Today the Mercedes-Benz plant in Wörth started series production of the new Actros. To mark the event, Daimler CEO Dr. Dieter Zetsche sat behind the wheel as the first unit of the new truck rolled off the assembly line. The vehicle was built at the company’s largest truck assembly plant. The new Actros was redeveloped from scratch, and already meets the strict Euro VI emissions limits. Compared to the previous Actros, the new model consumes six to seven percent less fuel in the Euro V variant, and three to four percent less fuel in the Euro VI variant. The vehicle is the result of more than ten years of hard work, over 20 million test driving kilometers, and more than €2 billion spent on development and production technology.
Since a production launch on this scale occurs only about every 15 years in the commercial vehicle industry, the plant and its workforce began to prepare for the event years ago.
“With Daimler Trucks we want to grow much faster than the market as a whole and sell more than 500,000 trucks in 2013”, said Daimler CEO Dr. Dieter Zetsche and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars in Wörth. “The new Mercedes-Benz Actros sets the benchmark among its competitors; it is our most important truck of the decade.”
Flexibility at the Mercedes-Benz plant Wörth
The Wörth plant produces each truck exactly in line with customer specifications. These results in a great variety of trucks so that, statistically speaking, no two vehicles produced in a single year are the same. What’s unusual about production in Wörth is that all three of the Mercedes-Benz model series (Actros, Axor, and Atego) are made here on the same assembly line. They will be joined by the new Actros, which will be integrated into the existing series production process and be assembled on the same production lines as the other current model series.
High quality from the Mercedes-Benz Wörth plant
More than €2 billion was spent on developing the new truck and preparing the Wörth plant and its equipment for the production launch. The company built an automated warehouse for small parts, which forms the basis for a new logistics concept. It has also established the Development and Research Center, a test track for new generations of trucks, which brings the development and production areas even closer together. The employees received extensive training that familiarized them with the new Actros’ system environment.
“Our plant will remain the home of the Actros,” says Yaris Pürsün, Head of Mercedes-Benz Wörth plant. “We have thoroughly prepared ourselves for the production launch of the new Actros. To us quality made in Wörth means best quality from the very first new Actros, in terms of trucks you can trust.”
Mercedes-Benz has around 12,000 employees at its Wörth plant. The first Mercedes-Benz Actros rolled off the production line in 1996, and it is now the brand’s best-selling model series, along with the Mercedes-Benz Atego and the Mercedes-Benz Axor. More than 700,000 Actros trucks have left the plant to date, and the truck accounts for two-thirds of the Wörth plant’s annual output.
Source: Daimler AG
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