BMW inaugurates new plant in China

A new BMW plant has been established in Shenyang, China. Dubbed Plant Lydia, the German automotive brand’s latest facility in the region expands the firm’s footprint in China and breaks new ground thanks to its pioneering digitalization applications.

“Today is a proud day for BMW Brilliance and the BMW Group. It marks an important milestone in our successful development in the city of Shenyang over the past nearly 20 years. Despite many challenges over the last three years, our new Plant Lydia was completed on schedule. It is a testament to our strong team in China and an excellent global collaboration. Plant Lydia sets the standard for production that is Lean. Green. and Digital.,” said BMW Brilliance Automotive President & CEO Franz Decker.

Plant Lydia follows the BMW iFactory strategy and sets new standards in future-oriented vehicle manufacturing. Planning and simulation of the factory were done virtually using the powerful Epic Games Unreal Engine 3D creation platform. This process, per BMW, shortened the planning time, enabled cross-regional and cross-timezone collaboration, and effectively overcame the adverse effects of epidemics, which alone reduced the construction time of the plant by six months.

Not only does the factory feature all four major production processes (press shop, body shop, paint shop, and assembly) with state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, but it also houses a new data center. The data center contains more than 1,200 servers that allow the use of data-driven, cloud-based digital platforms to enhance quality control, boost efficiency, and enable predictive maintenance.

“The BMW iFactory makes us a role model for the automotive industry. Plant Lydia is born digitally and geared towards e-mobility. Responding to our customer’s demands, the flexibility of our production sets the benchmark in competition. Plant Lydia is a great example of this. It is fully capable of producing up to 100 percent electric vehicles. Together with its neighboring plants in Tiexi and Dadong, Lydia will play an important role in accelerating production of BMW electrified vehicles in China,” said BMW Board Member for Production Milan Nedeljković.

“The expansion of our production footprint in China shows we are preparing for further growth in the world’s largest electric car market and are confident in China’s long-term perspectives. We are stepping up our e-mobility efforts, aiming for more than a quarter of our sales in China to be all-electric by 2025. With BMW’s expanded and upgraded production base in Shenyang, we are now fully prepared to serve the growing market demand for e-mobility in China,” added BMW Group Region China President and CEO Jochen Goller.

BMW’s Plant Lydia increases the annual capacity of the company’s plants in Shenyang to 830,000 vehicles. Currently, Plant Lydia is producing BMW’s first all-electric mid-size sports sedan for the Chinese market — the all-new BMW i3. Plant Lydia and its neighboring plants in Tiexi and Dadong will play an important role in accelerating the production of BMW electrified vehicles in China.

Photos from BMW

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