BMW 2002 Annual Report Download - page 149
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19
A major step. Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1992: the ground-
breaking ceremony marked the beginning of construction on
BMW
s
first complete manufacturing plant outside Germany. Today, ten
years later, it is clear that the decision taken on Spartanburg was
one of the most important decisions for the internationalisation
of the BMW Group. It is true that erecting a new plant is always a
significant step, but the decision regarding Spartanburg was
about more than that. It was about breaking through into a new
dimension, regionally as well as with products. It was about firmly
anchoring the BMW Group in international markets. Spartanburg
represents the strategy best described in the expression pro-
duction
follows the market.
Before this step, the
BMW
Group was an internationally active
motor car manufacturer with a central pivotal point in Bavaria. In
locating at Spartanburg, the BMW Group decided to establish a
firm presence in international automobile markets and today
possesses a second strong pivotal point in the most important
automobile market in the world. This relates not just to the orien-
tation of production and sales, but also to an openness vis-à-vis
international influences in research and development,
manage-
ment and corporate culture. Future international manufacturing
facilities will build on the good experiences at Spartanburg.
The decision on Spartanburg was the first step towards a
sustained internationalisation of the
BMW
Group. That is why
from the start, the new plant was geared to be a full and integral
part of the
BMW
Groups production network.
Over the years, the
BMW
Group has invested some two billion
US dollars in the plant, expanding capacity step by step. Though
plans had projected a production level of 50,000 vehicles per
year in the initial stages, 2002 production exceeded120,000 auto-
mobiles.
Whether a customer in Thailand orders a
BMW
Z4 or one
in Sweden opts for a
BMW
X5, the vehicles in these series are
built at the
BMW
plant at Spartanburg exclusively, for the
entire global market. This export orientation was new in 1992 for
a non-American manufacturers plant in the
USA
at the
same
time it constituted a key motivating factor for the employees
in
South Carolina. One of the challenges in setting up the plant
was to export processes and corporate culture from the
BMW
Group to the
USA
and to adapt them. That has been a success:
consider, for example, the fact that the
BMW
Z4 reached its
planned daily production capacity in just three months and thus
in record time.