More on the PM Malta's factory with a Swedish schooltrip tour of the factory related by their Headteacher in 1997 hence the reference to manual assembling...
The visit to the Playmobil factory.
3EA's visit to the Playmobil factory,
On Tuesday we went to Zejtun where the Playmobilfactory is. Playmobil is a part of the Brandstätter group. We arrived at nine p.m. outside Playmobil. There we was met by an engineer. He gave us a short briefing of what we were going to see and a little warning that we had to stay behind the yellow lines. The factory was separated in two buildings, something that was not so good, because then they had to transport things between the buildings. This because the production has been larger and larger, and the area of the factory had grown, the area of the factory is now 22 000 squared meters, compared in the beginning it was only 2500 squared meters. But now they had planners to build more, so all the buildings got together again.
The first we start watching was how they made the forms for the toys. This hall was in a building a few meters away from the mainbuilding. The whole production start when they receive a drawing from Germany. This drawing they draw again with a computer, the drawing program was autocad. This drawing was then transferred over to a machine that cut the pieces for the form. When all the pieces was made, they were put together manually. Afterwards we walked to a production locale were the forms were put into machines that pushed the forms together and fill them with plastic. some of the forms were so advanced that they could make two pieces with different colours, but they also had one bigger that could handle three different pieces with different colours an put the pieces together. After the melting it was still some plastic left. This pieces was transported to a room were they cut the pieces together so they could be reused.
Afterwards we walked to the main building again to see how they put the pieces together. This part of the process was not automatic. The cause the packagesection not was automatic was that many people needed work. Some of the pieces was just putted into bags and packed. This because many people likes to build the things together them selves.
At last we went to the section that paint the plastic figures. Most of the painting process was automized. Here it was a smell of alcohol and de people that worked here was not using any kind of protection.
The Playmobil factory at Malta has about 750 workers and they had some more on offices around the world.
We also got the chance to purchase some of the items produced in the factory, and of course we couldn't miss that oportunity!
Playmobil's cool!
One thing that was kind of sad was that some of the places was so small and noisy that the entire class didn't get to hear what our guide said
We said thanks for the tour and gave him a small gift, a special glas from our town, the Trondheim glas. Afterwards some of us went to the beach and others on a boat trip.
We'd like to thank Playmobil for a nice tour of their factory!
