Manfred Erlacher, President and CEO of BMW Manufacturing in Spartanburg, SC, for three years, will assume new responsibilities as the Managing Director of BMW Plant Regensburg beginning 1 February 2017, the Bavarian automaker said today. Succeeding Erlacher will be Knudt Flor, currently responsible for BMW Group Corporate Quality. The change in leadership takes place 1 December 1, 2016 at the thus far non-unionized plant. (Globalization Comes at last to Unions. UAW Growing in South?)
However, there is an increasing level of union organizing collaboration between IndustriALL affiliates in Germany and the U.S., notably IG Metal and the UAW.
They recently formed the Transatlantic Labor Institute, which focuses on organizing German auto companies in the U.S. South. The aim is to increase success in the U.S. and maintain bargaining power in Germany. (Unions Discuss Transatlantic Organizing)
Effective 1 February 2017, Dr. Andreas Wendt will take over as director of BMW Group Plant Dingolfing. The 58-year-old Wendt has been with the company for 14 years and currently manages the Regensburg plant. Current Dingolfing plant director Josef Kerscher will retire at the end of January, after 37 years of service to the BMW Group.
During Erlacher’s tenure, production at the Spartanburg plant has grown from 300,000 units per year to more than 400,000 units per year, making the factory the largest BMW plant in the world by volume.
Spartanburg has received several quality awards including the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) Bronze Award for North and South America (2014), J.D. Power IQS Silver Award for North and South America (2016), J.D. Power IQS Award for the BMW X5 (2016), and the J.D. Power APEAL Award for the BMW X6 (2016).
The South Carolina plant also launched several vehicles during Erlacher’s three years, including the all-new BMW X4, BMW X3 LCI, second-generation BMW X6, BMW X5 M and X6 M, and the BMW X5 xDrive40e, Spartanburg’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle.
The new president of BMW Manufacturing, Knudt Flor, is a 28-year veteran with the BMW Group. Flor has served in several roles in Quality Assurance and Quality Management within the company. From 1998 – 2000, he worked at the Spartanburg plant as Quality Assurance of Car Assembly and Purchased Parts. He has also been Vice President of Production at BMW Plant Munich, Director of BMW Plant Rosslyn in South Africa, and Senior Vice President of Technology at BMW Brilliance Automotive Joint Venture in Shenyang, China. Most recently, Flor served as Senior Vice President of Quality Management for the BMW Group.
BMW Spartanburg
BMW Spartanburg is currently undergoing a $1 billion expansion that includes construction and tooling of a new 1.2 million square-foot body shop, a 200,000 square-foot expansion of X5/X6 Assembly, and a 100,000 square-foot addition to Logistics. At the end of 2016, production capacity will increase to 450,000 units per year and the plant will have 8,800 jobs on site.
BMW Group
The BMW Group set a worldwide double-digit sales increase in September, continuing the company’s upward sales trend – post the Great Recession – and securing a new record for the month. A total of 237,973 vehicles were delivered to customers around the world, an increase of 10.5% on the same month last year. Year-to-date sales total 1,746,638 – up 6.2% compared with the same period last year and the company’s best ever sales result for the first three quarters of the year.
