ltcjmramos

A new video inside Porsche 911 Engine Plant Assembly Line:

Slamuth

Very interesting. I've seen a variation of this video, I believe it was an episode of Mega Factories....showed the entire build cycle for a 911. As cool as a 911 is, it's hard to call the manufacturing process whimsical. Even the people act like robots.

MarcoRemius

Pretty neat. Thanks for sharing!

Macster

Don't know about anyone else but I got shivers down my spine at the beginning when all those cam chains were wrapped around the crank sprockets.

Also, when I assembled (my own) engines I dunked each piston/ring/rod assembly in a bucket of clean oil before installing the piston in its cylinder.

Crankcase bearing journals got oil and the crank bearings got a squirt of oil before laying the crank in the bearings. Same for the cams and the cam chains.

awrryan

Thank you for posting this.

Linnm

Looks like no rule in Germany requiring Safety Glasses!

CosmosC4S

Thanks, interesting video. Engines look bigger than it seems looking at it from the engine bay in the car itself.

M3 Defector

Been there

kcheves

I was there this summer also. I was told that this line builds all of the gasoline engines for all Porsche cars, including the Panamera, Cayenne, Macan, and Cayman, where final assembly is elsewhere. The engines go down the line in no particular order, so a 2.7 liter Boxster engine may be followed by a Macan twin turbo V6. The assembly team needs to know how to work on them all, and the variation in workload reduces the tedium of the job and is thought to contribute to overall quality.

The engine workshop is adjacent to the parts "supermarket", where all of the parts for each engine are picked and placed onto the trollies that you see in the video. If you are involved in manufacturing, the process that Porsche uses for this is fascinating, and cleverly mixes automation and manual labor in a way that seems very appropriate for the volumes that they are supporting. I believe that it takes 3 carts of parts for each engine, and the parts are organized top to bottom in each cart in the order that they are consumed on the line.

These trolley's are moved from the parts warehouse to the engine assembly area by robotic movers that pull little trains of parts carts between the two areas, using wires cast in the concrete floor to navigate.

If you ever have the chance, it is a great tour.

Kit
San Diego, Ca

KwaH

Luckily my office did a team building day at the Porsche Factory last year and we were given the tours of the assembly..etc..etc. It's really quite amazing I do take it for granted driving by the factory everyday on my way to work. It is an amazing process.