Factory in Germany
Opel’s parent plant relies on young workers
In assembly at the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim, Stellantis is banking on fresh ideas and innovations from young, up‑and‑coming employees. A visit that reveals the fate of German plants as if under a magnifying glass.
Football fans of the 1990s, especially those who support Bayern or AC Milan, are likely to feel a wave of nostalgia when they see that circularly framed lightning Z. For years, the German carmaker’s logo was emblazoned on the chests of Champions League teams from the great cities just to the north and south of the Alps. Around 20 years have passed since then.
The boom years may be over, but Opel is still one of those brands that people instinctively associate with Germany. Just like VW, BMW or Mercedes, Opel stands for industrial tradition, for a hundred years of car manufacturing, for a piece of economic history. And yet in recent decades the company has more often stood in the shadow of the other major German manufacturers. Several changes of ownership, strategic realignments and tough restructuring phases have shaped this picture.
Brownfield prototype despite green campus
When you travel to Rüsselsheim today, much of this is put into perspective. The town is still closely linked with Opel, and the plant visibly shapes its surroundings, both physically and economically. As you drive onto the site, you immediately get a sense of the historical dimension of this location. Vast hall structures, evolved infrastructure, an administration building like a brutalist block, and alongside it new development areas where work on the infrastructural future is under way with the green campus currently under construction.
How much of a brownfield plant can a factory be? Rüsselsheim: very much so. A plant that has grown over decades, rebuilt, consolidated and densified several times. Today, assembly runs on a single-shift basis, and volumes are lower than in earlier boom phases. The general conditions have become noticeably more demanding. And yet the impression remains that this is not a site being managed on the basis of remaining service life, but an industrial core that is actively defining its role within the Stellantis group.
It is precisely this simultaneity that makes the visit interesting. On the one hand, the immense history, the physical impact of the site and its significance for the region between Frankfurt and Mainz. On the other hand, young, excellently trained specialists who programme applications, reset control systems or integrate retired cobots into existing lines. The transformation that is discussed in abstract terms in many debates becomes tangible here. Rüsselsheim is exemplary of numerous brownfield plants in Germany that are under high cost pressure and yet have to reposition themselves technologically in order to remain relevant within the global production network.
An eye for detail as a life insurance policy
On each early shift, around 285 vehicles pass through assembly, Astra and DS4, both on a so‑called multi‑energy platform. This means electric, plug‑in hybrid, hybrid and combustion models are all prepared and married on the same line. No separate powertrain lines, no isolated infrastructures. Johann Schreder, manufacturing engineer and responsible for equipment and layout, calls it the “USP of the group”. He means less a marketing term than a structural response to volatility. “Basically, we have a platform on which we can run all powertrain variants,” hfe says.
The advantage only really becomes clear in contrast. In plants with strictly separated powertrain architectures, a fluctuation in demand can quickly lead to underutilisation of individual lines. In Rüsselsheim, the mix shifts on the same takt chain. This reduces structural risks, but not cost pressure. Plant manager Maike Seeber describes the transformation of the site in matter‑of‑fact terms: “The plant has been made more compact.”
Behind this wording lie specific energy savings as well as the strategic decision to consolidate floor space in order to keep fixed costs manageable in an environment of falling volumes. Seeber names the biggest operational challenge without hesitation. Asked about the most critical factor at present, she replies succinctly: “Energy costs.”
In conversation, Seeber explains that labour costs are a structural factor that cannot be constantly renegotiated. In contrast, she sees operational levers above all in energy consumption and in efficiency measures within the plant – including through digital innovations.
Every morning, the consumption per vehicle is evaluated, broken down into gas, electricity and comfort heat. Deviations are analysed: Was something switched off too late? Did a system run unnecessarily? Was a hall overheated? That may sound like micromanagement, but it is more of an operational necessity in a high-wage country like Germany.
This context is important for understanding why projects arise in the assembly area whose added value can appear microscopically small at first glance. On closer inspection on site, however, their strategic relevance becomes very clear.
Too much air can be very expensive
Alexander Feistl works in the masterplan team and coordinates issues relating to the production system. Lean, standardisation, continuous improvement – terms that are standard in automotive production. But his current project does not start with cycle times, it starts with air. More precisely, with air in material containers.
In many boxes used to deliver supplier parts, space goes unused. Every centimetre that is transported empty generates costs for packaging, transport and handling. In the past, employees walked through the warehouse with Excel lists, noting by hand where containers could be better utilised, taking photos and then laboriously assigning them later. Feistl has digitalised this process.
Using Microsoft Power Apps, Alexander Feistl developed an application that combines barcode scanning, photo documentation, database connectivity and the creation of a one-pager in a single process. No outsourced IT project, no lengthy rollout across multiple instances, but a solution developed in the plant itself, based on existing licences. The workflow is deliberately streamlined. Scan the part number, take two photos, save.
A plant that can program and adapt its own downtime logic gains room for manoeuvre. Every line, every branch, every station sends signals. Hundreds of status messages are processed, weighted and visualised
In the background, weight data, target quantities and storage locations are automatically pulled from a data source. Ergonomic limits, such as the 12-kilogram threshold for manual handling, are stored in the system and taken into account. The result is a cleanly prepared proposal that can be evaluated internally and then passed on to the supplier.
The impact is felt less in each individual container than in the overall total. Fifty-five optimisations have already been implemented, with several hundred more in progress. For the headliner, for example, it was possible to fit 20 additional layers per container. That sounds like a detail, but it significantly changes the underlying logic. More parts per delivery mean fewer transports, lower logistics costs and less tied-up volume.
