All plants of all brands must do this, but what makes this news is that the Chattanooga plant achieved this so early in the game. Typically, a plant takes a lot longer to meet the requirements.
“I’m very pleased that Volkswagen Chattanooga has achieved this quality benchmark so early in the process of running this facility,” said Frank Fischer, Volkswagen Chattanooga’s Chair and CEO. “From the very start we have emphasized quality, whether in our planning or employee training, as a foundation to building the highest quality mid-size sedan, and this audit has verified our success reaching those goals,” Fischer said.
The ISO audit highlighted the plant’s hiring and training process as “impressive in depth and scope” and, given the short timeframe for implementation, found the plant’s processes to be “impressively done with excellent depth and detail within each department.” Planning was also highlighted as ‘very well executed at all levels’.
“We are proud of the Passat we are building and proud of the quality measures that each person who touches the process takes in their work,” said Andreas Linke, General Manager Quality Assurance for Volkswagen Chattanooga. ISO 9001:2008 is an important step, but is by no means the end of the process of producing quality. In fact, it’s just the beginning,” Linke said.
