BMW Boosts Goal For Worldwide Plant Efficiency

According to Automotive News, BMW's production chief has set a new goal for the automaker's factories worldwide. From now on, Frank-Peter Arndt expects plants to show efficiency gains of 7 to 8 percent each year.

That is up from the 5 percent that BMW demanded from its factories in the past, Arndt told Automotive News at a media event here introducing the X6.

The new crossover with coupe styling, which went on sale in April, is produced at the Spartanburg factory alongside the X5 crossover and Z4 coupe and roadster.

Yet in the midst of adding a vehicle to the production mix and a $750 million factory expansion, Spartanburg has a jump-start on meeting Arndt's new goal. Since January, the factory has reduced the amount of time it takes to assemble a door by 30 percent.

In the past, when a door came down the line, a worker would make several trips to different bins to collect the part needed. Consider that the plant builds six vehicle variants (the Z4 coupe and roadster also come in M versions) for more than 120 markets worldwide, and it adds up fast.

"If you have to walk 10 feet every 10 minutes to get something, you realize you spend 30 percent of your day walking to get a part," says plant spokes-man Robert Hitt.

At the suggestion of workers, BMW introduced what it calls a supermarket system for door assembly. Once workers know what vehicle is coming their way, they take what resembles an oversized hanging shoe rack to the "supermarket" and fill up the slots with the parts they'll need — in one trip.

Arndt said the task now is to translate such time-saving ideas to other parts of the plant, which is preparing to boost its annual capacity to 240,000 units from 160,000 by 2012. During that time, BMW also will move production of the Z4 to Germany and replace it with the next-generation X3 crossover.

"We have a lot of work to do, but I think this is a good start," Arndt said of the efficiency gains in door assembly.

Arndt said the Leipzig, Germany, factory is the reigning efficiency leader and the newest member of BMW's worldwide production network. Leipzig, which opened in 2005, produces the 3-series sedan and 1-series hatchback, coupe and convertible. The Spartanburg factory began production in 1994.

Arndt said BMW will take everything it has learned about efficiency from Leipzig and use it in Spartanburg as part of the U.S. factory's expansion.

Says BMW Group production spokes-man Ralph Huber: "The new Spartanburg assembly building will become the new reference or model within the production network."