BMW 2004 Annual Report Download - page 138
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8Innovation
Room for ideas.
The history of the automotive industry is a story
of constant innovation and growing complexity.
Each new model cycle brings new features and
more variants. The model update of the BMW X5
alone involved not only three new engines and
five more interior variants, but also more than
2,000 modified details – a diversity that even
experienced automotive engineers cannot keep
track of on their own. As recently as the end of
the 1990s, it took engineers several weeks simply
to visualise such complexity.
Today, they need only a fraction of this time. In the
virtual reality studios of the Project House, which
opened in the BMW Group’s Research and
Innovation Centre (FIZ) in 2004, individual com-
ponents, complete vehicle designs and entire
production processes become reality, so to speak,
at the click of a mouse. Ergonomics specialists
and interior designers take a seat in animated 3D
models, of which not even a prototype exists. A
seven-metre-long “Powerwall” enables designers
to appraise even the long wheelbase version of
aBMW 7 Series Sedan in full scale. Development
engineers compare different model alternatives
by computer animation; they run through entire
production processes in virtual reality and identify
potential sources of error, long before they can
become a problem in reality.
All this means more room for ideas, greater speed
in their realisation and, ultimately, a huge advance
in innovation. This is demonstrated by such dis-
tinctions as the “Best Innovator 2004”, which the
BMW Group was awarded as the most innovative
company in Germany. And, of course, by each
individual product that leaves the BMW Group’s
production plants.