BMW of South Atlanta Weblog…
Georgia’s source for the Ultimate Driving Machine and BMW related NewsArchive for BMW X3
BMW is moving ahead – BMW supplier plans to hire 40 as X3 plans move ahead
Good news, when also small steps…please read the Greenville News published article…Company with Union factory makes recruiting stop Thursday in Greenville
Published: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 – 2:00 am By Jenny Munro Business Writer jmunro@greenvillenews.com
Gestamp Automocion LLC, which finalized its purchase of LSP Automotive in Union County on Oct. 1, is holding a Greenville job fair Thursday as it expands in support of the 2010 launch of the next generation BMW X3. The X3 sports activity vehicle is currently built in Austria, but production is moving to BMW Manufacturing Co. in Greer next year. BMW is nearing completion of a $750 million expansion, including a new assembly facility and expanded paint shop. The X3 will be built in the new facility while the X5 sports activity vehicle and the X6 sports activity coupe will be built in the original assembly area. Gestamp’s Union facility employs about 135 hourly and salaried employees and plans to hire about 40 workers over the next year. The new positions, needed to support BMW’s production of the X3, will include production manager, CNC operator, tool and die repair, controls engineer, tooling engineer, continuous improvement program engineer, cost accountant and quality engineer. The job fair will be held Thursday from 5-8 p.m. at the Greenville Marriott. Resumes will be accepted at the event, said Clay Cronin, spokesman. Also, information about specific openings can be found on CareerBuilder.com. Applications also will be posted at Workforce Investment Board offices in Spartanburg, Gaffney and Union. Advertisement Gestamp is a Spanish stamping company with 75 worldwide manufacturing operations. The purchase included the 395,000-square-foot factory north of Union on U.S. 176. The plant began operations in 2007 and makes large panels for BMW’s vehicles. The Union plant is dedicated to BMW. The company also is building a plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., to support Volkswagen production. The North American Division now has eight plants in Alabama, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee and Mexico. Gestamp Automocion develops and manufactures metal components and structural systems for the automotive industry in Spain and internationally. The company was founded in 1988 and is based in Abadino, Spain.
Do we have here the new BMW X3? – German AutoBild shows pretty good idea how the next X3 will look like
The German car magazine “AutoBild” has on it’s newest issue an intersting rendering posting. Righ on the front cover you’ll see a very nice rendering of the new upcoming 2010/2011 BMW X3. Softer lines and very well porportioned. Judge yourself if you like what you see…enjoy. This is VJ from BMW of South Atlanta.
BMW of South Atlanta picked this cover up. It shows the rendering of the possible new 2010/2011 BMW X3. Follow the link above to see the whole cover of AutoBild, the German Car Magazine
BMW without any layoffs in their U.S. plant – Way to go BMW!
Below I have place the original report from the Automotive News Europe and from one of it’s contributors David Barkholz, who has an indeed encouraging message to the BMW workers here in the United States …please read…VJ, BMW of South Atlanta.
Flexibility helps BMW’s U.S. plant avoid layoffs
DAVID BARKHOLZ
Automotive News Europe
June 12, 2009 15:08 CET
| BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, USA — Strong vehicle exports and manufacturing flexibility have allowed BMW’s U.S. plant to weather the economic downturn without layoffs or derailing a $750 million expansion, the factory’s chief says.
Speaking here this week at the Automotive News Manufacturing Conference, Josef Kerscher said BMW exported more than 60 percent of the 171,000 vehicles produced last year at Spartanburg, S.C. That record output of X5 and X6 premium SUVs required extra shifts of mostly temporary workers last year, said Kerscher, president of BMW Manufacturing Co. in Spartanburg.
