June 5, 2009

Today we had a long day. We got up and headed straight for the Daimler plant where Mercedes buses are built. Outside of the US, Mercedes also markets commercial vehicles, from ambulances to trucks and buses. This plant built public transport buses for cities and towns. It was neat to see the entire operation up and running, especially since two of our past visits (John Deere and Yazaki Wiring were both shut down). I was surprised at how little of the factory was automatic. There were many men there wielding and putting together the buses rather than a bunch of robots. It was fascinating to see these huge commercial buses being put together. We saw the plant finishing up an order for Dubai and they had been custom built so that men, women, and children all sit in separate sections of the bus. Crazy. After our meal and a quick presentation, we headed back to Heidelberg where we had class for 2 ½ hours. We were wrapping up the last section of Comparative Economics with Dr. Greer. We then had the night free, so a bunch of us went out and ate dinner.