In our first week of the German-Indian exchange project we have already seen some businesses of different sizes. We visited a local company which employs handicapped people and Krones, a “Mittelstand“ machine manufacturer. But today, on June 8th, our group of 10 students and 1 teacher from Lotus Valley International School went to see the Bavarian Motor Werke, better known as BMW. Their biggest manufacturing plant in Europe is located in Dingolfing and it took us approximately 1 hr by bus to reach it from school. All of my friends and I were very excited to see it. Since years we are talking about German cars and we were eager to see how they were built.
As we arrived at Dingolfing (exact position: plant 2.4; gate 3) we were greeted by our very friendly and energetic guide for the trip, Ms Steffani, who took us to a conference room immediately. There we saw an introductory video about the entire plant. During this video the history of BMW, the structure of the company and their philosophy was explained, too.
After this informative movie Ms Steffani guided us to the assembly part, which is the last step in manufacturing a brand new BMW. All the parts including the engine, the tyres, the doors of the car are assembled there. By the way, did you know that they call the assembling of chassis and the tyres is called “the wedding”?
At this part of the manufacturing process were many engineers and other workers which added different compartment to the cars “just in time”. But the most interesting was to see the robots working! The robots were also engineered and designed by a German company called Kuka. Without making any mistakes they glued parts together, mended metal components or moved different pieces from one place to another.
As we went on with our tour through the BMW plant we could also see how different parts of the car are pressed into their desired shapes and sizes. Even this work was totally done by machines. Only sometimes workers checked the presses and changed the adjustments when necessary.
And then at last, we went to the paint shop, where again robots painted the car according to the customer’s choice. The actual painting process was a long and – because of the foggy paint – a breath taking process, but the robots managed it without complaining or hesitating! Finally the car was finished and was carefully cleaned with ostrich feathers.
It was amazing to see the work done to perfection. Every minute the workers of BMW paid attention to every single detail to create a perfect car.
Who knows? Perhaps we will see one of the cars which were built today soon. I am looking forward the next time I am seeing a BMW on the streets of India.
“Written” by Khwahish
