BMW 2012 Annual Report Download - page 253

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The most striking feature of the new vehicle plant is the
220 , 000 -square-metre building, which, for the first time
in the
BMW Group production network, houses press
shop, body shop, assembly and logistics under one roof.
The integration of all these areas under one roof provides
a kind of natural climate protection for the
BBA plant.
The building’s limited exterior surface area, second front
of permanently installed slats, mostly north-facing
windows and a white, sunlight-reflecting roof minimise
exposure to sun and wind.
Inside the building, a slew of resource-efficient measures
maintain a constant indoor climate, despite outdoor
temperature differences of more than
70 degrees. Produc-
tion halls are naturally ventilated through strategically
placed skylights. One method of cooling uses ground-
water that is pumped back into its natural reservoirs after
it has done its job – an environmentally compatible
concept that has been used successfully for years at the
BMW Group’s “Project House” in Munich. “For heating,
besides district heating, we mostly use the energy-
efficient low-temperature and high-temperature systems
familiar from the Munich and Leipzig plants,” explains
Fiona Zhang.
Besides the primacy of efficiency, the main paradigm for
the plant’s architecture is maximum flexibility. The new
manufacturing facility is designed in such a way that
the planned capacity expansion from
100 , 000 vehicles
per year initially to up to
200 , 000 units can be completed
without disrupting on-going operations. The plant will
then be able to produce any additional
BMW model re-
quired at any time alongside the
BMW X 1 and the BMW
3 Series Sedan long-wheelbase version – with everything
still under the same roof.
The Tiexi plant is already a model for others.
INTEGRATED
PRODUCTION
“The compact building
more or less protects itself
from the climate.”
Sean Dempsey