The commercial vehicle manufacturer MAN Truck & Bus received an award for its newly established production network. The special prize was handed over at the prestigious “Factory of the Year 2016” event as a tribute to the restructuring of the company’s manufacturing complex. MAN completely refurbished its production facilities for both buses and trucks as part of its future- programme, PACE2017.
The jury, consisting of experts from the German trade magazine “Produktion” and the management consultants AT Kearney, praised “the consistent and socially acceptable implementation of this reorientation, the continuous improvement offering customers top quality and an innovative and consistent alignment of the logistics system to meet the specific challenges of truck production.”
The prize was awarded to the Munich truck plant on behalf of the entire network. Here the jury also praised the design and implementation of MAN’s environmental strategy.
Joachim Drees, CEO of MAN Truck & Bus AG and MAN SE, commented: “Reorienting a production network on this scale in such a short time was a major task. We were only able to master it thanks to the early cooperation of the affected areas and the works council. The result speaks for itself: MAN is back on the road to success and optimally positioned for the future. At the same time, we entirely dispensed with operational redundancies. Of course there were tough negotiations and difficult decisions, but employers and workers both recognised a common goal: MAN’s long-term success.”
Saki Stimoniaris, Chairman of the Munich Works Council and the General Works Council, added: “The new plant structure gives us long-term job security in both production and administration. During the refurbishment we were able to secure extensive investments at all our locations – the largest in MAN’s history. The colleagues can all see it: everywhere has been and is being built and renewed. This is the signal that shows us all the way to a secure future. Things are looking up, for us and for MAN. That means that we can again concentrate on doing what we do best: building outstanding trucks and buses.”
Carsten Intra, responsible Board Member for Production & Logistics and Research & Development, drew attention to the advantages of the new organisation for the locations: “Unlike previously, each of our production sites now has a clear and independent profile. Munich is the centre for our heavy-duty series, Steyr in Austria for the medium and light. Starachowice in Poland is our location for city buses and Ankara specialises in constructing overland buses and coaches. Finally, thanks to our assembly facility for heavy goods vehicles in Cracow, we are able to react very flexibly to the traditional widely fluctuating capacity requirements of the commercial vehicle industry. I would like to thank our employees. They made this success possible.”
