BMW has opened a brand new AI automotive manufacturing facility in Debrecen, Hungary – its “most progressive” manufacturing website wherever, and the primary totally fossil-free facility in its world community. It integrates BMW’s in-house AIQX high quality platform, autonomous transport techniques, and real-time information analytics; manufacturing of the all-electric BMW iX3 begins this month.
In sum – what to know:
High quality management – AIQX platform makes use of cameras, sensors, and cloud analytics to detect defects in actual time.
Sensible robots – together with autonomous tugger trains; digital twins to optimise logistics, meeting, and structure.
Tech benchmark – Debrecen units new normal for BMW’s AI mannequin to be lean, inexperienced, and totally digitalised.
From a company-wide technique about AI at one German automotive large to a factory-wide implementation of it at one other; BMW has simply opened the doorways at a brand new AI automotive manufacturing facility in Hungary, billed because the “most progressive” website in its total 30–robust world community of manufacturing services, with manufacturing to begin in a few weeks (late October). It follows (in RCR protection, a minimum of) from country-mate Volkswagen’s ‘no-process-without-AI’ musings about learn how to spend €1 billion on AI to make again €4 billion in complete group financial savings. However BMW’s technique is laser centered, and able to roll: one website, within the Hungarian college city of Debrecen, bursting with all types of AI trickery, it appears.
Its opening, attended by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, plus different authorities higher-ups, alongside the BMW board, marks the start of a “new period” for the entire agency, mentioned BMW. That is partially due to the automotive it’s going to produce: the fully-electric BMW iX3, the primary in (“spearhead of”) its Neue Klasse of automobiles, which hosts design and tech improvements that can “form the model’s total mannequin program sooner or later”. By the top of 2027, its “applied sciences” will probably be built-in into 40 new fashions (“and mannequin updates”), mentioned BMW. Check automobiles have been rolling off the road since final November; assembly-line capabilities correctly ramp-up in March. It’s now able to go.
However it’s in regards to the website itself, as effectively – one in every of Hungary’s “largest greenfield investments”, which will probably be house to 2,000 workers, practically 1,000 robots, in addition to an adjoining EV battery plant. It’s “totally digitally related”, mentioned BMW (with no point out of personal 5G, wherever), and makes use of solely renewable energy (“throughout regular operation”; one other first, it mentioned). Plus there may be AI – presumably some digicam imaginative and prescient, integrating machine studying – on the manufacturing line. “A variety of high quality checks might be carried out digitally while nonetheless on the manufacturing line,” it mentioned. Once more, the brand new manufacturing facility in Debrecen is the primary within the BMW community, it appears; the identical AI is to be carried out at different websites, subsequently, beginning with BMW’s “house plant” in Munich.
BMW’s AI “centrepiece”, variously deployed at its smartest crops, like Dingolfing and Regensburg, is its in-house cloud platform, Synthetic Intelligence High quality Subsequent (AIQX), developed for acoustic sensors, microphones, and cameras alongside the conveyor line to run automated high quality checks – capturing information about every automobile’s place, componentry, and finishes, analysed for anomalies on a educated mannequin in a cloud-back-end, and returned as alarms for employees about lacking or misassembled components, and different defects within the meeting and bodywork .
BMW acknowledged: “Trying forward, automobiles on the road may also play an lively function as related members within the industrial IoT ecosystem, analysing themselves and flagging anomalies in actual time.” In different phrases, the automobiles themselves will be a part of this manufacturing facility internet-of-things to report on their very own progress. The positioning follows the corporate’s so-called ‘iFACTORY’ ideas for the way forward for automotive manufacturing, centered on making manufacturing extra environment friendly, sustainable, and versatile. The group has filed new patents for sure of the brand new website’s techniques and processes, it mentioned.
