BMW Group Wins Suppliers' Choice Award

DETROIT, March 3 -- BMW Group has been named a winner of the Automotive News Suppliers' Choice Award, which is given to automakers and OEMs who best encourage -- solicit, implement and reward -- and foster supplier innovation as part of its total business plan.

The award was presented to BMW at the annual Automotive News PACE Awards ceremony last night in Detroit.

"This reflects a 10-year effort to build the supplier base from 22 to more than 120 companies in the U.S.," said Dr. Helmut Leube, president of BMW Manufacturing Corp., the company's only factory in the United States.

"Without innovation and continuous improvement, there is no BMW. This drives BMW to create strategic alliances with our supplier partners, both in product and process development," he said.

BMW, Nissan and Toyota were chosen out of 11 automakers that manufacture vehicles in North America. BMW is credited with promoting innovation with its suppliers, encouraging ideas from suppliers, responding to supplier ideas, and the ease in which suppliers can introduce ideas.

Winners were determined by a J.D. Power and Associates survey conducted on behalf of Automotive News. The survey was sent to executives at automotive supplier firms that are responsible for sales, marketing, operations, engineering, and/or overall management.

In the survey, supplier executives were asked to rate automakers from 1- to-10 on 40 attributes grouped into five categories: trustworthiness, openness to new ideas, ease to work with, willingness to reward innovation, and effectiveness at implementing innovation.

BMW, Nissan and Toyota consistently were ranked at or near the top in every category.

BMW Manufacturing is a subsidiary of BMW AG in Munich, Germany. Its website address is www.bmwusfactory.com. In addition to the South Carolina manufacturing facility, BMW's North American subsidiaries include sales, marketing and financial services operations in the United States, Canada and throughout Latin America; an information technology consulting and systems integration firm in South Carolina; a production facility in Mexico; and a design firm in California.