Narrator: A german car company is making its mark in america.
Mysteries of the italian master coffee makers are revealed.
♪♪
A multipurpose construction workhorse
Has truly made a name for itself.
And razor-sharp technology is being used
To produce the world's most futuristic guitar.
These groundbreaking innovations are all taking place
Inside some of the most incredible factories
On the planet.
♪♪
-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Narrator: Situated along the tennessee river
Between nashville and atlanta,
This city is home to 180,000 people,
And now one of the most modern factories in the world --
Volkswagen.
The german-based car giant began production here in 2011.
♪♪
Chattanooga is volkswagen's only plant in the united states,
And it's their newest plant in the group.
Narrator: Built at a cost of roughly a billion dollars,
The factory campus covers 60 million square feet.
The buildings alone make up almost 25,000 square feet,
Enough space for over 2 million people.
But there are actually fewer than 4,000 people working here.
That's because they're joined by close to a thousand machines
Like these, at the cutting edge of robot technology.
[ whirring ]
♪♪
They've been programmed to lift heavy components,
To operate a welding lance with remarkable precision,
And to spray more evenly than any human operator could.
These intelligent robots turn out 750 automobiles every day.
♪♪
That's four cars every five minutes.
♪♪
This super factory is the latest and greatest
In cutting-edge vehicle production.
But that's not all.
It's officially classified
As the u.S.A.'s greenest automobile factory.
Since volkswagen was founded in 1937,
They've been responsible
For some of the most recognizable
Automobiles in the world.
Today, here at chattanooga,
They're producing one brand new model
And an update on an old favorite, the passat sedan,
A name familiar for four decades now in its eighth generation.
And a newcomer, the atlas s.U.V., launched in 2017.
The process of turning raw steel into a finished automobile
Is similar for both models.
It all begins in the body shop.
Body shop is the first step in the production process.
We receive pre-stamped parts from our suppliers,
And then these parts are distributed throughout
The body shop by our logistics team.
The body of the car,
The raw metal pieces, are pieced together like a puzzle.
So 80 percent of the work in the body shop is automated.
♪♪
What robots do best are tasks that are absolutely repetitive
With little or no variation, and that stands to reason
Because they're responding to the program
That the human operator has inputted it into the.
♪♪
Narrator: In the body shop, robots weld together
The vehicles' steel shell.
♪♪
They use what are called diode disk lasers,
Seven times more energy efficient
Than conventional laser welding machines,
Saving 220,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year.
But the laser robots emit so much light
That they have to operate in a sealed environment.
Their progress is monitored via a video feed.
Once all of these processes are done
And the raw metal is pieced together,
It's lifted up into an overhead conveyor
And shifted into the paint shop.
Narrator: The painting stage is a five-step process.
For the base coat,
The car body is totally immersed in a paint bath.
♪♪
After successive layers have been built up,
Robots carefully apply the final topcoat.
And then the entire shell is baked in a giant oven.
It takes a lot of power,
But volkswagen has adopted a green solution.
This super factory harvests its own electricity
From the sun.
Banks of solar panels, 33,600 in all,
Annually generate 13.1 million kilowatt hours of energy.
That's enough to power
Nearly 1,200 u.S. Homes for a whole year.
And it's 12.5 percent of this factory's yearly power usage.
♪♪
The land this factory is built on has a remarkable history.
This site was formerly an explosive factory
Operating from world war ii to the vietnam war.
Well, when volkswagen first moved to chattanooga,
We looked for areas that were brownfields,
Which means that they were previously industrial sites.
Narrator: The evidence of its former role is still here
In the surrounding woods containing abandoned bunkers
That used to store bombs, bullets, shells, and grenades.
Today, this site is very different.
Volkswagen's green initiatives here
Have earned it the top platinum award
From an international body called leadership in energy
And environmental design, or leed for short.
When we decided to build energy efficient,
We said, "let's go to the top of leed."
We were the first automotive facility that's leed platinum.
Narrator: Some of these new green practices
Are put to use down on the shop floor,
Where the workers are moving forward with making cars.
All the elements which need to be fitted
Inside the painted vehicle shell
Are pieced together on five separate subassembly lines.
Specialist teams are responsible for the engine and the chassis.
The point at which they're united with the body
Is known as the marriage.
Other teams look after the installation
Of the instrument panel...
♪♪
The wheels...
♪♪
...And then the trim, which defines the brand.
