- Production site increased from 80,000 to 160,000 m2
- Expansion in record time at full production capacity
- Manifattura Lamborghini: the new expression of Industry 4.0
Sant’Agata Bolognese, 17 October 2017 – Automobili Lamborghini’s ongoing strategic investment programme, aligned with the launch of its new Super SUV the Urus, sees its production site now doubled with the creation of substantial new facilities and technologies at its factory headquarters in Sant’ Agata Bolognese, Italy.
As well as expanding the site from 80,000 to 160,000 m2, the Urus will also bring about a substantial increase in the company’s production capacity, doubling it to 7,000 units a year.
The new production facility houses a new assembly line dedicated to Urus, the new finishing department for all Lamborghini models, and a new office building with LEED Platinum certification: the highest standard in the world for energy and environmental certification in building design and construction. A new test track has also been built with thirteen different surfaces specific to SUVs, as well as a new logistics warehouse, a second trigeneration power plant, and the new energy hub for centralized production of all the energy carriers.
Ranieri Niccoli, Chief Manufacturing Officer, commented: “With our third model, we wanted to introduce the most innovative production technologies and smart factory concepts, supporting and complementing the activities of our workforce. Urus ushers in a new model of factory, which we call Manifattura Lamborghini, a new point of reference in the luxury automobile industry. The substantial resultant benefits include greater production flexibility, better information accessibility, and the interconnection of systems: strengthening the professionalism of craftsmanship that has always distinguished us and supporting the doubling of our production volumes.”
The creation of new buildings and the installation of innovative technologies involved more than 600 enterprises working on the project with a total of 3,600 external workers.
The factory expansion was completed in a record time of just 18 months, during which the company operated at full production capacity and achieved record sales in 2016 (+7% over the previous year). The project was achieved without neglecting Lamborghini’s commitment to environmental sustainability: the entire production facility in Sant’Agata Bolognese maintains the carbon neutral certification obtained in 2015.
Manifattura Lamborghini
The new Industry 4.0 assembly line, dedicated entirely to the Urus Super SUV, integrates new production technologies to support workers in assembly activities.
The super sports car maker expresses this approach as Manifattura Lamborghini, which is characterized by four basic principles:
- Craftsmanship: preserving and optimizing craftsmanship with the integration of innovative technologies, increasing the potential for product customization on one hand, and guaranteeing the highest quality standards on the other.
- Competencies and specialization: digitalization enables workers, via touchscreen devices, to access production information made available by easily-consulted interconnected systems.
- Production process: AGVs (Automatic Guided Vehicles) are used as vehicle and material transport systems. Thanks to this system, the flexibility of the building layout is maintained.
- Ergonomics and safety: collaborative robots assist the workers, to improve ergonomics and for repetitive operations that require high quality, such as window gluing, under-body screwing, and wheel assembly.