The Doubiste Production Automobile Site has been completely restructured to save surface, energy and taxes.
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Forty thousand employees in 1975, 12,000 employees in 2011, 9,000 in 2018, 6,200 today, to which are added a thousand temporary workers … The Stellantis site, cradle of the Peugeot cars, in Sochaux (Doubs) , finished his slimming cure. This has not only touched the workforce, but also the industrial grip.
The board of directors of Stellantis, on June 7, and journalists on September 5, discovered a new factory that is not guessing from the outside, since it was completely redesigned to the interior of existing buildings. All, in a logic of frugal investment: 200 million euros all the same.
If it is not ostentatious, the change, launched five years ago by Carlos Tavares, is very real. Straddled in three municipalities in Doubs – Sochaux, Montbéliard and Exincourt -, the historic site got out of 44 hectares out of 210. They were sold to the community of the Pays de Montbéliard, under discussion to resell them to the investment fund Bt Immo, specialized in logistics projects.
Car production has been compacted to save surface, energy, taxes. No more norria of trucks which transported the rooms on 1.5 kilometer between the old stamping building (from which the parts that form the body come out) and that of the iron (where they are assembled). From now on, the two workshops are grouped under a single roof, with a new, huge press, which sends 2,500 tonnes to the steel sheets. It will have cost 33 million euros. It comes from China, works with Swiss robots and can form four pieces simultaneously.
very strong pressure, according to the unions
Above all, it takes less than three and a half minutes to change the shapes and switch from the manufacture of doors to that of a cabin, a room for Peugeot 3008 to a room for 5800, the two models currently produced on The site. A few minutes during which a little air from Mozart informs the teams of the rocking. The press, which can operate seven days a week, has made it possible to repatriate part of the operations made outside and 300 jobs.
Second size innovation, there is only one mounting line, instead of two. The factory can, despite everything, assemble up to six different models. Of any brand in the Stellantis group, since “[their] factories are agnostics”, explains Arnaud Deboeuf, world manufacturing director, who directs the group’s 92 factories, whether they are ex-Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Jeep or Chrysler. A hierarchical level has been deleted, which worries both the CFDT and FO, which underline the frantic pace of change and the very strong pressure, even if the factory has eight years of production assured before it.
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