What's remarkable about the assembly line
Is how few robots they have here compared to the body shop.
My assembly shop is very human oriented.
We have less than a handful of robots, so almost no robots
In this assembly shop.
Out of the whole shop,
We have less than a handful of robots
Really only applying some of the adhesives.
So we really depend on our team members
For the quality of the product.
Stirling: In assembly lines,
Some of the jobs are just far too nuanced and varied
For a robot to be truly effective.
Tasks that require decision making,
Creativity, and on-the-job learning
Are really still best done by humans.
♪♪
Narrator: And that's definitely the case
On the final stage here
In the chattanooga super auto plant,
Where each finished vehicle's suspension is put to the test
On what must be one of america's most uncomfortable roads.
♪♪
The test driver goes through a rigorous checklist
To make sure everything inside the vehicle is up to scratch.
Every one of the 750 vehicles produced here each day
Undergoes this top-to-bottom check before being shipped out.
♪♪
Chattanooga's famous for its railroads,
And that's how these automobiles make their first ever journey.
[ chattering ]
In an efficient and environmentally friendly
Move by volkswagen, 80 percent of the factory output
Is dispatched by train instead of truck.
But the biggest advancement in sustainable technology
Is just around the corner.
Volkswagen, more so, arguably,
Than a lot of the other big names,
Has staked its future on electric cars.
They say the cost of batteries,
Previously the big limiting factor,
Has come down 80 percent in the last 10 years.
They say that over the next decade
They'll be releasing 70 electric models.
Narrator: Vw has named chattanooga as the site
To make its first electric vehicles in the u.S.
Models like these, including a new take on the legendary bus
Or camper van, ready to hit the road in 2022.
It's a massive vote of confidence
In this super auto plant
Now on the verge of becoming even greener,
Bigger, and smarter,
Making this one of the world's major centers
For producing the vehicles of the future.
♪♪
Coming up, mysteries of the italian
Master coffee makers are revealed.
And later, a construction vehicle
Built tough enough to handle whatever crosses its path.
This machine has been called the swiss army knife
Of the building site.
♪♪
[ beeping ]
♪♪
Narrator: Italians love coffee,
But nowhere more so than trieste,
Where they consume over 22 pounds a year,
Twice the national average.
And here in Italy's coffee capital,
There's one brand that stands out above the rest.
Illy has grown from one small cafe opened in 1933
To this extensive high-tech super factory.
From here, the company exports coffee
To 140 countries,
With seven million cups served every day across the world.
♪♪
Illy prides itself on tradition.
Three generations of the family
Have produced the same coffee blend for decades.
But there's nothing old-fashioned
About this business.
Illy invented the forerunner of the modern espresso machine,
The aletta, in the 1930s.
Ever since, the company has been driven by innovation
Through the whole coffee-making process.
♪♪
The story starts at the port.
Every week, ships arrive in trieste
From three different continents.
♪♪
Narrator: The beans are from 20 countries,
Including brazil, ethiopia, and india.
These well-traveled beans are first washed free
Of dirt and dust,
Then sucked up massive pipes
And pneumatically whisked over to the sorting plant.
Raw beans used to be checked by eye,
But now they get a much more high-tech inspection,
Thanks to another illy engineering innovation.
The bichromatic processor
Can check 11,000 beans a second.
The machine analyzes the color of every single bean
By running them past red, green, and infrared filters.
It may seem like overkill to analyze every single bean
In a 45-ton batch,
But actually sorting out the bad from the good is important.
It was a job that used to be done by eye,
But it is crucial because it takes only one bean
In a portion of 50 to spoil the flavor of your brew.
♪♪
But making a premium coffee is not just about sorting beans.
Here in the illy blending and tasting lab,
They keep it relatively simple.
They make just one blend of coffee.
And given seasonal variations in global production
And availability,
They're constantly striving to get the right mix of beans
For their traditional blend.
There are over 100 species of coffee,
But really only two
Are commercially grown -- arabica and robusta.
There are significant differences
Between these in terms of cost and flavor.
Robusta has much more caffeine than arabica,
Which you might think would be an advantage,
But actually, caffeine has a really bitter taste.
Well, arabica has more lipids, and these create a sweet,
Mellow flavor.
But robusta is much easier to farm.
It's got higher yields, and therefore is much cheaper.
In fact, half the cost of arabica.
Narrator: Robusta is the main constituent in instant coffee,
But it's rarely found in a quality blend.
