. In 2008, the group sold over 6 million vehicles worldwide, which was actually an increase (of) about 0.6 percent, year over year, but pretty outstanding to meet the goal for sales, considering the overall economic climate.”
This success is due to the company’s multi-brand group, consisting of nine brands: Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, ?koda, Scania and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.
“Each brand has its own character, its own fit to the market, and each operates as its own entity in the market,” he said.
In total, the company has 180 models worldwide, produced at 61 manufacturing facilities. Currently, the only North American location is located in Puebla, Mexico. This location produces the new Beetle and Jetta models, the sedan and sports wagon.
“You guys all know that’s getting ready to change,” said Rose.
“Our plant in Chattanooga will be the group’s first, their only U.S. plant and it will be the 62nd plant worldwide. So the Chattanooga plant is vital to our goal of selling 800,000 Volkswagens in the U.S. market by 2018.”
The company, he said, is already off to a good start toward that goal. While the rest of the automobile industry’s sales fell last month by 12.2 percent compared to the same month last year, Volkswagen’s increased. Through the first half of 2009, the industry fell 32 percent, but Volkswagen only lost 13.5.
“We’ll take it,” said Rose.
Occasionally, Volkswagen employees get asked, “Why Chattanooga?” Rose was happy to explain the answer:
“We started with about 400 potential locations for this plant. From there, we narrowed it to about 10 states. We were looking at everything from snowfall, where the suppliers were located, what time zone it’s in; there was even some discussion about tornadoes. And in the end, we landed in Chattanooga – the best combination, really, when you talk about timing, the available workforce, the logistics, the infrastructure, the quality of life and, frankly, outstanding support from your state and local officials.”
Rose went on to talk specifically about the plant, which will produce the new midsized sedan, or “NMS” in Volkswagen terms. While no detailed information can be shared because the vehicle is still in prototype production, the NMS will be bigger than the Passat and targeted to hit the “sweet spot” in the midsized car section, he said.
Initial production will yield 150,000 cars a year, and nearly 30 percent of those will be fueled with clean diesel technology.
The plant itself is comprised of three buildings – the body shop, the paint shop and final assembly, totaling 1.9 million square feet, representing a $1 billion investment and creating more than 2,000 direct local jobs.
As far as the hiring process goes, Rose said Volkswagen has four main progressive areas through which they’re working. The first, the professional/salary workforce, is underway now. Many of these positions are being filled from people outside the local area, as they require specific experience in certain key areas, such as automotive, manufacturing and building cars.
Next is the pilot hole, comprised of people who have experience building cars.
“We hired our first group, including some local hires, just two weeks ago, actually,” said Rose. “They are already in Germany helping to build the first prototypes for the NMS right now, and that will be their role. They’ll help with the prototype building for the car now and when we have model changes.”
The next phase of hiring will be for skilled maintenance. These workers will operate conveyors, robots and other such equipment. Rose said to expect a very prominent announcement when applications for these positions start being taken at the end of summer and beginning of fall.
“Then the bulk of our workforce, the vast majority is our actual team members that are actually going to build the cars,” he said. “Current plan is that we will open the application process for that later this
fall and we’ll actually start hiring early next year.”
This group will endure a rigorous application process, aimed at helping Volkswagen hire only the best of the best. Applicants will complete onsite, hands-on assessments to show their attention to detail and ability to follow instruction.
“It’s not a pen and paper kind of exam because these are not pen and paper kind of jobs,” said Rose. “But it’s very standardized.”
From that, an interview pool will be selected. Afterward, conditional job offers will be administered.
“With each step, we’re building this highly qualified applicant pool,” said Rose.
“We are just crossing the starting line in terms of hiring. To date, we have only hired 5 percent of the people we’re going to hire. Ninety-five percent is still coming and it’s going to be happening over a long period. We will not start production until 2011. We will not hire all the team members to build the car on a weekend. We will hire them just in time, like we are going to build
vehicles.”
Rose also addressed the environmental friendliness of the Chattanooga plant, mentioning specifically its paint shop.
“We are introducing a new kind of base coat that lets us skip one of the traditional drying processes,” he said. “You get the same quality finish but it’s going to cut CO2 emissions 20 percent.”
In assembly, he said, only the most efficient electric motors will be used in the plant to conserve energy. As a result, about 3 million kilowatt hours will be conserved; that’s enough to power 750 households for a year. “That’s just a few examples,” he said, “but when you put it together, our expectation is to have one of the most environmentally friendly plants in the world.”
The next CAR meeting will be a picnic, held on the association office grounds on October 14. The Women’s Council of Realtors will hold its next meeting at the CAR office on September 2. Members of CAR are also invited to attend the Home Builders Association of Southern Tennessee’s upcoming events, including a general meeting at the HBAST office on September 15; the HBAST Fall Home and Décor Show, October 2, 3 and 4; and HBAST Texas Hold’em, held the first Thursday of September, starting around 6:30 p.m.
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