BMW's new body shop to double size of facility

Not only is BMW adding 800 jobs to its 8,000-employee workforce with a $1 billion expansion project announced in March 2014, but it will have 1,700 robots doing much of the work when the latest body shop opens.

Work is underway on a 1.2 million-square-foot body shop at the 1,150-acre Greer campus that will equal the size of BMW’s original production plant that opened in 1994. The current expansion project represents the plant’s fifth major upgrade and follows a $900 million expansion in 2012.

The new body shop is being built in two phases. The exterior of the structure in the first phase is finished, and the interior is being readied for production. The steel frame of the adjoining structure is being erected. No completion date has been set.

When it starts production, it will enable the German car manufacturer to boost its production capacity to 450,000 vehicles a year – up from 400,904 vehicles in 2015.

Robots will weld and assemble the bodies of all current and future X-model vehicles, including the new, larger BMW X7 model, at the new shop.

Some 1,300 robots are already being used at BMW’s current body shops, which produce bodies of X3, X4, X5 and X6 models, as well as the X5 M and X6 M, said BMW spokesman Steve Wilson.

“This new body shop will allow us to build all of our framed bodies in this one facility, including the new BMW X7,” Wilson said.

Some workers still do specialty welding, but for the most part robots do the welding and assembly of body parts that workers used to do. The body shop is 99 percent automated, Wilson said.

Suppliers, such as Gestamp in Union County, deliver steel parts like door hatches, hoods and fenders. Smaller parts are loaded onto fixtures of a robot’s arm, and then the robot is programmed to put parts together, fasten them or punch holes for other parts to come.

“Our X models have about six thousand welds,” Wilson said. “These welds help improve the car’s rigidity and handling performance when the car takes a corner.”

Once the front and rear compartments and floor pan are completed, they are “married,” or welded together to form the underbody. Side frames are then added and the car begins to take shape. After the hood, doors and rear hatches are added, employees then inspect each car, using a “glove test,” to look for blemishes or imperfections. They use a grinding tool to smooth out any blemishes.

Then the car body goes to the paint shop where it undergoes five coats. From there, it goes to an assembly hall where thousands of parts are added and the final product produced.

It can take a total of 30 to 36 hours from start to finish to build a car at the manufacturing plant, Wilson said.

BMW spokeswoman Sky Foster said 70 percent of BMW’s production is exported to more than 140 global markets, making South Carolina the largest automotive exporter from the United States to the world by value, estimated at $9.8 billion last year.