BOLOGNA, ITALY—For decades, owning an Italian motorcycle required a tradeoff. On one hand, Italian bikemakers led the pack with gorgeous designs and the most exotic, highest-performing engines in the world. No other country could come close to matching the sounds and smells of a Ducati, Moto Guzzi, or Aprilia revving by. But build quality and reliability always presented a challenge for owners, not to mention parts availability and exorbitant maintenance costs.
Ducati arguably led the charge in every regard, setting a standard as the Ferrari of the motorcycle world with eye-catching Rosso Corsa red paint jobs to go along with real racing success in MotoGP and World Superbike thanks to famous—some might say infamous—desmodromic engines. However, In recent years under Volkswagen Group’s ownership, Ducati has made great strides in reliability and build quality, which explains to a large extent why 2022 was the firm’s most profitable year ever, with 62,000 bikes sold worldwide.
During a recent trip to Italy, I visited the Ducati factory in Bologna to learn how modernizing the production facility at Borgo Panigale helped improve the bikes built there over the decade since joining the Volkswagen group.
A quick primer on Ducati’s infamous desmodromic valvetrain
The first stop after stepping inside the factory, where Ducati prohibits public photography, provided a helpful primer on the way that desmodromic engines function. A cutaway engine mounted on the wall demonstrated the physical movement of pistons within cylinders, as camshafts and crankshafts spun under simulated electric power. Essentially, desmodromic engines solve a flaw inherent to using valve springs, which provide the forces to open and close valves as the engine inhales gasoline and air, then combusts to produce exhaust.
In most engines, from basic commuters to high-performance hypercars, metal valve springs need to operate within a wide range of temperatures and at different engine RPMs. At those higher revs, though, the valve springs don’t move faster—and in fact, metal softens with heat, meaning that the springs will provide less rebound force onto the valves when hot. Advancements in camshaft profiles and electronic timing can help to improve performance at the top of the rev range, but only to an extent limited by immutable thermodynamics.
As the fake engine on the wall showed, the desmodromic system does away with springs, instead using a solid rocker arm or arms pushed by lobes on the camshaft to perfectly time the opening and closing of intake and exhaust valves. The system can therefore move more quickly as revs ramp up while also avoiding almost all of the potential softening due to heat. Ducati isn’t the only company to use desmodromic valves, which were invented in the mid-1800s and even showed up in Mercedes-Benz’s iconic “Silver Arrow” Formula 1 cars in the 1950s.
The desmodromic system isn’t a panacea, though, and it comes with its own inherent challenges, too. The solid rocker arms and rotating cam lobes do create more friction than valve springs, which increase wear on these solid components that need to stay within microscopically tight tolerances to perfectly time the valvetrain. Hence the longstanding fear among motorcycle aficionados that desmo Ducatis require frequent valve clearance checks, historically as often as every 5,000 miles (8,000 km).
For racing on the world stage, when high-RPM performance is most critical but long-term reliability is perhaps less so, desmodromic valves gave Ducati a competitive edge (though most MotoGP bikes now use pneumatic-hydraulic valve systems). But for anyone who regularly rides a motorcycle for a daily commute or even weekend fun, those short intervals before a desmo-equipped bike required an expensive and time-consuming service made Ducati motorcycles a tough sell.
In the modern era, Ducati’s improved metallurgy and manufacturing processes allow for up to 18,000 miles (29,000 km) between valve clearance checks—even for an engine as radical as the new Hypermotard Mono’s 659 cc Superquadro engine, the most powerful single-cylinder ever with output rated at 77.5 horsepower (57.8 kW). (Note, however, that 18,000-mile interval still pales in comparison to the 36,000 miles recommended for Ducatis that use “traditional” valve springs.)
As we turned away from the Desmodromic display, I now knew what to keep an eye on in the factory to more fully comprehend what, exactly, has changed over the years.
Factory organization at Borgo Panigale
Upstairs in the factory museum, directly above the production line, a timeline of Ducati’s history tells a story of how a small company that originally built radio components, razors, and calculators grew into the most recognizable motorcycle brand in the world. After tearing down the factory during World War 2, Ducati then reinvented itself post-war because Italians could no longer afford such luxury goods as radios. By 1946, the first motorcycle, known as the Ducati 60, rolled off the line—then in 1956, the first bike equipped with a desmodromic engine.
The interim years included racing dominance and a series of ever more powerful and diverse motorcycles, most of them hand-built in the Borgo Panigale facility. But in the past two decades, Ducati has begun to increasingly rely on just-in-time production methods and robotic assistance for the human workers who still handle most of the build process. After my tour, I spoke with engineering manager Franco Lanza about the process of integrating into VW Group’s corporate structure.
“What happened is that we didn’t have any, let’s say, external pressure to change anything in our organization,” Lanza told me. “When we were acquired, the mantra that came from outside is that Ducati must remain Ducati. On the other hand, this opened all doors of the sister companies. We can visit, have meetings, and benchmark our sessions with our sisters. And actually, what we can say is that our production processes right now are very similar to one of our sisters, that it’s more Porsche than Audi. Many aspects, lean thinking, and just-in-time processes were of good inspiration to Ducati.”
At Borgo Panigale, most components arrive two to three days before assembly. Around 1,200 people staff the factory year-round, though fluctuating seasonal demand requires another 350 workers early in the calendar year. Most of the factory maintains a standard 9–5 schedule, though some work seven-hour shifts in the low season and nine-hour shifts in the high season.
