Today was a long day, we started by departing from Stuttgart bright and early and headed to Munich. Once we got to Munich we met up with German students and professors at Munich University of Applied Sciences and got a quick lecture along with a case study presentation activity. It was very fun getting to meet and work with the German students!
Next we headed to BMW. The BMW tour was INSANE! They really are the pinnacle of smart manufacturing/Industry 4.0 and a perfect example of where manufacturing is headed in the future. BMW was so different compared to Porshe and Mercedes. Instead of relying on humans for much of their processes, BMW relies on industrial robots and other heavy machinery to do most of the work with humans only there to supervise and make sure the processes get fed the materials they need. The trade-off with this is of course you lose much of the customization offered in exchange for mass production. I was also very impressed with how flexible many of their production lines were. Having the ability to change between what products you are making on a production line so quickly is quite an impressive feat of engineering. When I think of where I want to work in the future in manufacturing, BMW is the kind of operation I want to be a part of.