Most of the temporaries have been let go. BMW division’s U.S. sales slumped 30.5 percent in the first five months, less than the industry’s 36.5 percent decline. Still, BMW Manufacturing has not laid off any of its 5,000 full-time employees, and the plant continues to run two shifts, Kerscher said. Benefits of flexibility Manufacturing flexibility allows BMW to exactly match its production to customer demands, Kerscher said. BMW customers can make changes to their vehicle orders or add options in as little as five days before a vehicle is built, he said. That level of flexibility is the best in the auto industry, he said. That flexibility is critical to keeping the Spartanburg plant humming, Kerscher said. He said that at one period last year, the plant was making about 50 percent of its vehicles for the United States. Almost overnight, production was shifted to more than 70 percent for export. Strong first-quarter sales of the X6 in Europe are helping to partially offset the X5’s 37.6 percent drop volume to 8,883 units. The plant’s manufacturing processes have been calibrated to accommodate the hundreds of option combinations necessary to meet those differing tastes, Kerscher said. European vehicles, for example, require more diesel engines than U.S. customers buy. Spartanburg is the sole producer of the X5 and X6 for sale in more than 100 countries. The next challenge This autumn, BMW will add another level of manufacturing complexity at the plant when it begins production of the 2010 X5 M and X6 M. Those are 555-hp performance versions of the SUVs. An expansion to take capacity to 200,000 vehicles per year from 170,000 is well under way, Kerscher said. He wouldn’t say when the expansion is expected to be completed. BMW plans to bring worldwide production of its X3 premium SUV to the plant from Graz, Austria, where it is now built under contract by Magna Styr. Kerscher said a new-design paint shop planned for the expansion will eliminate the necessity for primer. That change will allow BMW to save about 20 percent on the cost of painting its vehicles. |
Rendering of 2011 BMW X3
The start for selling the all-new 2011 BMW X3 will be approximately around Fall 2011. This rendering was posted by the German AutoBild. How do you like it?
VJ…BMW of South Atlanta
BMW, Daimler eye joint purchasing in U.S., China
Bettina Mayer
Automotive News Europe
March 23, 2009 15:49 CET
MUNICH — BMW AG and Daimler AG are discussing ways to expand a cost-saving purchasing alliance to include car components sourced in North America and China.
A BMW spokesman said the two companies already have started to jointly purchase some common components for their European manufacturing operations.
BMW’s head of purchasing, Herbert Diess, said managers from BMW and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz car division are meeting weekly to discuss joint purchasing in North America, where both carmakers have factories.
“We are coordinating sourcing decisions in the NAFTA region,” he said. “We are both equally positioned there.”
BMW currently is allocating suppliers for its next-generation X3 SUV at its U.S. factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where it also builds the X5 and X6 SUVs.
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- BMW X3
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- BMW X5
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- BMW X6
Mercedes builds the M-, R- and GL-class SUVs in Vance, Alabama.
Diess said BMW and Daimler also are discussing which suppliers the carmakers would like to ask to start operations or expand production in North America and China.
“In China, our businesses are also similar. We are bundling our purchasing activities there, too,” Diess told Automotive News Europe on the sidelines of BMW’s annual earnings news conference on March 18 in Munich.
Passing the test
Diess said both carmakers had agreed to respect each other’s supplier assessments, so if a supplier receives a positive result when audited by one of the carmakers, the partsmaker will be able to supply the other carmaker.
“That saves both us and the suppliers time and costs,” Diess said.
Diess said the two automakers have spent the past six months identifying components that can be purchased jointly. He did not disclose which specific components would be bought jointly.
“These are commodities such as electronics and mechanical components,” Diess said.
Company sources said about 40 common components have been identified so far.
At the March 18 conference, BMW Chief Financial Officer Friedrich Eichiner said the carmakers will jointly purchase components that are not important to differentiate BMW and Mercedes cars. They also were not parts that customers would see, he said.
BMW and Mercedes each buy parts worth 50 billion euros a year. Both companies have declined to identify the initial savings resulting from the purchasing alliance. German press reports have said that savings in the first year of the cooperation would total about 350 million euros.
This article brought you by VJ
BMW X1 – Slowly but Surely, BMW reveals more and more of the new Cross-Over SUV
The newest revealed photos on the BMW X1 show that BMW is getting more and more brave to lift the disguised outfit on their new vehicle, coming in 2009/2010 to Europe and the USA. See yourself what they are revealing now:
Picture source: AutoBild
Stay tuned for more information on BMW and it’s endeavor to build the best automobile in the world. BMW the Ultimate Driving Machine can be test-driven and ordered at BMW of South Atlanta, Georgia. The friendly BMW Dealership in the South.
thanks for visiting my Blog…VJ
Rendering of the BMW X3’s little brother – The new BMW X1
BMW X1
Hello my friends and BMW Addicts…
I received yesterday through one of my channels an updated rendering (looks actually pretty much like a real photo) of the upcoming new arrival in the BMW model year 2010 – The little brother of the X3 – The all new BMW X1. I think that BMW did it right (again) to decide to get into the race for the “cross-over” vehicle customer. Now my only hope will be that we are getting this powerful looking cross-over vehicle for the U.S. market with BMW’s new diesel technology (and may be later on the hydrogen technology, too), which will be introduced end of the year for the BMW fleet.
Any suggestion, questions or information for me, please feel free to comment or send me an email to vjaeckel@sonsautogroup.comor visit my dealership website at www.bmwofsouthatlanta.com
So long…the VJnator