Its press store makes use of the identical instruments and presses as all its plans (so “capacities might be optimally utilised”); its physique store is predicated on digital simulation and pre-validation (“to outline a perfect worth stream and optimally place robots”); its paint store (“which makes use of quite a lot of power”) will see main power financial savings versus different plans “(about 12,000 tonnes of CO₂e per yr”, it mentioned); its on-site battery plant is the primary of 5 to provide its newest (Gen6) high-voltage EV batteries, additionally geared with “clever manufacturing processes with the assistance of AI” to convey efficiencies when it comes to transportation (its “native for native” precept) and manufacturing itself.
The meeting line is AI assisted, as mentioned above; however additionally it is takes benefit of the “finger construction” of the entire website, described as an “optimised model” of the structure at its Leipzig plant, which permits 80 p.c of all components to be delivered on to the fitting level within the meeting line. It acknowledged: “Excessive-voltage batteries are introduced immediately from manufacturing to set up factors by autonomous tugger trains, whereas ‘good transport robots’ ship smaller parts, additionally autonomously. The depth of digitalisation in logistics is unprecedented, with inner and exterior databases now totally linked and an important many evaluation duties that have been beforehand guide now turning into automated.”
So good design, as a lot as good tech. BMW added: “Effectively-structured and analysed info is on the market at any time – on the push of a button.” It takes from different crops, too: the press store is modelled on the techniques used at its factories in Spartanburg within the US and Swindon within the UK (“with their know-how and applied sciences additional refined for Debrecen”); the meeting line takes “many concepts and confirmed constructions”, together with the conveyor system, from Leipzig, throughout the border (opened 2005), and Shenyang (Plant Lydia, opened 2022) in China.
As talked about higher-up, in addition to within the cars-as-things remark, the automobile structure of the Neue Klasse collection additionally opens new potentialities. This features a easier modular meeting (“fewer connecting parts” and fewer plugs, screws, clips), easier set up of sure components (a extra ergonomic wiring harness, a extra compact cockpit), and far much less wiring of components – about 600 fewer metres per automobile, that means 30 p.c much less weight. Cockpit pre-assembly is subsequent to the principle line, so it may be put in immediately and rapidly within the automobile “just some metres forward”. All of which – the brand new tech, the brand new structure, the brand new automobile – make the plant extra productive and environment friendly.
A couple of quarter of the plant’s annual energy will probably be equipped by a 50‑hectare photovoltaic system on the positioning (“one of many largest in Hungary”). Surplus photo voltaic power, equivalent to that generated on non-working days, is saved in a 1,800 m³ thermal storage system with a capability of 130 MWh. Manufacturing of the BMW iX3 will generate a complete of about 80kg CO₂e, which covers emissions from the Debrecen plant, in addition to in-house components manufacturing at different group services. This can be a discount of about two-thirds in comparison with manufacturing of current BMW fashions, BMW mentioned. It means complete CO₂e emissions per automobile, together with the battery, will probably be decreased by about 90 p.c – to about 34kg CO₂e.
Oliver Zipse, chairman of the board at BMW, mentioned: “In our world manufacturing community, our new plant in Debrecen is a pioneer: it’s our first fully-electric plant, the primary manufacturing website to function totally with out fossil fuels – and the primary to construct automobiles for the Neue Klasse. This makes our plant in Debrecen a decisive issue within the BMW Group’s future success. The opening additionally sends a powerful sign: we’re increasing our footprint on our house continent and reaffirming our dedication to Europe as a powerful and aggressive location for business.”
Hans-Peter Kemser, head of the plant at Debrecen, mentioned: “We now have confronted the problem of constructing a very new automobile in a brand-new plant from the beginning – and doing it as lean and effectively as potential. We now have simplified processes, decreased complexity, digitally secured each single work step, and persistently used the know-how in our world community. This plant is the outcome: environment friendly in manufacturing, progressive in processes, and versatile within the integration of extra fashions.”
Milan Nedeljković, Member of the Board of Administration of BMW AG, Manufacturing, mentioned: “We now have deliberate and constructed our new plant in Debrecen totally in line with our iFACTORY goal imaginative and prescient. Digital from the very starting, the plant gives a brand new dimension of environment friendly manufacturing whereas shelling out with fossil fuels.”
