15 June, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Over the past few years there has been a significant increase in demand for Volvo Trucks. This record number of customer inquiries has presented challenges in meeting the demands; such is the case in Australia where most Volvo Trucks sold are custom built at the Brisbane Factory in Australia. With the Brisbane Factory currently undergoing works to increase its capacity, Sweden stepped in to assist Volvo Group Australia in meeting their customers’ demands for new Volvo Trucks by calling on its factories in Tuve, Sweden and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The first truck, a Volvo FH13 Euro 5 6×4 recently came off the assembly line at the Arabian Vehicles & Trucks Industry (AVI) facility in the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), Saudi Arabia. As no other market in the world is like Australia, this project required extensive global collaboration – made all the more challenging by COVID.
In a Global first, the Australia team invested in HoloLens, an augmented reality solution that allowed team members at the Brisbane Factory to remotely support the local team in Saudi Arabia, giving them the needed guidance and training on how to fit the Australian localized and custom parts and completing the quality audits on the trucks as they were being assembled. Members of the Brisbane team also flew to Saudi Arabia to offer on-the-ground training and support while others worked with local suppliers in Australia to put together the local Australian kits for all the unique Australian variants that were being sent for assembly in Saudi Arabia.
“We would like to pass on a huge thanks to the team in Saudi Arabia for supporting us to increase our volumes of available trucks in the face of customers’ demands. Our colleagues in Saudi Arabia have gone above and beyond to build these trucks for us, and I cannot thank them enough,” said Mr. Gary Bone, VP Volvo Trucks Australia
Mr. Nasser J. Bayram, Zahid Group President – Transport and AVI’s Chairman of the Board added, “We are pleased to be part of the Volvo’s Industrial System and to showcase Volvo Truck’s Global ability in coming together as one Global team to meet the demands of Volvo customers across the globe.” Mr. Bayram added, “From Australia to Sweden and Saudi Arabia we are using technology and augmented reality while depending on our talented and well-trained local workforce to overcome all the challenges to better serve our customers. We would like to thank our colleagues in Sweden for their trust in our local team’s competence and quality workmanship and for their support to deliver on the needs of our friends in Volvo Group Australia.”
Global Crisis. Global Team. One Volvo.