Illy's top-secret formula
Is a combination of nine types of arabica beans.
The batches of beans are mixed and blended
In a highly restricted part of the plant.
Then they arrive here, the roasting room.
Narrator: Now the illy roasters employ their alchemy
To turn the raw beans into coffee gold.
To succeed, they must take 300 aromatic compounds
Contained in the raw beans
And more than triple that number.
They do that by roasting.
Narrator: The beans are roasted at 392 degrees fahrenheit.
The raw coffee bean really has a very limited flavor profile.
It's often described as green or musty.
But in that raw bean,
There's what you need to create flavor later.
There's sugars, carbohydrates, nitrogen compounds.
But it's not until the bean is roasted
That the potential of the flavor of the coffee is unlocked.
You actually create very volatile compounds
Which give aroma and the flavor profile
That is coffee.
Basically, coffee only tastes like coffee
Once the bean is roasted.
Narrator: But roasting coffee
Is a highly time-sensitive process.
And to uphold their reputation, illy has to get it just right.
♪♪
Narrator: Trieste is the coffee capital of Italy,
And home to the family-owned gourmet coffee company illy,
Who has been producing the same premium coffee blend
For decades.
At illy's super factory,
Raw beans are being roasted into coffee gold.
The control room team monitors the roast second by second.
Narrator: After 15 minutes,
The control room shuts down the process.
While correct roasting creates new compounds,
Over-roasting destroys them.
So now it's crucial to stop the cooking.
To keep the aromas intact,
The beans are blasted with cold air.
Now they need to get the coffee packed quickly,
Because once exposed to air,
The aromatic compounds will start to dissipate.
The roasted coffee is divided into two batches,
Some left as whole beans.
The rest is ground.
Coffee lasts longer
If it's stored in an airtight container,
Which keeps out oxygen and moisture.
Unlike most coffee producers who use vacuum-packed bags,
Illy uses tins.
Not only are the tins recyclable,
They're a great marketing device.
This brand-conscious company
Even sells limited edition artist-designed tins.
Back on the factory floor,
The tins are on their way to the coffee.
Narrator: The camera checks that the tin isn't damaged or dirty.
Once in the tins, the freshly roasted coffee
Is shaken -- automatically, of course.
Narrator: The coffee is in the can,
But now it's time for one of illy's most clever innovations.
They call it natural pressurization.
Narrator: Unlike oxygen, nitrogen is an inert gas,
Which means it doesn't react with the coffee,
Killing the aromas and therefore the flavor.
Pressurization effectively traps the essential aromas
Inside the tin,
Protecting the coffee from oxidization and humidity.
When I open a tin of coffee like this,
You get that really distinctive whooshing sound.
[ pops ]
That was the sound of the nitrogen rushing out.
And then...
[ sniffs ]
Oh, that amazing smell
Of thousands of coffee aromas.
It really is worth getting up for.
[ sniffs ]
Sadly, those aromas are even now starting to fade.
Roasted coffee loses up to 40 percent of its aroma
Over an eight-hour period.
♪♪
Narrator: Pressurized packaging was a major breakthrough.
It enabled illy to keep the aroma of the coffee
Constant at all times.
This innovation made it possible to export coffee
All around the globe from one site here in trieste.
Pressurized packaging was a major breakthrough.
It enabled illy
To keep the aroma of the coffee constant at all times.
But illy was the first major coffee company
To manufacture espresso pods, way back in 1974.
♪♪
Whether ground or whole beans,
In tins or espresso cups,
It all ends up here
In the futuristic illy packaging plant.
Here in trieste, people have been drinking
Illy coffee since 1933.
And now, in their super factory,
Illy is using science, innovation,
And the latest technology
To revolutionize how they manufacture their unique blend
And ensure that their coffee is enjoyed
By millions all around the world.
Coming up, the secrets behind
A construction jack of all trades.
Woman: This machine can dig, it can lift, it can load,
It can shovel, it can excavate.
Narrator: And later, in japan's guitar valley,
This highly distinctive guitar is putting the cut
In. Cutting edge.
Man: It is a challenge for most guitar factories
Because it requires a lot of precision
To actually obtain the features that we want.
♪♪
[ beeping ]
♪♪
Narrator: This super factory in rochester, England,
Is the birthplace of the go-to workhorse
For civil engineering, construction, and agriculture
That's literally helped build the world we live in --
The backhoe loader,
Known in the u.K.
