Seat: 50 years in 60 seconds 🎥
REVIEW Videos instead of photos, video telephony and apps instead of fax, MP3 instead of records. A video shows how the automotive world has changed over the past 50 years, using Seat as an example. Today, around 2400 vehicles leave the plant in Martorell every day. Fifty years ago, there were just five. Modern design and development centers now look quite [...]
Today, around 2,400 vehicles leave the plant in Martorell every day. Fifty years ago, there were just five.
Modern design and development centers now look very different than they did in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, tablets, virtual reality glasses and floating projection screens are used.
Manel Garcés, who is responsible for visualization and digital design processes at Seat, says: "Thanks to virtual reality, we can now validate our designs 90 percent of the time without having to manufacture corresponding vehicle parts."
2400 instead of five vehicles per day
When Seat opened its first plant in the Zona Franca in Barcelona in 1950, five vehicles a day were produced here. Today, over 2,400 vehicles leave the plant in Martorell every day - so in just three minutes, as many vehicles roll off the assembly line here as used to be produced in an entire day.
Robots instead of laborious manual work
When the plant was founded, robots were still largely science fiction. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, vehicles were still painted entirely by hand. Today, 84 robots in a spray booth ensure that the paint is applied evenly. This technology is also reflected in the more than 2,000 robots used in the metal workshop.
Improvement of workplace ergonomics
The latest ergonomic findings help prevent injuries in the workplace. At the Cars Health and Rehabilitation Center in Martorell, state-of-the-art virtual reality technologies are used to simulate the movements of assembly line workers with the help of biomechanical avatars. The knowledge gained from this is immediately used to improve ergonomics in the workplace.
Marketing started in the Netherlands
In 1965, the subject of exports was still completely new territory for Seat. In a symbolic action, several cargo planes were loaded with vehicles and unloaded in Colombia. It was not until 1983 that exports really took off, when marketing of the Ronda model began in the Netherlands. In 2018, 474,300 of the vehicles produced in Martorell were exported. This is equivalent to forming a convoy of cars from Barcelona to Sydney.
