Volkswagen AG

Based on interview with Dr. Ferdinand Schultz and Dr. Marcus Schutz (respectively Project
manager and project member of WW.DECK) during site visit on April 15, 1999, Wolfsburg,
Germany.
Organisational goals
The goals of Volkswagen Group that were sought for with the organisational learning project are:
Enable flexible production;
Enhance the development of cars based on the same platform for different brands Golf A 4,
Audi A3, Volkswagen Beetle and Skoda Octavia;
Ensure high quality for each brand and factory;
Offer a range of cars from low budget economy class to very exclusive;
Get component quality of all group members at the same level;
Use customer information systematically.
Knowledge Management Goals
Goals that where seen by Volkswagen Group as instrumental for reaching those organisational
goals:
Disseminate local innovative solutions world-wide;
Make knowledge accessible when it is needed;
Share knowledge systematically;
Share failures systematically;
Prevent reinvention of knowledge;
Prevent erosion of knowledge when people leave the company.

Knowledge infrastructure
Instrumentation of the knowledge management system (i.e. knowledge infrastructure) that was put
in place for reaching the organisational goals. The following categories will be discerned: leadership
& management, organisational structure & HRM, processes and Information & communication
technology.

Leadership and management
Support from top:
o At the moment WW.DECK is financially supported by the top;
o There is a strong cooperation with the IT-department;
o In the future they must become self-supportive;
Working bottom-up generating critical mass, behavioral change of people must be intrinsic.

Organisational structure and HRM
LINE project (Learning in Networks): education via intranet for Volkswagen;
Local WW.DECK coordinators to overcome cultural problems;
Events for top managers about knowledge sharing.

Processes
Making cooperation within informal and formal expert networks systematic and if possible
improve it give the network experts support to improve their knowledge sharing.

ICT
Yellow-pages for expert network (job family orientatet);
Documentum (document management system) to let the network build its knowledge
warehouse.

Support structure
The supportive structure put in place for the knowledge infrastructure includes:
Central WW.DECK team of 9 consultants (and still growing), its role:
o Giving advise to Volkswagen Group members,
o Helping local project teams with knowledge management initiatives,
o Doing the project management (coordination) of the WW.DECK projects,
Their customers are Volkswagen Group departments, factories and experts networks,
o The customers give their requirements to WW.DECK,
o WW.DECK learns from its customers too!
Decentral WW.DECK coordinator at Volkwagen truck division, Audi, Seat, Skoda, and the other
regional Volkswagen Group sites world wide.

Detailed description

Abstract
Volkswagen Group is a worldwide operating company headquartered in Wolsburg, Germany with
factories in e.g. Germany, USA, South-Africa, South-America, China, Australia. They own a large
range of brands i.e. Volkswagen, Volkswagen truck division, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Lamborghini,
Benteley, Rolls-Royce and Bugatti. In 1997 they produced 1.5 Million Volkswagens, 0.5 Million
Audis, 0.5 Million Seats and 0.4 Million Skodas with a workforce of 279,872 people and a
generated sales amount of DM Million 113,245.
In October 1998, on the initiative of board member Dr. Hartz, Volkswagen started with its
knowledge management programme called WW.DECK (World Wide Development and Exchange of
Corporate Knowledge). Since Spring 1997 the programm was prepared in a crossfuntional team of
differnet departments of Volkswagen. In the beginning there were just two fulltime consultants part
of WW.DECK, today they are already with 9 people piloting various knowledge management
projects in Volkswagen Group. WW.DECK has a very clear, almost blueprint, of their knowledge
management programme and are working on a large range of possible places across Volkswagen
Group and on various levels, e.g. HRM, ICT and change management. They continuously keep
listening to their customers, the Volkswagen Group employees, to get new requirements for the
knowledge management methods, tools and techniques. Although they are backed and fully
sponsored by the board of Volkswagen Group, they still have to convice the Volkswagen Group
factories of the benefits of knowledge management, so the implementation is done in a bottom-up
way. At the moment WW.DECK is evaluating their first knowledge management projects.

