Point of interest: The silent helpers | Volkswagen Gläserne Manufaktur

In the shopping cart, the cart-specific parts arrive at the assembly line just in time. On the logistics level in the basement they are pre-picked with parts for exactly two vehicles. The shopping baskets are moved by means of compact, flat vehicles that are part of the driverless transport system (AGV). They are used wherever flexibility, minimised stock levels and short throughput times are required. They can be used to optimise highly complex logistical processes.

In the Transparent Factory, 57 freely navigable transport vehicles are in use, which are controlled and monitored from the control centre. However, it is not only the baskets of goods that are moved in this way, the dismantled doors also pass through the door pre-assembly process on the transport systems before being reassembled on the vehicles. This is also how the drive train gets to the wedding.

The transport vehicles are based on permanent magnets embedded in the parquet floor. How far and in which direction a vehicle should travel and where it should stop is determined by the respective program. This control system is also called magnetic grid navigation. When a full shopping basket has been placed on the shingle conveyor, the transport vehicle moves to the next empty shopping basket to stop under it with millimetre precision and pick it up.