Ducati, now owned by Audio/Volkswagen, produces their motorcycles, here in Bologna, in a 78000 m² (840,000 sq ft) factory. The factory is, of course, located on Via Antonio Cavalieri Ducati street.
They offer tours, of both a museum and the factory, in English and Italian albeit on slightly different schedules. Online réservations and tickets are required. Masks and closed toe shoes are also required.
The tour of the factory and museum costs 32€, about $35 as I write this. A bit pricey, to my mind, like their bikes.
After passing through security at the gate and receiving a souvenir lanyard and ID card, the group gathers in the visitor center.
The tour is quite good. There is, however, NO PHOTOGRAPHY, quite a bummer. They put stickers on the lenses of your phone!
In the winter, off season, the factory produces about 100 bikes a day with about 200 employees. In the summer, they produce 300 bikes a day with seasonal workers booting the rolls to 600. All of the bikes are spoken for. No dealer inventory at this time. There were lots of young adults assembling bikes, all wearing black Ducati shorts and red Ducati shirts (following the Star Trek, red shirt for engineering tradition).
The factory follows the Toyota Kaizen, just-in-time, manufacturing process. There is engine assembly, engine testing, engine/frame integration, whole bike testing, quality control and inspection and shipping operations. 90% of the parts of the bike are sourced in Italy. Only two parts are machined at the factory. One is the cam for the Ducati Desmodromic valve closure mechanism, of which Ducati is very proud. This arrives as a rough casts and is machined to tight tolerances on site. A full, dry, moving model of an engine with the Desmodromic system is displayed.
The engines (4? different models) are assembled by two person teams on 11-32 stations depending on the engine. Each station has a prefilled tray of parts for that station as well as all of the tools needed for assembly. Cordless electric drivers each with their own bits (and torque settings, I imagine) are available. No bit changing. Every engine is held in a jig that allows it to be positioned in nearly any orientation necessary for assembly.
The completed engines are oiled and tested by an electric motor to 2500 rpm with measurement of oil pressure.
The engines are then boxed, temporarily, and moved to the engine/frame integration lone by a robotic cart that follows a painted line on the floor. This was one of the only robotic machines. The bikes are essentially assembled by hand.
The frame/engine integration lines are four person teams that move with the bikes from station to station. Again, prefilled parts trays and every tool at every station.
After frame/engine integration, the bikes are fueled and started in front of large ventilation hoods. All systems tested and measured with digital connections to a handful of connectors.
The bikes are then taken to a Dynomometer like setup for moving tests.
Next comes the final inspection for cosmetics. AS THEY SAID, this is mostly done by women who they think have a better eye for imperfections. Their words.
Then the bikes go to shipping. Of note, the shipper does final assembly of seats, mirrors and small plastic fairing parts before delivering to dealers. You cannot pick up a bike at the factory, but there is a dealership across the street!
Of note, there is a separate section of the factory behind a sealed, bright red, Ducati door where they work on the one off, competion, moto GP bikes. They take this competition very seriously and security is very tight.
The museum has a separate entrance and is above a portion of the factory. Interestingly, Antonio Ducati was a peer of Marconi and worked on early radio technology. His Factory produced radio components. Destroyed in the war, Ducati rebuilt as a motorcycle production facility.
At the entrance you can test for several of the current models of bikes.
They then have a collection of essentially all of the racing bikes from the earliest days of electric bicycles to the latest GP bikes.
In front, you can see where employees park😂
An enjoyable and educational morning.
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