Situation scanning
History of Volkswagen
Most people are aware of the genesis of the Volkswagen Beetle as "The People's Car" prior to the
Second World War, designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche to put the German people behind the wheel
of an affordable car. What most people do not realise is that production did not start until after the
Second World War and that it was the British Army that started what is the modern day Volkswagen
Group!
After the war, the British Army found itself as the manager of what was left of the Volkswagen
factory. More than 60 percent of it had been destroyed during the war. All the prototype cars had
also been destroyed. They offered the company first to the Rootes Group in the UK and then to
Ford. Both companies turned down the car and company saying that the Volkswagen had no future.
So the British Army appointed Major Ivan Hirst, a bank manager from Yorkshire, to run the plant.
Remarkably he lead the Volkswagen workers to produce 1785 Beetles by the end of 1945. The
following year the figure was up to 10,020. The Beetle was well and truly on its way. Exports began,
to the Netherlands, in 1947 and to the USA in 1949 and in the same year the British Army
relinquished control of the plant and Volkswagenwerk GmbH was formed, under the control of the
German Government.

From then on, the history is one of Production milestones and new importers opening their doors.
The million mark is passed in 1955; production in Australia starts in 1957; the five million mark is
passed in 1961; ten million in 1965 and 20 million in 1971.
The 1970s saw the birth of a new Volkswagen and whole new range of successful cars. The first of
the new generation was the Passat, like all that were to follow it, front wheel drive and watercooled,
arrived in 1973. The Scirocco, a stylish Coupe debuted in 1974.
The Passat also saw the launch of what is arguably the most successful family of engines of all
time, the EA827 family.
This unit has been the basis of four, five, straight six and V6 and V8 engines, running on petrol,
diesel and ethanol, with two, four and five valves per cylinder, normally aspirated, turbo and
supercharged.
They have sold in millions, won world championships and set records for speed, endurance and
economy.
But it was the Golf, launched in the same year, that lead the company to new levels of success.
Sales were outstanding, a million in just 31 months, and the Golf opened up whole new sectors of
the market.
The Golf GTi invented the 'hot hatchback'; the Golf Diesel refined diesel cars; the Golf Convertible
brought open top motoring back to the forefront of production and the Golf Syncro brought four
wheel drive to small cars.
Volkswagen brought the Detroit Motor Show to a standstill in January 1994 with the unveiling of
Concept One, a modern interpretation of the most famous Volkswagen of all, the Beetle.
Three months later Concept One appeared again at the Geneva Motor Show, but this time with a
new partner, a convertible. The welcome for the car was amazing with crowds 50 deep around the
display. So great was the welcome that the decision was made to put Concept One into production.
By the middle of 1995, Volkswagen has produced 66 million cars, including 21 million Beetles, 16
million Golfs, six million Passats and more than seven million Transporters. 1995 saw the European
launch of the Volkswagen Polo and its instant acclaim as the new benchmark for the supermini
class. It has been applauded for its class leading refinement, safety, styling and 'big-car' in a small
package.
Initially available as a four and three door hatch, it has been joined by a sedan version and a
'bubble back' commercial model called the Caddy. Power comes from a range of petrol and diesel
engines with the option of manual or automatic gearboxes.
The major launch in 1995 was that of the Sharan, the fruit of a joint venture between Ford and
Volkswagen, with the German company providing the vehicle and Ford setting up the factory in
Portugal under the AutoEuropa banner.
Like Polo, Sharan has been lauded as a new benchmark, offering new standards in the people
mover class. It is not been described as car-like on the road: It is better than most normal cars! Yet
it has room for seven people in a compact outside package. It is available with a choice of two
petrol - 2.0 and 2.8 litre - and a 1.9 direct injection diesel engine, matched to manual and automatic
gearboxes with a four wheel drive Syncro option to come.
The arrival of the Sharan means that Volkswagen has set the benchmark in both the large people
mover and medium people mover classes with the Caravelle and Sharan, respectively.
Volkswagen's scene stealer at the Frankfurt Motor Show was Noah. Although another people
mover, this vehicle showed Volkswagen's advanced thinking with its aluminium frame, wooden floor
and styling than can only be described as aggressive!
Volkswagen, once again, stole the limelight at the 1996 Tokyo Motor Show, with the revelation that
Concept One will go into production in Mexico and on display was the productionised car. Still with
the Beetle character, the new car now sported all the legal and safety requirements of a new car
and it was made on the platform of a production car, the Group's new A-class platform. With the
announcement that right hand drive will be available, the car is set for launch in Australia before
then end of the decade.
1996's star launch was the all-new Volkswagen Passat, with a range of technology that has sent it
straight to the top of the class, while revisions to the Transporter and Caravelle have helped them
extend their class leads.