And listed in the oxford english dictionary
As simply a jcb.
This machine has been called the swiss army knife
Of the building site -- it can dig,
It can lift, it can load, it can shovel,
It can excavate, and it can speed between jobs
At a steady 40 kilometers an hour.
Narrator: This revolutionary piece of equipment
Was invented by a maverick engineer
Working alone in his garage.
Gough: Jcb stands for joseph cyril bamford,
The man behind the legend.
His first attempt at producing a mechanical excavator in 1948
Was rather do-it-yourself,
He persisted, and five years later,
He came up with the world's first backhoe loader.
Today, jcb is a multi-billion-dollar company
With over 12,000 employees all round the world.
♪♪
Narrator: Jcb manufactures vehicles around the globe,
But this is what they call their world headquarters.
Here, 90 of the iconic backhoe loaders
Roll off the line every 24 hours.
♪♪
It takes five days to build a backhoe loader.
And this no-nonsense heavy working vehicle
Starts with a solid block of steel.
Carder: The chassis is the main structure
Which holds the machine together.
So all the forces and the stresses when you're digging
Actually go back through the chassis.
So it needs to be very, very tough and strong, durable.
Narrator: Cutting up steel used to be dirty,
Dangerous, and time consuming.
But here, they use lasers.
♪♪
Guided by a computer blueprint,
The infrared beam slices through hard metal
Like a knife through butter.
With high-speed precision, this intense beam of light
Cuts out the complex series of metal shapes
Needed to assemble the chassis.
♪♪
A laser is monochromatic light, usually blue or red,
Or it could be infrared or ultraviolet.
This monochromatic light shoots a much narrower beam
Over a much longer distance
And is much more precise and powerful.
Laser cutting used to be the stuff of james bond movies.
No longer is that the case. Now you'll find them
In industry, in universities, even in schools.
Narrator: This once solid sheet of steel
Is now sliced and diced,
Crisscrossed with outlines of chassis components.
And not only is the laser highly accurate,
It hates waste.
Carder: So after the laser cutting,
This is what's left over, which is now a scrap.
So we have around about 90 percent material optimization
And say minimal wastage.
Narrator: The scraps are recycled,
But what's left makes up the pieces of the digger jigsaw.
Before the pieces can be put together,
They need to be pressed into shape.
This machine can press up to 20 millimeters,
With about 230 ton of force.
So when the parts are being cut to shape,
They then get put into the presses
To be shaped into three-dimensional pieces.
Narrator: The steel has been lasered, shaped, and pressed.
Now it will be welded to form the chassis.
Welding essentially melts two metals together,
And where they touch,
When that metal solidifies, it binds them together.
And there are many ways of achieving this,
Including the most popular ways of arc welding
And gas flame welding.
And today there are numerous
Sophisticated ways of welding in very extreme environments,
Including underwater and even in outer space.
Narrator: Down on earth, at this plant,
It's not just humans wielding the welding torches.
Manual welding is carried out in tight spots.
Everywhere else, it's done by robots.
This robotic welder fires out a 5,000-degree fahrenheit
Burst of oxygen and acetylene gas,
Connecting up two sheets of metal in split seconds.
Once the chassis is all in one piece,
It needs to be smoothed clean.
To do that, it's bombarded at high velocity
With thousands of tiny steel pellets.
This process, called shot blasting,
Is carried out in an isolated chamber.
So this is the completed chassis,
Which has now been through the shot blasting machine
For about ten minutes.
That's all in preparation for painting.
Narrator: The chassis is sprayed with primer and gloss.
And here at jcb, there's only one color option.
So the standard color we paint all our machines
Is a jcb yellow,
Which is actually our own unique color
That you can't find anywhere else.
♪♪
Narrator: Backhoes were originally painted orange and blue,
But were later painted bright yellow
To make them more visible on busy construction sites.
This, the very latest in a long line of loaders,
Is ready to take its place on the assembly line.
Here, it will join the procession
Of partially built machines
Steadily moving down the floor level conveyer.
The jcb plant works around the clock.
Shifts may change, but loaders keep moving down the line.
It's time to bring in some power.
The dieselmax 672, produced 20 miles down the road
At jcb's engine plant.
This six-cylinder, 7.2-liter turbocharged engine
Has been updated to give increased fuel efficiency
And produce lower emissions.
With the engine and gearbox attached to the rear axle,
The chassis is swung over and neatly dropped into place.
But not all the power comes from the engine.
