Success Story Volkswagen

Visual communication for productivity management and industrial engineering — exclusive design style, dedicated graphic system, 12+ videos.

Video ProductionIndustrial EngineeringCorporate Training

About the company

The Volkswagen Group is one of the world’s leading automotive manufacturers, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany. It operates globally with 115 production sites in 19 European countries and 10 countries in North and South America, Asia and Africa. The group employs around 676,000 people. Its vehicles are sold in more than 150 countries.

With an unrivalled portfolio of strong global brands, leading industrial-scale technologies, innovative ideas for tapping future profit pools and an entrepreneurially minded leadership team, the Volkswagen Group is committed to shaping the future of mobility through investments in electric and autonomous vehicles, digitalisation and sustainability.

Volkswagen Logo

The company owns ten core brands from five European countries, organised into brand groups: the Core brand group with Volkswagen, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, ŠKODA, SEAT, CUPRA; the Progressive brand group with Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati; and the Sport Luxury brand group with Porsche.

With technology platforms and value drivers, Volkswagen consistently leverages synergies and scale effects across the entire group and all brand groups.

In addition, the group comprises a wide range of further brands and business areas. These include trucks, financial services — covering dealer and customer financing, leasing, banking, insurance and fleet management.

Over its long history, the Volkswagen Group has become synonymous with iconic models such as the Volkswagen Beetle, the Golf and the Porsche 911.

The Volkswagen promise: through electric drives, digital connectivity and autonomous driving, we are making mobility cleaner, quieter, smarter and safer. At the same time, the core product is becoming even more emotional and offers a completely new driving experience. The car will remain a cornerstone of sustainable, individual and affordable mobility. Furthermore, the Volkswagen Group is committed to the Paris climate agreement and was the first company in the industry to commit to becoming net-CO2-neutral by 2050 — for our vehicles as well as for our plants and processes.

Challenge and objective

Holistic productivity management

With a pioneering strategy, Volkswagen is driving digital transformation in productivity management to harmonise group-wide processes and make human work more productive and ergonomic. A particular focus is on the interface between people and technology, especially in manufacturing processes that can only be checked for risks and challenges during execution in the plant. Innovative technologies come into play here. In the future, production lines are to be virtually described and validated before any vehicle even goes into series production. This creates maximum planning certainty and increases efficiency in handling valuable resources.

In 2017, this innovative strategy and its implementation across the different brands and plants needed to be communicated. In this context, Volkswagen’s Industrial Engineers play a decisive role. They are the experts for the entire production process, from development to the final product, and ensure that line workers can work ergonomically and efficiently.

Volkswagen gears production
Volkswagen data visualisation

To convey this complex concept and the newly developed products clearly, Volkswagen was looking for support in creating suitable communication materials. This marked the beginning of a long-term partnership on equal footing between Volkswagen and the supporting team.

Approach / results

Our focus in the collaboration was to develop a visual concept that communicates the company’s vision, strategic goals and initiatives for productivity management and the Industrial Engineers in an understandable way.

Our work is characterised by an exclusive design style, complemented by numerous bespoke graphics developed specifically for the group. In doing so, we created a dedicated graphic system that grows with every new project.

Volkswagen Big Picture

Our illustrations are used across various media formats, including videos, infographics, presentations and digital product portfolios. We are particularly proud of the “Big Picture” — a complex infographic that depicts the entire productivity management as well as all work steps and systems clearly in a virtual production environment.

A significant milestone of our collaboration was enriching the communication concept for virtual roadshows, in which around 15 percent of the group’s approximately 2,000 Industrial Engineers participated. This experience shows once again how diverse visual communication can help convey even the most complex topics in an understandable and engaging way. We supported the company in communicating the strategy successfully and audience-appropriately, and in marketing internal products effectively.

Over the course of our partnership, we have produced a total of twelve videos for the group. In addition, for a newly developed planning system we handle not only the concept and production of explainer videos but also the graphic design, including logo and icon design. It is a pleasure to continue accompanying Volkswagen as a partner agency and to contribute to making pioneering innovations easier to understand.

Christian Schupik

“Everything we have produced together with vjsual has been a success — our products are now known worldwide!”

Christian SchupikChange & Qualification Management in Industrial Engineering, Volkswagen Group

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