As part of Volkswagen of South Africa's (VWSA's) initiative to achieve 70% local content on the vehicles produced at its Uitenhage plant, in the Eastern Cape, the company invested R5,6-million investment in a body-panel washing machine.

"The installation of the Tsusho-designed body-panel washing machine will significantly increase the local content of vehicles manufactured for domestic and export markets, which include Japan and the UK," says VWSA production director Tom du Plessis.

"The Tsusho machine is one of only two blank body-panel washing machines currently used in South Africa, and was installed by the local manufacturing company, LN Manufacturing.

"Working around the clock, LN Manu-facturing installed the machine within seven working days."

The machine increases the efficiency and precision of the production process by cleaning and oiling ten large body panels a minute.

The panels are picked up with pneu-matic suction cups, and are then ‘washed' by means of stripping the exterior of dirt and smoothing out the surface in the process.

From here, the washed panels are trans-ported to the press shop, where they are processed and then used in the assembly process in the body shop.

VWSA is gearing up for large-scale Polo production, dropping the Golf/Jetta produc-tion platform, and is investing R3-billion in renewing its manufacturing plant in Uitenhage.