MUNICH: The BMW Group and three partner companies from Bavaria are looking into making the BMW plant at Dingolfing, Germany a smart factory for logistics.
A number of innovative Industry 4.0 production technologies are being combined in an overall concept and tested under real conditions at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing.
Behind the project is a vision of fully connected production in which autonomous transport systems, logistics robots and mobile devices seamlessly communicate with one another and with the control system.
Testing of 5G wireless technology, which, over the course of the project, will be set up at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing as a trial network, will play a key role in linking different logistics solutions.
The new mobile telecommunications standard allows large data volumes to be transferred within a very short time.
5G enables real-time connectivity between machinery and equipment.
Within the BMW Group production network, the BMW Brilliance Automotive joint venture has already rolled out the 5G wireless communications network across all its three plants.
The long-term goal is to set up a 5G network at all BMW Group plant locations worldwide.
Further sub-projects will explore the use of logistics robots, mobile devices and digital displays in the logistics process and test connectivity between different systems.
Peter Kiermaier, head of Logistics Planning at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing: “We also want to use new technologies to increase transparency in conventional processes and enable smooth coupling of manual and autonomous technologies.”
The research consortium is made up of three further Bavarian companies alongside the BMW Group: m3connect GmbH from Rosenheim is working to set up a private 5G network at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing; Stäubli WFT GmbH from Sulzbach develops and produces transport solutions that can manoeuvre autonomously through logistics areas. Scientific monitoring for the project is provided by the Institute for Engineering Design of Mechatronic Systems & MPLM e.V. – IEDMS e.V.
