There is hardly a better place than the MAN plant in Ankara to get an idea of the future of bus transportation. In the Turkish capital, the commercial vehicle manufacturer from Munich, located in the south of Germany, not only produces city, intercity and long-distance buses and coaches for the MAN and NEOPLAN brands – the company’s engineers are also developing the models of tomorrow and beyond in the adjoining Product Development Center.
Bus and coach production is a highly complex process, as almost every vehicle is unique. “We almost only produce one-offs because our customers have very specific requirements in terms of equipment,” says Mehmet Sermet, CEO of MAN Türkiye A.Ş. In addition to the high expectations of their customers, there are also constantly new regulatory requirements, most recently the EU’s Cybersecurity Directive. This required changes to the hardware and software of the buses, which further increases the complexity of production in Ankara.
“In the past, gluing and welding were our core competencies,” says Sermet. “Now they are more in the areas of electrical engineering and electronics. In addition to precise work preparation, this also requires a new approach to quality assurance. This was exactly the focus of a project carried out by MAN in Ankara together with Porsche Consulting. “The central idea behind the project was a change in the quality culture: In the future, every employee should be responsible for completing the assigned tasks to a high standard,” explains Oliver Stahl, Partner at Porsche Consulting.