The front shovel and rear excavating backhoe are driven
By an extremely strong source of energy.
It's pumped through a series of hoses and pistons
And known as the hydraulics.
Hydraulic power systems are simple but extremely strong.
All sorts of things use hydraulics --
Trains, aircraft controls, braking systems, and of course,
The business end of diggers.
Hydraulics work by applying a force at one point
And moving that force to another point using liquids.
The hydraulic fluid is pushed through hoses at high pressure,
And it can deliver a huge amount of power
For driving machinery -- like the attachments on a jcb.
Narrator: This vehicle is almost all in one piece.
Now it's time for the cab.
With ergonomic controls, soundproofing,
Touch screens, and air conditioning,
This model is certainly an upgrade
From the 1953 original.
With the brakes and wheels fitted,
This brand-new model is just about ready
To get down and dirty and roll in the mud.
But first, this fresh-off-the-line model
Faces a series of performance tests
And rigorous inspection.
Carder: Every single machine goes through
A very, very extensive hot test.
Do about checks on every single machine.
♪♪
Narrator: From plates of steel to one of the hardest working,
Easily recognizable, and most iconic machines in the world,
All put together in less than five days
Here in one of the most advanced
Engineering plants in the world,
The jcb super factory.
♪♪
Coming up, a factory in japan's guitar valley
Is producing a highly distinctive sound.
♪♪
Man: It's really hard to make this kind of instrument
Because the neck back shape
Is particularly, you know, really unique.
♪♪
[ beeping ]
♪♪
Narrator: Three hours' drive west of tokyo
Is matsumoto, japan.
The city was once famous for its carpentry workshops,
But since the 1960s, it's been known as japan's guitar valley.
Squeezed in among the factories of guitar giants
Such as fender and gretsch
Is one much more bespoke operation,
Producing a highly distinctive instrument.
This is a strandberg.
With its headless neck and ergonomic body,
A strandberg simply doesn't look like other
Electric guitars look,
And it isn't made the way many other guitars are made.
It's put together using the very latest digital technology.
This instrument breaks the basic electric guitar mold,
Set as far back as the 1930s,
And is nothing short of a revolution in guitar
Design and manufacturing.
Strandberg may not be one of the world's biggest factories,
But it's definitely one of the smartest.
♪♪
Like all guitar makers,
The strandberg team starts off with a basic block of wood.
But unlike many manufacturers who use hardwoods
Such as maple or mahogany,
This team uses softwoods
Such as american basswood and swamp ash.
They're valued for resonance, what guitar aficionados call
A warm, sweet sound.
But it's when it comes to cutting the wood
To make the guitar body
Things start to get really different.
Instead of skilled craftsmen
Cutting out intricate shapes,
Here, an operator simply taps some computer keys.
Now the guitar's design blueprint
Is digitally relayed to the cutting tools.
This guitar is being made not by man, but by machine.
It's a process called cnc.
Cnc is the name that we give to computer numerical control,
And it's the idea that we can use automated control
To control machine tools,
Be that milling or lathes or several others.
Why it's really useful is it means
We can mill away complex contoured shapes
Like those on the strandberg guitar
Without having to have human interference.
♪♪
Narrator: Strandberg uses cnc
Because they're making a radically different
Type of guitar.
But the unusual shape and design
Are not there are just for show.
Designer ola strandberg has spent 12 years
Developing a guitar that he thinks not only sounds great,
But should also help musicians
Prevent repetitive strain injury.
Strandberg: All strandberg guitars use our patented shape,
Which is made to reduce the stress
On muscle joints and tendons
And allow you to play with a more relaxed hand.
♪♪
Which allows you to practice more
And become a better musician that way.
Rsi, or repetitive strain injury,
Is a massive problem in the music industry.
To reach elite status, you need to practice for hours on end,
And that means the same motions over and over.
Our bodies just can't deal with that.
A survey of american symphony orchestra players
Discovered that two-thirds of them had suffered from rsi.
Narrator: Strandberg uses cnc not only to make the guitar
More ergonomic and user-friendly,
But to drastically reduce weight.
Most guitarists perform standing up
So all the weight rests on the shoulder.
Compared to many conventional guitars
Weighing anything up to eight pounds,
The strandberg tips the scale at just five.
Ola strandberg believes this lighter weight
Is good for both the musician and the music.
So at the top of the body portion,
We cut this tone chamber
Partly to reduce the weight,
But also to introduce the tonal characteristics
Of a more lightweight and resonant body.
