The government made major efforts to attract other employment to the town when the state-owned shipyard closed, and it presented the so-called Uddevalla Package in which the biggest investment was a new Volvo factory. Volvo's plans soon got business moving in Uddevalla and things looked very good indeed when car production began in 1988. Volvo invested heavily in the new factory. Manufacturing and assembly would take place using entirely new methods. Assemblers worked in teams on stationary cars. The work content was high, i.e. the assemblers were skilled in many areas of the assembly work.

The handsome assembly halls enjoyed sea views. Work teams were given great autonomy with responsibility over specific parts of production. The conveyor belt was completely done away with and at the heart of the set-up were materials flows that involved delivering the right items to the right station just in time for assembly. There was great flexibility to build different variants thanks to the concept's inherent production parallelism. Development opportunities for employees would also be good and automotive workers were able to take part in developments within the Volvo Group. Volvo engineer Sven Date who created and worked up the manufacturing concept wanted to build a factory that helped the individual develop. So how did it go?

Global economic conditions took a dive and in 1993 Volvo decided to close the Uddevalla factory. Torslanda had surplus capacity and there was no longer any economic gain to be had in running the Uddevalla unit. But production soon started up again when Volvo and Tom Walkingshaw began manufacturing the Volvo C 70 in 1995. In 1999 Volvo took complete charge of the factory and manufacture of the C 70. Pininfarina became a major share holder in 2003 and continued manufacturing the C 70. Although the factory has 600 employees today, Volvo has announced that it will take over full responsibility for Uddevalla in 2013 and cease production there. One gray afternoon in November I met Walter Fortgens (WF), CEO of Pininfarina in Sweden to ask about the factory, his experiences and ideas for the future.

 
The factory of the future, the end of the conveyor belt and a work environment in a class of its very own. What have we learned and what will live on?
WF: We've learned a lot. Rich and varied tasks give rise to creativity and loyalty. The conveyor belt was reintroduced in 2003, but because we work with small volumes we're able to build in a lot of variety at the different assembly stations. We incorporated our experiences from the earlier methods and it's worked out well. Unfortunately, the stationary assembly method is not as efficient as the conveyor belt.

 
The factory has had its ups and downs many times since it opened; did the Uddevalla factory ever get a proper chance?
WF: Actually the factory is too small to be taken seriously into consideration when a major automotive manufacturer is drawing up its plans. We can produce highly complex Volvo drop tops at a rate of 22,000 on a single shift, but unfortunately sales of the C 70 have fallen.

 
Closure in 2013. How will you keep going until then?
WF: The know-how and experience we've built up during various stages of the operation has provided us with very skillful employees, extreme loyalty and high levels of competency. The cars we build in Uddevalla have the best quality in the Group. In quality terms, the best week so far this year was the week after the closure announcement in October. That should tell you something about loyalty. So top-class cars will continue to come from Uddevalla for as long as production goes on.

 
Have Asian manufacturers shown any interest in starting assembly in Uddevalla?
WF: Uddevalla´s legacy in regard to industrial know-how and loyalty should be invested in operations that are sustainable over the long term. Add to this the factory´s location, the harbor and a reasonably large town to live in and you have all the right conditions for industrial operations in Uddevalla. Car production is no longer sustainable in Sweden in the long term now that Asia is building up such large capacity.
 
The Uddevalla factory was created with the aid of government support. Does society have any role to play in the approaching situation?
WF: Running companies is not the role of politics. I feel that politicians should create a vision of the future and invest in the means to help us advance toward that vision. China pursues visions in five-year periods, but we're not good at visions in the West. Sweden cannot be active in every industry, but we know sectors that will become important and need of manufacturing and development for a long time to come. With its location between Oslo, Gothenburg and Copenhagen, Uddevalla could become a center for the development and manufacture of wave power generators and maritime wind turbines. We know there'll be an ever increasing demand for such equipment; it can provide long-term, stable business.

Other business activities should be possible in Uddevalla, such as the export of drinking water. Take water from Lake Vänern via a pipeline for purification in Uddevalla and ship it from there by tanker to countries that have water shortages. We know that increased precipitation is going to mean problems with too much water in Lake Vänern, and many countries will experience a growing water shortage.
With unemployment so high it's an utter waste to let competent individuals remain idle; start future-oriented industry projects and provide the unemployed with the opportunity to work in them. The town could take part in a vision of the future in which we start a business in Uddevalla with the goal of creating 1,500 qualified industrial jobs within three years.

 
Getting back to the automotive industry, the world population today is 7 billion of whom only 10 percent own a car; is this not a growth market we should be investing in?
I doubt whether it's a growth market for everyone. Automotive manufacturing is growing in Asia but is static in the rest of the world. And of course, manufacturing will remain in the USA, Germany, Spain, Italy and France where national loyalties outweigh EU and WTO regulations. The biggest issues around the world, and the growth sectors, are housing, energy, clean water, healthcare and education, not car production.

 
Pininfarina is famous for research and innovation; do they not need Uddevalla as a manufacturing unit?
WF: Pininfarina has no need of the factory and will not carry on any manufacturing. Since the dramatic downturn in the global economy in 2008 — at the same time as Pininfarina´s charismatic Andrea Pininfarina perished in a traffic accident — the company has experienced problems and from now on will only pursue design and development activities.

 
How will you market the Uddevalla factory?
WF: Extremely loyal, skilled workforce available. Elegant factory on a coastal site in an unbeatable logistical location for ships, road and rail in a city that's great to live in.