BMW Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Its Munich Home Plant

May perhaps 20, 2022

Munich. The BMW Group is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Munich house plant. The organization has been production its goods as “Bayerische Motoren Werke” at the web page in the Milbertshofen district considering the fact that 1922. At an event to mark the anniversary, CEO Oliver Zipse emphasised how: “Our household plant – appropriate in the heart of the metropolis that is Munich – has defied the elements of time. Simply because there have often been persons who kept this web-site shifting, generally with the ideal instinct for the occasions and, higher than all, with a apparent look at to the long term.” Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter spoke of a “strong motivation to Munich as a small business hub.”

It all commenced with plane engines and bikes. Then, from 1952, the plant moved on to start developing vehicles, which are nevertheless popular the environment over to this working day, together with the iconic BMW Isetta, racing legends this kind of as the M3 and, due to the fact 1975, the most successful of all BMW designs: the BMW 3 Sequence. “Our roots are in Munich. This plant is our origin. And our potential,” reported Milan Nedeljković, Member of the Board of Management for Manufacturing at BMW AG: “It’s a substantial-tech manufacturing internet site. All-around 900 major-excellent BMWs depart this plant each and every day. 5 various types with all varieties of travel. This proves the higher versatility, but also the huge breadth of expertise and capabilities of the folks who operate below. They are the driving pressure powering every thing that happens here.”

In its 100th anniversary yr, the Munich plant is impressively demonstrating the foremost job it plays in the age of electromobility. The all-electrical BMW i4, for case in point, presently tends to make up a quarter of the output quantity – and soaring: “The need between our clients for the new BMW i4 is enormous – so we’re ramping up output even more. Following 12 months currently, each 2nd motor vehicle leaving the Munich plant will be fully electric. Going by present strategies, that suggests extra than 100,000 BMW i4s from the heart of Munich for shoppers all over the entire world,” announced Oliver Zipse, with Milan Nedeljković including: “This implies that, by 2023, our dwelling plant will already have accomplished the BMW Group’s worldwide purpose for 2030, specifically to increase our proportion of BEVs to 50 percent”.

“The introduction of the BMW i4 was an spectacular feat of integration into an present manufacturing system, and demonstrates the plant’s enormous potential for transformation,” Plant Manager Peter Weber additional. “Within much less than 5 decades, we have progressed from only producing combustion engines to developing hybrids and the completely electric i4. This usually means that we now manufacture five distinct models with all the distinctive travel forms on a single creation line. This shows that this manufacturing facility actually understands transformation and is the embodiment of alter and flexibility.”

In conjunction with the BMW Group’s Analysis and Innovation Heart (FIZ), the Munich plant has normally served as an interior middle of excellence, disseminating expertise about procedures and systems, as nicely as the knowledge gleaned from 100 yrs of engine and motor vehicle output to other crops all around the globe. Illustrations of this innovative prowess involve producing the initially collection of the completely electric MINI E, the legendary Z8, and the electric particular edition of the BMW 1602 for the Summer months Olympics in 1972. Not to point out Job i, culminating in the innovative BMW i3, which also originated at the Munich plant.

The Munich plant’s powerful position as a paragon of the BMW Group’s output network, now and in the potential, is shown by its transformation into an iFACTORY – the strategic learn program devised by BMW Team Manufacturing, emphasizing ‘lean’, ‘green’ and ‘digital’. Manufacturing Board Member Nedeljković: “The BMW iFACTORY epitomizes what we are aiming for with our manufacturing in the future and is location new standards. We are employing them globally, in all our vegetation – here in Munich as very well as in our new plant in Debrecen, Hungary.”

The Munich plant’s composition is also undergoing transformation. The website of the previous paint store is becoming transformed into a new system design facility, and from 2024 the organization will be setting up a wholly new assembly to create the all-electrical ‘Neue Klasse’ on the site of the current motor-developing facility. “This will hold the Munich plant competitive and make sure it remains a ahead-searching production web-site,” emphasized Plant Manager Peter Weber.

Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter highlighted the point that the plant has ongoing to evolve in parallel with the residential city spot that surrounds it and has remained a worthwhile employer: “The BMW father or mother plant in Munich has played a notably substantial role in BMW’s accomplishment tale, which spans over 100 yrs. It has made pioneering vehicles – this kind of as the Neue Klasse in the 1960s and the 3 Collection – which were instrumental in making the firm a achievements,” mentioned Reiter at the anniversary party. “As a consequence, I am all the additional happy that BMW ideas to create its household plant in an impressive and sustainable way according to its ‘urban production’ motto, using into account the industry’s transformation towards electromobility and digitalization. This is a sturdy motivation to Munich as a business spot and to securing and producing jobs in our city in the extended time period. I would like to thank the corporation for this endeavor and supply my sincere congratulations on the 100th anniversary of BMW’s 1st plant,” Reiter added.

The mayor also mentioned the outcomes of the a short while ago concluded architecture competition “BMW Munich – Urban Production”, which the firm introduced in fall 2021 in partnership with the point out cash Munich. The intention was to capitalize on the plant’s distinctive locale in the metropolis center. This will involve producing the full sophisticated visibly more available and open up to its neighbors.

The two profitable workplaces, OMA from Rotterdam and 3XN from Copenhagen, resolved on a joint endeavor to more create their layouts, and introduced this concept to a superior-caliber jury final week. Their eyesight for the long term of manufacturing at the BMW Group plant in Munich will now be utilised to produce a new master plan.

With this master plan, as well as the structural optimizations now in the functions, the Munich plant will concentration on the BMW iFACTORY concepts LEAN. Green. Electronic. Collectively, these principles make certain that this unique site – the BMW Group’s century-outdated guardian plant – will have greatest overall flexibility, exceptional procedures and outstanding integration capacities about the coming many years.