Narrator: The main body is cut
Next to a thinner piece of wood.
It's called the top,
And will become the decorative front of the guitar.
The top is made from flamed maple,
A wood valued for its attractive patterned grain.
Once the top and body are joined,
It's time to cut inserts for the electric controls --
The pickups, tone, and volume knobs
And the groove to attach the neck.
And it has taken some modern innovations
To precisely match ola's design.
Strandberg: It is a challenge for most guitar factories
Because it requires a lot of precision
To actually obtain the features that we want.
♪♪
Narrator: Japan's guitar valley, matsumoto,
Is home to the strandberg guitar factory.
Here, uniquely shaped electric guitars
Are made using the latest digital technology.
Overseeing the strandberg operation
Is nick "sugi" sugimoto.
Sugi has been making guitars since the 1970s
For guitar legends such as steve vai
And george benson.
He now works as a consultant for strandberg
And is a latter-day convert
To using computers to make great guitars.
Sugimoto: It's really hard to make this kind of instrument
Because the neck back shape is particularly,
You know, really unique.
If there's no cnc,
Impossible to make this kind of instrument.
Narrator: Guitar production may be based in japan,
But the design is the brainchild
Of swedish national ola strandberg.
So what brought this visionary scandinavian
Halfway around the world
To build his dream instrument here in japan's guitar valley?
Strandberg: It is a challenge for most guitar factories
Because it requires a lot of precision
To actually obtain the features that we want.
Narrator: Japanese artisans have a long tradition of both
Making stringed instruments and working with wood.
The two skills came together here in matsumoto
In the 1960s.
With the rock and roll boom in the '60s,
Everybody wanted cheap guitars.
Many japanese firms piled in, making knock-off fenders,
Gibsons, and so on.
But some of these guitars were so well done
That manufacturers in the states said,
"we'll offer you a contract to build the real thing."
Narrator: And for the guitar valley,
The rest was history.
This guitar is ready for a lick of paint.
That's a step too far for cnc.
This instrument now needs some good old human tlc.
The top is sealed and the rest of the body
Is sprayed with lacquer.
Next, several coats of stain are applied to the top.
The top is gently sanded after each layer dries.
This provides the optimum visual effect from the wood grain.
[ whirring ]
The body is then given one final clear coat, and polished.
♪♪
One of the most striking features on the strandberg
Is the revolutionary neck.
On a conventional guitar,
The strings are tuned at the top of the neck, the headstock.
Strandbergs don't have a headstock.
They're tuned lower down at the bridge.
Here, tuning can be comfortably achieved by the picking hand.
There's no need to stretch out to tune
At the end of the neck.
The strandberg neck doesn't just look different
From the standard guitar.
It's made in a totally different way.
Usually the neck is shaped roughly and quickly by machine,
Then finally shaped by guitar craftsmen.
On a strandberg,
Three glued maple wood squares
Are stuck together to add strength
And then routed to make way for the truss rod.
Like all wood, guitar necks
Are prone to bending due to humidity
And the tension caused by the stretched wire strings.
The truss rod runs the length of the neck
To counter these strains.
Pau ferro wood is now added to make the fretboard
Over which the strings are placed.
The back of the neck is even more complex.
A trapezoid shape is milled,
Which strandberg maintains results in far less stress
On hand muscles, joints, and tendons.
This unconventional neck needs an absolute precision
That can only be achieved
By cutting machines linked to cnc programs.
Strandberg: But because of this complex profile,
It requires much more accurate processing on the machine.
And then just the final, very final finishing
To be done by traditional methods.
It's one of the steps that's taking a lot of effort
To work with manufacturers to really perfect this process.
Narrator: Once the neck is attached to the body,
It's time to go electric
And add the pickups, strings, and controls.
The high-tech approach continues.
Instead of standard metal and plastics,
Aircraft grade aluminum is used on the pickups,
And carbon fiber for the pot, volume,
And tone knobs and switch.
In 2018, strandberg made 3,500 guitars,
But orders are rapidly outstripping production.
Whether this popularity is due to radical looks,
The sound, or lightweight ergonomic design --
Or a combination of all three -- is unclear.
But strandberg is rapidly ramping up production
To meet demand.
This company is just 10 years old,
But with its unique take on the revamping
Of a modern design icon, the electric guitar,
Strandberg definitely qualifies as a super factory.