BMW 2004 Annual Report Download - page 158

28 A plant takes shape
22 March 2002. A high-profile jury selects the British-Iraqi architect Zaha
Hadid as the winner of the competition to design the central building. It is a
“most courageous decision”, says Professor Henning Rambow of Leipzig’s
University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Kultur
Leipzig). At first sight, Zaha Hadid’s long building resembles the head of a
whale that rises up from the ground between body shop, paint shop and as-
sembly hall. On the one hand, this building is to serve as the main entrance for
employees and visitors. On the other, it is to be the site of all the plant’s plan-
ning and administrative employees’ workplaces. Their desks are situated in a
single, albeit intricately terraced area which extends over several open levels
(the so-called “cascades”). There are no hierarchies or managers’ offices in this
open space, just 740 identical workplaces for everyone from the trainee
to the plant director. Here everyone is immediately accessible to everyone else.
“Structure creates behaviour” is the motto, and the open structure of the
central building creates greater motivation, more intensive communication
and thus higher productivity.
Everyone is immediately accessible to everyone else –
the “central building” is designed as a communicative
marketplace.
“Aesthetically and functionally a pioneering feat”, says Professor Henning
Rambow. “To my knowledge, no other industrial building anywhere in the
world promotes transparency and communication like this.” Pritzker laureate
Zaha Hadid’s design congenially implements the BMW Group’s requirements,
namely to optimise cooperation among employees with architecture that
fosters communication. In other words, the more a business encourages ex-
change among their employees, the more it will be successful.
The “central building” could be described as the spatial interpretation of this
insight. This is where technicians and controllers, managers and mechanics,
human resources officers and trainees meet just as inevitably as informally.
And this is where all employees can see the fruits of their labour at all times: the
car bodies gliding through the central building almost soundlessly on their way
from the body shop to the paint shop and from there on into the assembly hall,
passing by the desks and overhead through the plant’s restaurant. Moreover,
an area is planned at a central location inside the building for exhibiting BMW
automobiles that have just been audited by quality management.The message
is that quality is the achievement of all employees. Challenges also affect every-
one. You can tell immediately whether or not everything is running smoothly
in the plant by just taking a look.
7 May 2002. Five days after a large “housewarming party” for the future plant’s
neighbours, the ground-breaking ceremony is held on the site. In his state-
ment, Professor Joachim Milberg, then Chairman of the Board of Management
of BMW AG, emphasises that the plant will create permanent structures “which
will exist for many decades”.