East London-based Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) is set to boost its production capacity by 25% before the end of the year.
The company’s chief executive Arno van der Merwe said this yesterday at a celebratory event marking the one-millionth passenger vehicle, a C-Class, to roll off the company’s East London assembly line.
He said increasing demand – especially from overseas markets – prompted the local plant to beef up capacity and move towards increasing production by 25% by the end of the year.
“What we are doing now is playing to win and we continue to push boundaries and since the start of W205 there has been a very strong demand.”
The East London plant is one of four Daimler factories around the world producing the current C-Class. MBSA has previously reported that it produces 100000 units a year in the city. The local plant has produced 24 models since 1958, starting from the Ponton to the S-Class in the 1970s and the E-Class from 1986 to 1994.
Van der Merwe said the plant was likely to reach another milestone of the two-millionth car within a decade.
“All things being equal and remaining the same, it will take a lot less than 57 years to produce another million cars. It will take less than a decade.”
He decried the notion of an inefficient South African workforce, saying the achievements at MBSA showed that if employees were given space to be part of a company’s vision they could be committed.
Member of the divisional board Mercedes-Benz Cars, manufacturing and supply chain management Markus Schäfer said: “One million Mercedes-Benz passenger cars made at the East London plant illustrate the remarkable development this location has seen over the years.”
MBSA started manufacturing the latest C-Class a year ago after a R5-billion injection.
In preparation for the new vehicle, employees were groomed to work on advanced new production technology, thanks to R68-million being channelled into training initiatives.