guys !!
i hadnt come to the office yesterday ...the reason being that all the interns were stacked into a bus and deported to Flins ( near paris )to see a usine ( factory ).
They make clio and the Twingo (yes ..they same one we crashed ) there.
Its a huge plant making 1900 cars a day in two shifts .they claim it to be 98% automatic , run by robots , although i'm neither sure of this definition nor how they quantify this automation (so unable to appreciate this claim ), but i'll say that it was a lovely experienced .
A Clio take 12 hours to be build starting from metal sheets .The sheets are stamped , fabricated , painted , and then assembled over a platform which is being assembeled simutaneuosly .
Renault imports /produce engines in association of peugeot... to meet its recquirements .
It was quite interesting to see 2000 robots working 16 hrs a day each performing a fixed task ( which can be 1 of the n configuarartions feeded into it )..;and the workers who played music while they fitted respective parts in turn .
the whole assembly line is spread in 83 acers of land and make clio (2/4 door left / right hand driven) and twingo(2/4 door left / right hand driven ) , ie 8 types of car .
I was my first visit to any manufacturing plant so cannot compare for standards ..but i believe it was pretty normal compared to european standards i believe in.pretty down to earth ...nothing fundamentally interesting .
see you on monday ...am going to crash in my bed this weekend
