BMW 2004 Annual Report Download - page 20

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The search for new employees is now supported
by a new online recruiting system. External and in-
ternal candidates are, amongst other options, offered
the opportunity of placing their application in a so-
called “recruitment pool” and to update their applica-
tion on an ongoing basis. The new system has gone
down extremely well and since going online in
April, some 209,000 external applications had been
registered by the end of 2004. The ratio of applica-
tions received online has risen steadily; in December
2004, for example, 82% of all applications were
submitted online.
Qualitative personnel planning linked more
closely to long-term business forecasts
The integration of qualitative personnel planning into
the group’s long-term business forecasts was inten-
sified in 2004. The BMW Group is therefore now in a
position to identify, plan and manage the skills and
qualifications of its employees even more accurately
than before and to align these at an early stage to its
future needs. By incorporating personnel issues into
strategic and corporate decisions on an enterprise-
wide basis, measures affecting changes in the level
or structure of the workforce can be identified and
implemented at an early stage and with more targeted
effect. In short, this enterprise-wide approach opens
up further potential for finding optimal solutions by
using available resources more efficiently.
Sharp increase in car production volume
The BMW Group set a new record for car produc-
tion volume in 2004 in its worldwide production
network, thus laying the basis for the sharp increase
in sales volume. Overall, 1,250,345 BMW, MINI
and Rolls-Royce brand cars were manufactured in
2004 (+11.7%).
Once again, it was the BMW brand which faced
the most challenging situation. As a result of the
implementation of the product and market initiative,
numerous production start-ups for new models had
to be managed in the BMW plants in 2004. Flexible
work-time arrangements, further process optimisa-
tion and, above all, the commitment of the group’s
employees, all made their contribution to allowing
these challenges to be surmounted.
In total,1,059,978 BMW brand cars were manu-
factured worldwide in 2004, a production volume
increase of 12.3% compared to the previous year.
In addition,189,492 MINI brand cars left the Oxford
plant, 8.7% more than in 2003.
Furthermore, 875 Rolls-Royce Phantoms were
manufactured by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in Good-
wood, Great Britain, an increase of 74.3% over the
previous year.
The challenges posed by the product and market
initiative dominated activities in 2004 in nearly all of
the BMW Group’s production sites.
In 2004, the BMW plant in Dingolfing surpassed
the annual production mark of 300,000 units for the
first time. A total of 304,254 BMW 5 Series, 6 Series
and 7 Series cars left the plant, the highest number
for any of the BMW Group’s locations.
The increase was particularly noteworthy since
the Dingolfing plant had to cope with several new
start-ups, including that of the BMW 5 Series
Touring with three engine options and that of the
new six-cylinder engine generation for the BMW 6
Series Coupé and 6 Series Convertible. Also in
2004, as part of a euro160 million project, the cen-
tralised spare parts distribution centre in Dingolfing
was extended to supply the BMW worldwide dealer
organisation.
BMW Group apprentices at 31December
5,500
5,000
4,500
4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
00 01
3,698 3,829
02
4,199
03
4,306
04
4,464