High performance: how Porsche is future-proofing its ageing workforce
The FT's Patrick McGee gets hands on with Porsche's cutting-edge ergonomics at their Leipzig factory, in Germany, and sees the technology that's helping skilled staff take the strain and work into their sixties
Produced, filmed and edited by James Sandy
Transcript
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We're here at the Porsche factory in Leipzig, one of the most innovative car factories in the world. The technology isn't just going into the cars. It's also helping workers do their job.
The tech here ranges from the mundane looking to the mind-blowing. And to talk me through it is Porsche's ergonomic specialist, Anne Heinrich.
Yeah. Porsche is in the centre of attention. That's why ergonomics is part of our strategy to optimise all work places at our plant. It supports the quality and the function, but especially it supports the health of our employees.
Some of the equipment looks deceptively simple. Fortunately, Anne is on hand to explain the deeper significance. OK. So these guys look like they're in office chairs. Describe what they're doing.
Of course, it's no standard office chair. It's a special chair for working under the cars. It uses the strain and neck, and you have the tray for the tools and for some parts. And the chair has a smooth rolling rollers.
So they can sort of dash from one area to the other, or even to a different car, and it's pretty easy. Elsewhere, the tech is much more impressive. Rotating the entire chassis of each car so workers don't have to raise their arms above their heads.
It's definitely easier for me to work not with the head up. So I can have not to put my arms to that height, and I can work more in front of my body. And it's much more easier. I have more power to put the stuff inside the car. And when I see my other older colleagues, I think I can work, still, much longer here in this facility. Maybe the next three decades or yeah.
Helping employees work later into their lives is key for factories across the country. Germany's birth rate is one of the lowest in the world, and immigration alone isn't enough to replace skilled workers lost to retirement.
Together, with rising life expectancies and the ageing of the baby boomer generation, the population is ageing and the workforce is ageing as well. So if Germany can't deal successfully with an ageing workforce, then productivity and innovation is at stake because we need older workers to work successfully, to grow the economy, and to keep innovating.
So how much of a difference can technology really make for the average factory worker? I'm about to find out. I don't feel like I could lift more. But I could do something a thousand times. And I think I could probably just hold my arms out for half an hour if I wanted to. It doesn't even feel like anything. OK. So I may not have magically become Iron Man, or even a half decent production worker, but it soon became clear that this technology would provide much needed support if I were doing this job all day long.
So when I lift this, I don't feel like I have superhuman strength, but it's also easy for me to do this repetitively. So, you know, in a sense, is that the point of having this technology?
Yeah. Right. That's the goal of our exoskeleton. To make the working lives much easier for the employees.
The objective here is to take the strain off employees, regardless of their age. As other countries face the challenge of ageing workforces, it's a philosophy that could keep our workers and our economies moving.