The BMW Group has taken factory planning to new heights – setting the latest milestone in the digitalisation of automotive manufacturing. More than two years before the official launch of series production, vehicle manufacturing is already underway in the future plant Debrecen, virtually, at least, as Debrecen is the BMW Group’s first facility to be planned and validated completely virtually. The ground-breaking and innovative planning concept was realised in collaboration with its partner NVIDIA. The future plant Debrecen is scheduled to open in 2025. Construction has just begun, and the new facility is scheduled to produce the BMW Group’s next generation of all-electric models: the Neue Klasse.
BMW Group is taking a digital-first approach to validate and optimise complex manufacturing systems across its production network using NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise, a platform for building and operating 3D industrial metaverse applications, to run real-time digital twin simulations to optimise layouts, robotics and logistic systems virtually. Omniverse will be extended across the BMW product network around the world.
“Virtualisation and artificial intelligence are accelerating and refining our planning. With the various planning systems consolidated within a digital twin, our teams around the world can now work together in real-time and make decisions faster and on a more solid foundation,” Explained Milan Nedeljković explained. “This makes us much quicker and more efficient and saves on costs as well.”
“Digitalisation is moving fastest in the automotive industry and BMW has been a leader in advancing this vision,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “We are partnering closely with BMW, using NVIDIA Omniverse to help streamline their manufacturing processes, enhance collaboration and further efficiency. Our collaboration will continue to push the frontiers of virtual integration for the next generation of smart, connected factories around the world.”