About Volkswagen
Volkswagen Group is a worldwide operating company headquartered in Germany with factories in
e.g. Germany, USA, South-Africa, South-America, China. They own a large range of brands i.e.
Volkswagen, Volkswagen truck division, Audi, Skoda, Seat Lamborghini, Benteley, Rolls-Royce,
and Bugatti. In 1997 they produced 1.5 Million Volkswagens, 0.5 Million Audis, 0.5 Million Seats
and 0.4 Million Skodas with a workforce of 279,872 people and a generated sales amount of Million
DM 113,245.
In October 1998, on the initiative of board member Dr. Hartz, Volkswagen started with its
knowledge management programme called WW.DECK (World Wide Development and Exchange of
Corporate Knowledge). Since Spring 1997 the programm was prepared in a crossfuntional team of
differnet departments of Volkswagen. In the beginning there were just two fulltime consultants part
of WW.DECK, today they are already with 9 people piloting various knowledge management
projects in Volkswagen Group.

Needs for change
The main knowledge management problem of Volkswagen is the multicultural and global working
organisation. Since they are operating world wide, their company is multicultural and since they own
various brands, from economy class to exclusive sportscars, they are a multi brand company too.
This of course is a enourmous advantage regarding financial advantage, but on the other hand its a
huge barrier to knowledge sharing too.
The main reason for the existence of barriers for sharing knowledge are the differences between
the brands, to be more specific: someone who builds Volkswagens is Volkswagen and is different
from someone who builds Audis who is Audi.
This difference is good on the level of design and marketing, the various brands of the Volkswagen
Group should be competing on these levels. On the level of manufacturing and engineering, the
competition is not always useful and therfore not always wanted. Due to the fact that the
automobiles of Volkswagen Group are build platform-based (Golf A4, Audi A3, Volkswagen Beetle
and Skoda Octavia have the same platform), a large collection of parts in these cars is the same.
This means that if an engineer of Volkswagen finds an improvement to a certain part, he should
communicate this to the other brands engineers so they can benefit from this improvement. Most of
the engineers know that this is the best way to work and therefore various networks between these
engineers already started to exist in an informal way.
The WW.DECK team is focussing projects in different parts of the company. One good example is
the laboratory network (counting 600 spezialist) with around 600 members worldwide. Since this is
the place to start formalising, systematising and if possible improving these networks and making
them a knowledge management example for other Volkswagen Group.
Volkswagen Groups need for change was stated in the following organisational goals:
Enable flexible production;
Enhance the development of cars based on the same platform for different brands Golf A 4,
Audi A3, Volkswagen Beetle and Skoda Octavia;
Ensure high quality for each brand and factory;
Offer a range of cars from low budget economy class to very exclusive;
Get component quality of all group members at the same level;
Use customer information systematically .

From these organisational goals the following knowledge management goals were derived:
Disseminate local innovative solutions world-wide;
Make knowledge accessible when it is needed;
Share knowledge systematically;
Share failures systematically;
Prevent reinvention of knowledge;
Prevent erosion of knowledge when people leave the company.

Design and implementation
In order to reach the organisational goals the following instrumentation of the knowledge
management system (i.e. knowledge infrastructure) was designed and is now improved and in parts
implemented. The following categories will be discerned: leadership & management, organisational
structure & HRM, processes and Information & communication technology.

Leadership and management
Support from top
At the moment WW.DECK is still financially supported by the top of Volkswagen Group. The initiator
Dr. Hartz and two other boardmembers fully support the initiative. This means that for the
WW.DECK team the focus can be totally on the problems itself. They can for instance get strong
support from their IT-department. The objective for the future is that they must become self-
supportive.

Working bottom-up
Although the board of Volkswagen is backing the WW.DECK knowledge management programme,
this doesnt mean that everybody in the enterprise immediately starts doing it. People have to see
the real advantages of the programme, otherwise they wont put the effort needed into it.
Knowledge management is a behavioral change and the motivation for such a change must be
intrinsic.

Organisational structure and HRM
Education via intranet
WW.DECK cooparates with a project called LINE (Learning in Networks). The aim of the project is
to provide education via intranet for Volkswagen.

Local Coordinators
To overcome cultural problems WW.DECK has deployed local coordinators in the various
Volkswagen Group sites.

