This morning’s sleep went by in the blink of an eye. Up at 5:30, ready to get my morning going. Starting with a hearty hotel breakfast, eventually leading to hopping on the shuttle to the Mercedes-Benz Factory. At the Mercedes-Benz Factory I was able to marvel at the 99% automation of the car manufacturing lines. It was truly impressive to see how many smart manufacturing tools were being used in just one portion of the factory. One main difference between manufacturing plants in the U.S. and this Mercedes-Benz factory was the obvious implementation of automation that is lacked in the US, as well as the lack of safety principles at the Mercedes-Benz factory. Typically, in manufacturing environments, employees and visitors are required to wear ear protection due to constant high levels of noise. They are also required to stay in certain lanes and watch out for moving vehicles, which I felt like was not as emphasized when visiting the factory. I was not sure if this was a cultural thing or if the amount of automation just made these things virtually irrelevant in this scenario. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed the visit and was grateful to have the opportunity to enter the factory. After the tour, we were able to take advantage of a hop on hop off tour of the city of Stuttgart and see what all the city had to offer!
