Continental AG is expanding its Romanian site in Timisoara, the third time since its opening in 2006. Essentially, the expanded mega factory, which opened in November, will produce innovative User Experience solutions such as displays at the enlarged site.

Most importantly, the new investment will continue to make the factory as one of the company’s flagship production sites in promoting advanced automation and digital production technologies.

With an investment of around €40 million, the new site will grow the production area by over 7,000 to 18,000sq.m, increasing to more than 60 percent of space. However, establishing a mega factory not only marks an increase in area, but above all focuses on the technological innovation of production.

Bundles Capacities, Competencies

Recently, Continental has won additional major orders worth more than €2 billion from global vehicle manufacturers for its large display solutions. This brings the awarded lifetime sales for Continental display solutions with SOP after 2022 to over €7 billion.

With the expansion, Continental is bundling production capacities and competencies at a selected central location. With this mega factory strategy, the technology company continues to drive forward the paradigm shift in production of automotive user experience technologies and creates great advantages, both economically and technologically.

Especially, the extremely complex manufacturing of large display solutions such as C-Shape, L-Shape or Pillar-to-Pillar Displays requires bundled production volumes to increase in quality and speed.

“What used to be the horsepower under the hood is now the user experience. The way the occupants interact with the vehicle, connect, communicate, relax, is becoming the key criterion in the purchase decision,” says Philipp von Hirschheydt, Head of User Experience Business Area at Continental.

In addition, Hirschheydt said, “To satisfy our customer’s growing demand, we need to aim for the highest possible digitalization, standardization, and automation – and that is exactly what we are doing with our new mega factory in Timisoara. We bundle our competencies of products and technologies in this plant to put ourselves at the forefront of modern display production, driving the future of mobility.”

Highly Automated, Digitally Connected, Sustainable Facility

The Continental Automotive plant in Timisoara has been a pioneer in terms of digitally connected production technologies for many years. In fact, it has always been a benchmark factory for Industry 4.0. By focusing on people, standardization, automation and digitalization, the expanded plant in Timisoara covers all the crucial topics of future mobility.

Furthermore, future-proofs the company’s display production worldwide. Especially, the automation of simple tasks leads to a higher production speed while at the same time standardization ensures higher quality.

In combination with the focus on digitalization and people the expansion creates competitive advantages in the production of complex display solutions. Virtual Reality line planning, simulation and optimization will enable Continental to produce large display solutions at top speed with high quality and low invests.

Augmented Reality plays key role for maintenance and product development leading to cost savings and higher quality. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence and robotics support the employees.

“The demand for integrated display solutions is growing enormously. With this plant extension and our mega factory strategy, we strengthen our global manufacturing footprint to further enhance our capabilities to develop solutions for a digital future. By connecting our manufacturing process digitally, we enable production concepts of highest speed and quality…Timisoara is the ideal location for us to manufacture automotive high-tech electronics,” says Thomas Ebenhöch, Vice President Operations of the User Experience Business Area at Continental.

To illustrate, the electronic components factory in Timisoara produces more than 17 million products annually. These include for example airbag control units, electronic parking brakes, control units for air suspension. In addition, damping and vertical stabilization, power steering control units, as well as display solutions and head-up displays.