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Carsales Staff4 Aug 2014
NEWS

Key Volkswagen executive "steps down"

VW Group production chief, Michael Macht, quits amid costly manufacturing delays

The head of vehicle production at the Volkswagen Group, 53-year-old Michael Macht, has relinquished his position on the Board of Management.

The move comes more than a year before his contract was to be renewed, and is the second such high-profile resignation within a week, amid rumours VW kingpin Dr Martin Winterkorn is unhappy with less-than-ideal profit margins and costly vehicle production delays.

Macht managed the crucial manufacturing deployment of the VW Group's MQB platform in its factories, a modular floorpan that underpins vehicles from the Skoda Octavia to the Volkswagen Golf and even the Audi TT.

The MQB platform has seen the company unite disparate models and components across its range of vehicle brands into one almost-uniform system, and although it has required extensive cost to introduce, the savings in the long-term could be significant.

However the EU's biggest car maker is now facing delays for the production of some key models, including the Golf. One of its largest factories, Wolfsburg in Germany, is costing the company big bucks in delays and overtime payments to staff due to what Der Speigel newspaper reports was the installation of malfunctioning manufacturing equipment.

The equipment itself is understood to have costs hundreds of millions of Euros.

Whether these reported incidents lead to Macht's demise will perhaps never be known, as Volkswagen's official line is that the former production boss is "stepping down" from his post "by mutual agreement with the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft".

Macht was formerly the head of Porsche until 2010 and joins VW's 54-year-old global marketing boss, Simon Thomas, as another casualty of Winterkorn's "no excuses" stance in the last week.

It is reported that Winterkorn is unhappy with the current delays surrounding the rollout of MQB vehicle production facilities, and says it will require a "tremendous effort" to implement the ambitious plan across the company's numerous brands.

"Michael Macht has taken the Volkswagen production system further forward. We would like to thank him for his achievements," said Winterkorn in an official parting statement.

Macht took the company's annual vehicle output from 6.7 million to 10 million units, and stated that "The Volkswagen Group and its employees are unique and I am deeply grateful to have been part of this company.

"I am convinced the Group will continue its successful and sustainable growth of recent years," he added.

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Written byCarsales Staff
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