BMW plant Leipzig

BMW plant Leipzig
legal form	Production plant
founding	August 2001
Seat	Leipzig , Germany
management	Hans-Peter Kemser has been Head of the BMW Group Plant Leipzig since December 1, 2015.
Number of employees	around 5,400 employees on the factory premises
Website	www.bmw-werk-leipzig.de

The BMW plant in Leipzig is an automobile plant the company BMW , which in on 13 May 2005 Leipzig was opened. The new plant has been in series production since March 2005. The production capacity of the plant is over 1000 vehicles per day, of which around 180 are electric vehicles.

Plant structure

BMW Plant Leipzig - aerial view

BMW Plant Leipzig - outside of the central building

BMW plant Leipzig - central building inside

BMW Plant Leipzig - body shop

BMW plant Leipzig - paint shop

BMW plant Leipzig - assembly

BMW Plant Leipzig - Central Building

The factory structure is characterized by the fact that the three main production halls (body shop, paint shop and assembly) are grouped in a circle around a central administration, communication and service building (central building). This means that the production areas are networked with one another over short distances. Another special feature is the patented finger structure (also a comb structure) of the assembly hall, which is unique in the industry . This makes it possible to keep the logistics routes very short and, if necessary, to flexibly insert additional production steps by extending individual fingers, without having to interrupt ongoing production.

history

The tender

As part of the company's ongoing product and market offensive, the number of vehicles produced by BMW has risen continuously in recent years to over 1.3 million cars per year (2005). In order to be able to build up the required additional production capacities, a location for a new plant was sought in Europe from mid-2000. After a comprehensive selection process, Leipzig was awarded the contract on July 18, 2001. In addition to the inexpensive workforce and the flat terrain, there were arguments in favor of Leipzig for a new plant, above all the good industrial supplier industry for the automotive industry in the Chemnitz - Zwickau region and the qualified and motivated employees available there. Most recently, in addition to Leipzig, Augsburg , Schwerin , Arras (Northern France) and Kolín ( Czech Republic ) were in the running, and Leipzig's neighboring city of Halle had also applied.

Construction phase

The three-year construction phase began unofficially in August 2001. The 208 hectare property had to be leveled first, and almost four million cubic meters of earth were moved. At the same time, the connection to Leipzig's existing infrastructure began, for example with the expansion of the motorway connection to the Leipzig exhibition grounds. The groundbreaking ceremony on May 7, 2002 marked the official start of construction and, at the same time, the start of building construction. After the production halls were almost completely erected on April 29, 2003, the foundation stone of the central building was laid, and the installation of the production facilities could already begin in autumn 2003. At that time, more than 4,000 people were working on what was then Europe's largest industrial construction site.

In spring 2004, the greening of the site and other compensation areas in the Leipzig city area began. More than 2,200 native trees were planted, more than 4,000 cubic meters of hedges were planted, almost one square kilometer of poor grass was sown with wild herbs and a wet biotope with 5,000 square meters of reeds was created. Overall, it was calculated by biologists that after completion of the site the ecological value of the plant was 105 percent above that of the meadows and fields previously located there.

The first fully assembled vehicle was manufactured in the Leipzig plant on July 8, 2004, and test operations began until March 1, 2005, when the first customer vehicle rolled off the assembly line as planned. The 100,000th vehicle was manufactured on June 16, 2006, and the 250,000th on July 3, 2007.

The total investment was around 1.2 billion euros. In addition to the costs for the property, this amount includes all construction work, systems and technical equipment as well as product-related investments (e.g. special robots or tools) up to the start of series production in 2005.

Central building by Zaha Hadid

The central building is the communicative center of the plant. This is where the essential communication relationships come together. It is noticeable that the bodies are transported between the production areas above the workstations in order to show the employees the product at all times. The central building was designed by the London architect Zaha Hadid . She had been in a design competition , prevailed, had participated in the 24 offices around the world.

The central building was awarded the 2005 City of Leipzig Architecture Prize and the renowned German Architecture Prize 2005 , among others . This prize is awarded every two years by E.ON Ruhrgas AG under the patronage of the Federal Chamber of Architects.

Press shop

On September 9, 2009, a press shop and a production center for the manufacture of doors as well as front and rear doors were inaugurated.

Manufactured models

2005–2009: BMW 3 Series Sedan ( BMW E90 )
2007–2012: BMW 1 Series three-door ( BMW E81 )
2007-2013: BMW 1 Series Coupé ( BMW E82 )
2008-2013: BMW 1 Series Convertible ( BMW E88 )
2009–2015: BMW X1 ( BMW E84 )
2011–2012: BMW 1 Series M Coupé ( BMW E82M )
2012–2019: BMW 1 Series five-door ( BMW F20 )
2013-today: BMW 2 Series Coupé ( BMW F22 )
2013-today: BMW i3 ( BMW I01 )
2013 – today: BMW i8 ( BMW I12 and since 2018 also I15 )
2014-today: BMW 2 Series Active Tourer ( BMW F45 )
2014-today: BMW 2 Series Convertible ( BMW F23 )
2015-today: BMW M2 ( BMW F87 )
2019-today: BMW 1 Series five-door ( BMW F40 )

Others

One of the plant's four wind turbines

In May 2013 four were wind turbines of the type Nordex N100 put into operation, the feed produced electricity directly into the grid of the work. Each of the turbines has a nominal output of 2.5 MW, a hub height of 140 meters and a rotor diameter of 100 meters, making a total of 190 meters high. The operator is wpd AG , the calculated annual electricity yield is 28 GWh . In 2013, BMW stated that 100% of the electricity required for the assembly plant for the electric i-models was covered by its own wind power.

Since October 2017 there has been a storage farm made up of 500 old and new BMW i3 batteries to compensate for power fluctuations.

230 apple trees were planted on the open-air site around the plant. 13 bee colonies live here. In addition, several species of songbirds have been established on the site.