ZARAGOZA, June 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Groupe PSA factory in Figueruelas will assemble this Friday its last Mokka X. With this vehicle, which will leave the production line this afternoon, the Zaragoza plant will have manufactured 315,621 units of the model.
On July 10, 2013, Opel announced that the Mokka X was going to be manufactured in Europe, as well as in Korea, and that the production center would be the Zaragoza plant. Thus, in September 2014, the serial production of this vehicle began on line 1 of the factory.
Opel decided to manufacture this vehicle in Figueruelas due to the commercial success of this vehicle in Europe. The goal was for the company to be able to respond quickly to customer orders and adjust the overcapacity of the company’s plants on the continent. Therefore, the main countries of destination of the cars that have left Zaragoza have been Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and Turkey.
From 2014 until this June 28, 315,621 units of Opel Mokka have left Figueruelas, the last of them this afternoon. This model has been assembling 180 units per day and, in particular, 2,200 cars are produced each day of the plant.
TRANSITION MODEL
The end of the manufacture of the Mokka in Figueruelas was announced since its production began. This is because it was intended as a transition model for the plant until the arrival of new models on line 1.
These new models were the Crossland X and C3 Aircross, which are manufactured in the Zaragoza plant since 2017. Thus, line 1 is covered and, therefore, the Mokka substitute will not be assembled in Zaragoza.
In this context, the march of the Mokka will not mean that the Groupe PSA factory produces less. With the allocation of the new Opel Corsa and its electric version, as well as the good pace of the SUV, Citröen C3-Aircross and Opel Crossland, Zaragoza has assured activity and an important volume of production for the coming years. Although, obviously, everything depends on the acceptance of the vehicles in the marking and the social, economic and political context.
A CHALLENGE FOR THE PLANT
The arrival of the Mokka to Figueruelas was a challenge for the plant, since it was launched in record time – in less than a year from the announcement -. In addition, we worked for the first time with a development center in Korea, when the Zaragoza factory normally did it with the one in Germany.
For the logistics team, this launch was also an important challenge, since, together with its expert transport and logistics provider GEFCO, they spent a year preparing the strategic management of the supply chain, the design of the logistics architecture, the system of information that is applied to these integrated processes, planning routes and strategies ‘in-bound’ to bring from Korea the pieces that make up the model.
In this way, they designed a complex logistics chain to ensure the continuous supply of subcomponents to the plant. Thus, the goal of improving delivery time to customers was met.
In addition, the Mokka and the fifth generation of the Corsa, which began to take place in November 2014, assumed that more than a thousand people in 2013 were to work, totally or partially, to return to work. Thanks to this circumstance, there have been no more suspensive employment suspension files in the factory since July 2014.
PRODUCTION VOLUMES
“The Opel Mokka has been instrumental in improving the production volumes and utilization rate of our production capacity in a complicated time of overcapacity in Europe.” It was for the Zaragoza plant an element of motivation, since it allowed us to see the future with greater positivity and of course a great test for the staff that was successfully overcome “, have indicated company sources.
The Opel Mokka X will be available at dealerships until the end of the year and its replacement will be launched next year.