The press shop is where a car first starts to come into existence. Every day we produce more than 30,000 steel and aluminium body parts. The sheet metal that’s used is galvanised, so the first layer of corrosion protection is already in place. Moving along the press lines, the steel sheet is gradually transformed into its final shape, being pulled, bent and punched by the presses in a multi-stage process until it is perfectly formed. The body of a BMW consists of about 400 individual parts, from the fuel filler cap to the side frame. We use 20 different material grades with sheet thicknesses between 0.7 and 1.6 mm.

The centrepiece of our press shop is the state-of-the-art high-speed servo press line, which operates at 17 strokes a minute. In just twelve days, it processes about the amount of steel used to build the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

The press lines are fully automated and supervised by a team of specialists comprising electricians, mechanics, toolmakers, and logistics and quality assurance experts. The entire production process is designed to use material as efficiently as possible, with a recycling rate of 99 percent. But still there is a certain amount of waste – which is immediately collected up straight from under the press line, sorted and pressed into scrap cubes. The cubes are then loaded onto a train and returned to the steel and aluminium producers for recycling into what’s known as secondary steel or aluminium – saving masses of CO₂.

In the bodyshop the sheet metal parts from the press shop are assembled into paintable body shells. The result is a super-safe body that saves as much weight as possible. A body weighs about 440 kilogrammes and consists entirely of galvanised steel.

Bodyshop processes are almost fully automated. More than 1,200 industrial robots carry out complex production tasks with absolute precision, setting more than 6,000 welding spots per car accurately to within a tenth of a millimetre. The high level of automation means Plant Munich can produce its complete portfolio of vehicles on one and the same production line.

A range of welding and joining techniques are performed, including spot welding, soldering, bolting and bonding. Owing to their sophisticated designs, elaborate workmanship and high-grade, ultra-high-strength steels, BMW bodies are among the safest in the global automotive market.

The highly qualified team constantly monitors spotweld quality and ensures the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the body. This is done using state-of-the-art technologies such as ultrasound, cameras and lasers as well as classic testing methods with hammers and chisels.

Brilliant colours, perfect corrosion protection and a high-quality look: the paintshop is where the body shell gets its colour and gloss. The particular focus here is on resource-saving processes such as the use of water-based paints and state-of-the art application technologies.

With a production area of around 13,500 square metres, the paintshop handles up to 1,000 BMW 3 Series and 4 Series bodies a day. Innovative six-axis robots offer the highest degree of freedom in terms of painting technologies, allowing flexible responses to special customer requests around Individual and matt paint finishes, for example.

Our assembly unit in Munich comprises 335 workstations in production, manufacturing around 900 vehicles a day. The focus is very much on customers’ wishes and personalisation.

As per customer order, the appropriate painted body is retrieved from the high-bay warehouse, ready for assembly to make the customer’s specific vehicle exactly as they have configured it. The large number of variants is a challenge, with some 20,000 interior options available for the BMW 3 Series alone.

To reliably accommodate such a diverse range of variants in our manufacturing process, the first thing we do is assemble the car’s individual modules. The individual parts of modules, like the cockpit, front-end, seat, doors and powertrain, are assembled in a dedicated area and delivered just in time and just in sequence to the main assembly line. There they are fitted to the vehicle, in part via fully automated processes. Our 3.5-kilometre-long conveyor allows us to work on 535 vehicles all at the same time, with stringent standards in ergonomics and aids such as handling devices, stools with wheels and sling loop assembly to make production as simple and health-friendly as possible. Vehicle assembly culminates with the ‘marriage’, when the engine, transmission and chassis are fitted to the body. With the powertrain in place, each individually equipped body now has a heart and soul. It finally becomes a car – and very soon a perfect BMW too.

The seat production workshop produces seats for all the models manufactured at BMW Group Plant Munich. There are several hundred seat variants: depending on what the customer wants and the specifications in their country, the options available range from the basic model and seats with various extras through to fully customised solutions. Customers can choose between different seat variants such as normal, sports, with or without lumbar support, and with electrical or mechanical adjustment mechanisms.

And that’s not all! There’s a plethora of covers to choose from too, with myriad colours and materials such as fabric and leather.

The foam elements for the upholstery of our seats are made from polyol and isocyanate (polyurethane). These are mixed under high pressure, and the ratio between the two determines how hard or soft the resulting foam will be. This allows the various sections of a foam part to be made with the optimum hardness. When complete, the seats are given sequential numbers and delivered to the production line just in sequence. They arrive there as what we call ‘car sets’ which comprise pairs of seats that belong together.