Sweden. The factory manufacturing Volvo cars engine. Our special correspondent, Alexey Nevsky, reports from the ground. Here, the Swedish company’s two factories producing engines are located in vicinity of a small town of Skövde.
Now, one of them doesn’t belong to the well-known brand and produces automobiles engines. The other specializes in manufacturing of engines for the rest of the machinery, including that belonging to VOLVO.
It is this factory, that was attended by Russian reporters within the press tour program. The facility’s director, Jens Holtinger, told reporters about history and a present-day operation of the factory.
In particular, he specified that the facility’s area amounts to 265,000 sq.m, 87,000 engines have been produced there over the past year, 11% of which are 13 litres engines and 89% - have a volume of 16 litres.
The director was particularly proud to say that both VOLVO factories form a monotown, employing one in ten local residents. It is this factory only that provides about 3,000 jobs.
After that, the reporters familiarized themselves with the process of engines’ manufacturing, starting from casting of blocks and heads for them.
Casting workshop and production sites have impressed the guests by the working area cleanliness, compactness and automated production.
Most assembly and casting process is carried out by the ABB robots, the blocks and blockheads’ casting – by electric furnace, what significantly improves the ecological state (unlike carbon-furnace – Editor’s note).
The facility releases fifteen engines per hour, which undergo double testing: a 19 minutes cold start and a hot one within an hour.
In general, the factory manufactures engines for the company’s construction machinery, passenger buses, healers, river and marine vessels. The factory’s director noted with regret that, at present, the amount of engines supplied to Russia accounts for less than 1%.
At the end of the day, the reporters from Russia visited the company’s museum in Goteborg.
As a reference: the first engine was assembled here in 1907, and in 1927 the factory set to serial production of engines designed for the first company’s automobiles, including buses.
For statistics enthusiasts: allowable and possible engine return from a consumer to the manufacturer is 1 engine out of million. Meanwhile, the director, who has been working in the company over 4 years, couldn’t recall any case of this kind.
Editorial note: The factory’s administration didn’t recommend to take photographs of the engines’ assembly process, that is why we didn’t have a possibility to show our readers the picture of this exceptional production.
