Automotive Lean Production Congress 2024

Learning from the best! - Innovative solutions based on Lean and Digitalization were the cornerstones of the 18th international Automotive Lean Production congress' on 26th and 27th of November 2024 in Palmela, Portugal. Next to visionary key notes and an exclusive plant tour at Volkswagen Autoeuropa, Agamus and Automobil Produktion awarded the best European plants with the prestigious Automotive Lean Production Awards based on the corresponding benchmark study during an festive awards ceremony.

During the two-day event at the Volkswagen Autoeuropa plant, the winners of the different award categories received their honors and presented their best-of-class implementations to the audience.

On November 27th, Volkswagen Autoeuropa invited the participants to an exclusive tour through the plant. A digitalization round table and lean management workshop completed the practical part of the first day on November 26th.

Dr. Christian Vollmer, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Brand responsible for Production and Logistics opened the evening event at the electricity museum in Lisbon with his keynote. This was followed by the award ceremony of the Automotive Lean Production Awards 2024. This year, the Volkswagen Poznań plant (Poland) won the OEM category, while Magna Meerane (Germany) received the award in the Part Supplier category. GlobalFoundries Dresden(Germany) won the Digital Use Case award, while Brembo NV (Italy) received the Special Award Rapid Group wide Implementation of a loss-based Improvement Management System. The BMW Group plant in Leipzigalso received the Special Award Lean Digital Transformation.

On the first day of the congress, all winners presented their innovative solutions and answered questions. Based on the presentations and discussions it's been clear that the intelligent connection of lean and digitalization is key for the competitiveness of the European automotive industry.