Porsche has acquired a 9,000 metre site for a new training centre at its Zuffenhausen factory in Stuttgart.
Expected to host 500 of what Porsche calls ‘career entrants’, the new centre will encompass “all technical and commercial professions and courses of studies of the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University”. Alongside a training workshop to focus on the latest technologies, the facility provides training rooms and office space. The centre will also host further training for employees working outside production.
This facility will replace Porsche’s current training centre, which the company has now outgrown. The huge sales growth and associated production rises planned for the next few years will mean upping the apprentice count by 50%, not to mention keeping its existing and additional workforce up to speed.
“[Porsche] can meet the impending shortage of skilled workers only by offering more and better training,” saus Uwe Hück, Chairman of the Group Works Council. “We have now achieved an increase in the number of apprentices from 100 to 150 per year, which will all be taken on for an indefinite period. The new training centre permits Porsche to meet its social responsibilities. I can only say this is an excellent decision for the youth – and for Porsche.”
A secondary aim of the project is to improve Porsche’s urban landscape. The centre is part of a larger development to better arrange the Porsche plant structure. Porsche says the current arrangement was shaped by the difficult conditions of the past decades: the aerial picture up top shows the full layout. I find it charming with everything gathered around the original Werks, but charming is not the Porsche way.
My new Porsche, is the 2013 Boxter-S. It’s formidible !