“With its Palmela plant in Portugal, Volkswagen has won the Automotive Lean Production Award for the second year running and will therefore host the congress in 2024. This fills me with great pride. For me, accolades such as these awards are drivers of innovation for the Group and thus contribute to the company’s ongoing development. In these turbulent times, speed is more important than ever. After all, the key is the rapid and direct implementation of all projects that enable sustainable transformation. And that is only possible through teamwork, innovative ideas and clever optimisations that boost productivity and thus generate a competitive advantage. That is what defines Volkswagen’s production of the future.”

“It was with great pride that we received the prestigious Automotive Lean Production Award. This recognition reflects our relentless pursuit of excellence and our commitment to implementing world-class lean production and logistics practices. I’m glad to have the opportunity to share with you our Lean and Low-Cost Logistics practices.”

“Taking part in the competition was a worthwhile opportunity for us to measure ourselves against other plants in an international benchmarking exercise and to undergo a comprehensive assessment by the Agamus experts. Identifying areas for improvement and continuously enhancing our production processes – that is in keeping with the Porsche pioneering spirit. As winners of the OEM category, we have the honour of hosting the 2026 congress. I look forward to welcoming you to the Porsche plant in Leipzig in November 2026.”

“Learning from the other automotive players and reflecting on our achievements helped us to define the next steps on the (never-ending) way of lean & continuous improvement. The study is an excellent opportunity for the benchmark and for critical talks with the Agamus experts to understand our advantages and gaps to become successful in the future.”

''Dealing with the questions posed helped to broaden our perspective on our own production processes once again. Accompanied by intensive exchange and in-depth, technical discussions we took the opportunity to critically scrutinise quality and processes, take a new look and ultimately improve them further. Winning the prize for the use of artificial intelligence (Al) in quality assurance for resistance spot welding (WPS) as part of the WPS Analytics project is an incentive for us to continue in this direction."

“Our goal at Volkswagen Autoeuropa was and is to continuously improve processes and strive for lean production. The application for the Automotive Lean Production Award has motivated us to scrutinise our processes even more critically and to implement optimisation measures, including digitalisation projects, even faster. Winning the award confirms the effective approach of the entire team and at the same time emphasises the competitiveness of our location in Portugal.”