Today was our first site visit, we woke up at 5:30 AM to head to the BMW Headquarters in Munich. After sleeping through most of the bus ride, we made it to the corporate HQ, FIZ. We got our visitor passes and made our way through the lobby area. The office was very white, modern, and clean with lots of employees arriving for the day.

Here, we got a presentation from Sarah about the company’s corporate strategy and were able to ask questions. We were running a bit behind schedule, but we headed to the BMW factory and museum area after this. I was by far most excited to see this because we have been learning about the usage of robots in the production lines, but I had no idea what to expect. 

Our tour guide was great and super knowledgeable, he gave us so much information and it was by far one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Hearing about robotic usage and seeing it in real life are two completely different ballparks. I was shocked to see the number of workers on the floor at once, it was much less than I had initially expected. This is due to the automated systems and robots that handle so much of the production line. One of the coolest parts was being able to see the brand new vehicles being driven and having a final inspection in the testing zone. We were able to see different models and even the differences in cars depending on the country. American cars have a constant orange light in the headlights, which I never paid attention to until today! It was also crazy to learn that one new car rolls off the BMW production line every 58 seconds. 

After the tour, we headed to the museum and gift shop. The museum was awesome because there were so many different rooms and levels. It was awesome to see the evolution of certain models and the new technology that is being implemented. Looking forward to next week, I’m definitely interested to see how the Audi facilities and production lines compare. 

We ended our day with a trip down the road to the 1972 Olympiapark, which was located in Munich. The summer Olympics were held here, so we were able to walk around and see the official swimming pool, which is still able to be used for recreational purposes today! We haven’t even seen the inner city of Munich, however the outskirts have already amazed me. Of course, we had to get a group photo by the rings!