“Our production lines operate on a strategy of model mix, so every line serves different products, different motorcycles,” Lanza explained. “To do this, you have to operate according to guidelines, inspired by the one-piece-flow, using kits for every bike that you want to produce. That means the employment of many, many computer-controlled machines, digital machines—for example, machines that allow us to operate with precision on very complex components like the camshafts or the crankshafts. And also on the other hand, some digital 3D measuring machines that are very sophisticated, very complex, with a synthetic body and carbon shafts that are intended to operate inside industrial environments, not in labs, so they have to be very sturdy.”
Ducati initiated new assembly line layouts in 2017, five years after joining VW Group. For the most modernized V4 engines powering the Multistrada and Panigale lineups, each bike will travel through 32 stations, spending five minutes at each. An operator follows each engine through one-quarter of the build process to keep eyes on a large enough portion in the hopes of identifying any issues early on, while also avoiding burnout that might result in errors. Three empty “wait” stations provide an opportunity to correct issues without interrupting the assembly line’s flow.
V2 engines, meanwhile, get one operator for the full engine build, which takes around 1.5 to 2.5 hours. At each step along the way, digital tracking of components and the entire engine assembly via QR codes, identicards, and cameras help to maintain quality-control standards. The system also tracks the workers themselves, who are incentivized with bonuses for zero defects in their work and also participation in additional training programs.
Machines in the mix, too
For components that arrive from outside suppliers, Ducati performs regular and random quality checks. But many of the most important engine parts are also built in-house, including camshafts and crankshafts that go straight from the foundry on site to CNC polishing machines running 24 hours a day, seven days a week with precision up to 1/10th of a millimeter.
“Having the machining inside our factory is really crucial to us,” Lanza said. “It’s very, very important because it allows us to develop proprietary tech that we can keep to ourselves and may give us a competitive advantage. All camshafts, both for desmo and spring valves, are all produced inside the factory. This is something pretty unique, and it’s something we are very proud of.”
After the cam and crankshaft polishing, the first step is connecting the crankshaft to connecting rods and cylinders. Then, an immediate check for lubrication pressure and temperature ensures no defects that may require a teardown. Robotic arms help the next processes by applying glue and gaskets in high temperature and pressure systems far more precise than the human hand. A cold test, which uses an electric motor to rotate the full assembly, next puts pressure on the closed systems while checking electrical connections.
With the engine assembled and preliminary testing completed, each moves on to full motorcycle assembly. Up to eight operators work on individual sections of the bike in four phases, and each bike can take days to finish, including any delay time. At the end of the line, long-tenured workers perform a visual inspection before fueling and firing up the engine for the very first time.
Lanza told me it’s very unusual now for an engine not to start on that first try because electronics have been one of the main focuses for Ducati’s modernization process—especially critical for rider safety these days with increasingly complex traction control, stability control, and anti-lock braking sensors and programming. The robots assist with assembly here, too, soldering wiring harnesses and ECUs but also checking electronic connections early and often once the entire wiring harness has been installed.
Final checks and random tests
Ducati claims that the new assembly line strategies, including digital tracking and, somewhat surprisingly, longer shifts for each operator working on each bike, have combined to reduce production errors by a factor of 10. The overall goal is for 92 percent of bikes to leave the line without a single problem throughout the entire assembly process.
But after leaving the factory line, the job isn’t done. A random selection of bikes then goes to the Nardo Ring test track in southern Italy for real-world top-speed testing, along with a duplication of previous quality-control inspections. And a separate building at Borgo Panigale also houses special lighting and lenses to check for material flaws that would be invisible to the human eye.
One area of the factory remained conspicuously invisible to my eye throughout my hours-long visit: Ducati Corse. Competitive pressure means that Ducati keeps the race team entirely hidden from the main factory floor and, of course, the public. Behind those walls, only 120 people work on MotoGP and world superbikes, with different storage, tracking, and individual checks required for every single component that ends up on the seven bikes built per rider per year. For example, a single MotoGP engine will take eight working days to build, while advances to MotoE bikes also forge a new path forward into the electric motorcycle era.
History in motion
Visiting the Ducati factory and museum affords a view into the evolution of the modern facilities that make new motorcycles simultaneously more powerful, easier to ride, and more reliable. Upstairs in the museum, guests can explore the long history from early gasoline-powered bicycles to the most impressive race bikes in the world.
And that historical continuity lives on today, as Ducati’s popular Scrambler still uses an air-cooled, two-valve “Desmodue” twin (that still requires 7,500-mile/12,000-km valve clearance check intervals). How long that Scrambler’s engine will survive into the future remains a question, as Ducati continues to focus on improvements not just to the physical production processes but also the strategies behind them.
“You might see the inspiration of the Panigale’s roots in the 916,” Lanza told me, “But also for the way of thinking, continuously developing innovation is not only relevant for introducing new features on a product or having better performance. Innovation is also done with materials, with quality of materials, and following that up with the innovation in the processes that allows us to keep evolving and innovating in terms of quality and reliability of our products.”
In Ducati’s case, two decades of just-in-time production and now a full decade learning from Volkswagen has only enhanced every bike’s quintessential Italian appeal, from ridiculously powerful crotch rockets to comfortable commuters, stately cruisers, and even an expanding off-roading ADV lineup. Still painted in Rosso Corsa red and still the most recognizable motorcycle brand in the world, Ducati can now offer all the exoticism without requiring the sacrifices that fans used to willingly make to ride their favorite bikes on the planet.