As many suppliers deliver to several Stellantis plants, such adjustments do not only take effect locally, but have an impact across the group. “When we look at the figures, it is a huge amount compared with what we can still unlock via other routes,” says Feistl. Process optimisation directly on the line will at some point run up against physical and organisational limits. In collaboration with suppliers, however, there is still room for manoeuvre, especially when details are systematically recorded and documented in a robust way.
What is remarkable here is not only the technical solution, but also the way it is used. The app also allows employees on the line to submit improvement suggestions. The threshold is deliberately kept low, the interface reduced to the essentials. “As simple as possible” is how Feistl describes his approach. One menu item, scan the barcode, add photos, done. Here, digitalisation is not presented as a complex transformation programme, but as a tool that works in everyday operations.
What Opel’s bottleneck tracker can do
While Feistl’s project starts at the interface between logistics and supplier, Gabriel Giessmann delves deeper into the production logic. A qualified electronics technician for automation technology, he developed a bottleneck or downtime tracker with his team that assigns stoppages to individual stations to the second. Production downtime in assembly is not an abstract key figure, but a directly measurable loss. Every cycle counts, every minute is reflected in the unit output. A predecessor system already existed, but its architecture was organised in a decentralised way and strongly anchored in the cloud. Adjustments were cumbersome, and new stations could only be integrated with considerable effort.
Giessmann moved the calculation logic back into the plant. A central controller with its own CPU collects the status messages from all conveyor technologies, prioritises them and processes them in real time. “I wrote the programme for the CPU,” he says matter‑of‑factly. Behind this sentence there is less self‑promotion than an indication of changing competence profiles.
A plant that can program and adapt its own downtime logic gains room for manoeuvre. Every line, every branch, every station sends signals. Hundreds of status messages are processed, weighted and visualised. On a screen in the hall, the lines appear as so‑called fingers, a reference to the special layout within the assembly hall. For each branch, downtimes are aggregated, causes are broken down and specific stations are identified.
If station 22 stops several times because a fastening was not carried out in time, this is not only recorded but made clearly visible. The first expansion stage took three to four months. Since then, further optimisation has taken place during live operation. For supervisors and plant managers, a new level of transparency emerges that puts decisions on a different footing. Where is the real bottleneck, where is a technical adjustment worthwhile, where is there a need for training? Downtime is no longer just reported, but located.
An old robot becomes a new cobot
The project run by Jakob Palm goes even closer to immediate value creation. The 24‑year‑old, who completed a dual training programme and now works in planning, has integrated a cobot at a PKG station that automatically moves to defined inspection points.
This PKG station is located directly before the marriage station, the moment when body‑in‑white and pre‑assembled chassis are brought together. Anything that is overlooked here can only be corrected later with considerable effort. Wiring harnesses, plug connections, trims or badges are much harder to access after final assembly.
Palm used an existing system that was no longer required as the basis and consistently opted for reuse instead of new procurement. The cobot holds a camera, reads vehicle-specific data and checks around twelve defined points along the body. Image processing is deliberately kept classical. Contrast and edge detection instead of complex AI.
Robustness before complexity. If a safety-relevant defect is detected, the system automatically stops the line. Other deviations are documented and assigned to the vehicle’s data record so that repair work can be carried out in a targeted manner. “I developed this system completely by myself,” says Palm. Mechanics, wiring, programming and visualisation were created in just a few weeks in the plant. Development time was around four weeks, under noticeable time pressure ahead of a corporate visit by Stellantis’ Europe chief.
He justifies the decision in favour of a cobot and against fixed cameras in pragmatic terms. New inspection points can be integrated by reprogramming the position, without reinstalling hardware or adapting cabling. The solution remains flexible. Another contrast becomes visible here. In many plants, automation is conceived as a major investment project with extensive amortisation calculations. In Rüsselsheim, solutions are being created in parallel that build on existing resources, tie up manageable amounts of capital and become effective quickly. Small investments, short decision paths, direct responsibility.
Three prototypes of the shopfloor worker of the future
What links these three projects is less the specific technology and more the profile of those implementing them. Programming, understanding control logic, defining interfaces and analysing data have now naturally become part of the competence spectrum of young skilled workers in assembly. The classic shopfloor worker is not disappearing. There are still entry-level jobs and low-threshold activities.
At the same time, an additional layer of competence is emerging that did not exist in this form ten or twenty years ago: electronics technicians, mechatronics technicians, dual-study students who are able to develop systems independently and further develop existing structures.
For plant manager Maike Seeber, this is part of a deliberate mindset. Young employees are to be given room to shape things. If a camera costs €2,000 and stabilises a process, the decision is made. Not every project has to be calculated through over many years if it strengthens know-how, flexibility and motivation. The effect works on two levels. On the one hand, there are tangible savings: fewer transports, less downtime, less rework. On the other hand, the site’s ability to solve problems independently grows. In an environment with limited investment funds, this capability itself becomes a strategic resource.
Rüsselsheim is currently running only one shift in assembly. In the past it was two. The infrastructure would allow for more, but demand sets the pace. Mid‑cycle updates are expected to provide momentum, new model allocations are still pending. The ambition remains clear nonetheless. “If we are the expensive Germans, we have to be at least half a step faster and more innovative,” says the 42‑year‑old. Costs, quality and flexibility determine how locations are assessed within the group.
On the tour there is no sense of euphoria, but just as little of resignation. Rather one of focus. Every screw, every cycle, every kilowatt is questioned. Here, innovation does not appear as a major transformation programme, but as the outcome of many specific interventions in day‑to‑day operations. In the end, the impression is of a plant that knows its history but does not rest on it. A brownfield site with reduced floor space, a multi‑energy platform in single‑shift operation, and young employees who write apps, programme CPUs and configure cobots. In a global production network, it could be precisely this mix that determines how a location is perceived: as a cost factor or as a problem solver. Rüsselsheim is working to be the latter.
