[satishv1987]

The picture says it all. Even the tiniest of screws that go into the making of the Volkswagen Golf are on display here.Every car is well and truly "greater than the sum of its parts".

[Ricci]

From the title of the thread, I thought you had a Polo and suffered a breakdown !

I work in a process area that's meant to track every part of the product, specifically software products in my case, but the principles are generic and can be applied to physical devices as well. Maintaining track of 1000+ different types of components must be huge software overhead.

[satishv1987]

Originally Posted by Ricci

From the title of the thread, I thought you had a Polo and suffered a breakdown !

Sometimes the level of automation in assemblies tends to obscure the complexity that goes into assembling a car . Keeping track of every single component must be a logistical nightmare. After looking at this picture,it boggles the mind to know assemblies churn out hundreds of such cars in a few hours.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by satishv1987

Every car is well and truly "greater than the sum of its parts".

That statement holds good in general. However, the cost of the parts is greater than the cost of the car.

For instance, compare repair costs as a percentage of the vehicle's value - what will surprise you is that these percentages are quite high!

That's exactly the reason why scrapyards break down vehicles into the smallest components and sell them.

[puchoo]

And this is precisely the beauty of the Assembly line - it takes all these thousands of parts and creates a harmony between workers, tools and machines

Originally Posted by satishv1987

Sometimes the level of automation in assemblies tends to obscure the complexity that goes into assembling a car . Keeping track of every single component must be a logistical nightmare. After looking at this picture,it boggles the mind to know assemblies churn out hundreds of such cars in a few hours.