Events for top managers
In the first phase of WW.DECK they had Theseus Institute (Sofia Antipolis, France) organize an
event about the importance of knowledge sharing for Volkswagens top managers. This was a
vehicle to energise and motivate the managers of the Volkswagen plants to start shifting their
employees minds to sharing knowledge and moreover facilitating their employees with the mainly
time and other means to be able to share. It seemed that e.g. engineers were already sharing, but
werent supported by their local management to do so, so they did it without support.

Processes

Systematizing laboratory networks
As mentioned before, in the section called
Needs for change, the WW.DECK team in one project is focussing on the Laboratory Network of the
Volkswagen Group. These network consist specialist which in example controll quality of parts of
Volkswagen Groups automobiles for instance they work on the durability aspects of cars and its
components. These experts who are working on durability were already collaborating on a world-
wide scale, since they knew they could learn from each other. Given this fact, WW.DECK took this
network as a point to start from (the mood of these people was already good). WW.DECK asks the
network what would make their knowledge sharing tasks easier and based on these requirements
they provide the network with the means to improve, systematise and formalise their knowledge
sharing.
The end goals for corrosion is to become a world-wide Corrossion Knowledge Market of 200
corrossion experts (expert learn from each other).
Finally the objective of WW.DECK is to use this Corrosion laboratory network project as an example
for other networks, to demonstrate the benefits of knowledge sharing, trying to seduce them do
adopt the same methods and in the end have a knowledge market of experts.

ICT
Network Directory
One of the tools provided to networks is the so-called Yellow-pages. For example the 600
specialists of the network can use this web-enabled directory to publish themselves including their
competencies. Doing so they can find knowledgable experts for problems at hand. Knowledge
warehouse for example Documentum (document management system) is used to let the networks
build its knowledge warehouse.

Support structure
The supportive structure put in place for the knowledge infrastructure includes:
Central WW.DECK team of 9 consultants (and still growing), its role:
o Give advise to Volkswagen Group members,
o Help local project teams with knowledge management initiatives,
o Do the project management (coordination) of the WW.DECK projects,
o Their customers are Volkswagen Group factories and experts,
o The customers give their requirements to WW.DECK,
o WW.DECK learns from its customers too!
Decentral WW.DECK teams at Audi, Seat, Skoda, and the other Volkswagen Group sites.

Change management
At the moment WW.DECK is still financially supported by the top of Volkswagen Group. The initiator
Dr. Hartz and the other board members fully support the initiative. This means that for the
WW.DECK team the focus can be totally on the problems itself. The objective for the future is that
they must become self-supportive.
Although the board of Volkswagen is backing the WW.DECK knowledge management programme,
this doesnt mean that everybody in the enterprise immediately starts doing it.
People have to see the real advantages of the programme, otherwise they wont put the effort
needed into it. Knowledge management is a behavioral change and the motivation for such a
change must be intrinsic.

Some key points
Reason for change must be intrinsic WW.DECK works on IT, HRM, Change Management, et
cetera;
Evaluate knowledge management initiatives continuously outcome is analysed by WW.DECK
and leads to new implementations, slowly leading to a standard solution;
Bottom-up - knowledge management is not mandatory, WW.DECK has to convince local
managers by demonstrated competence.

Evaluation
No results available yet, at the moment WW.DECK is conducting its first evaluation interviews
throughout Volkswagen Group.

Higher level results aimed for
Recrute junior engineers more easy the good knowledge infrastructure should make
Volkswagen a nice place to,
WW.DECK becomes VW.DECK;
In the future knowledge sharing between brands and factories is strongly focussed on
bussiness processes and it should become a push and pull function in the organisation.
Key learnings
Identify existing informal networks and build upon them;
Middle management can block knowledge sharing, even if experts are willing to - competition
on branding (design and marketing) is good, not on level of experts;
A very structured and comprehensive approach.

References
Presentation material WW.DECK
Annual report of Volkswagen Group
www.volkswagen.com.au/briefhis.htm
Contact Information
Volkswagen Coaching Gesellschaft mbH
Dr. Ferdinand Schultz
Project manager World Wide Development and Exchange of Corporate Knowledge
WW.DECK
PO Box 1057/9
D-38436 Wolfsburg
Germany
tel: +49 5361 97 1358
fax: +49 5361 97 1563
Email: ww.deck@volkswagen.de