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BMW: BMW Engine Manufacturing Hams Hall

BMW's new UK engine production plant at Hams Hall, near Birmingham, was formally opened at a ceremony which brought good news for the British car industry. BMW Group has invested £400 million in the factory, which will build a new generation of four-cylinder gasoline engines for delivery to its car assembly plants in Germany, South Africa and the US.

Milberg announced that "the BMW Group has designated an investment of one billion pounds to its present and future manufacturing facilities in Britain until the end of the year 2002."

The investment applies to three major projects:

• The new engine plant at Hams Hall,

• the modernization of the facilities in Oxford for production of the new MINI and

• a new head office and manufacturing plant in England where, from 2003, a new generation of Rolls-Royce cars will be built

The Hams Hall plant will be the BMW Group's "center of competence" and sole supplier of a new generation of four-cylinder gasoline engines between 1.6 and 2.0 liters to its vehicle assembly factories in Germany (Munich, Regensburg and Dingolfing), South Africa (Rosslyn) and the US (Spartanburg). At full capacity, the plant will be capable of producing over 400,000 engines per year and will employ around 1500 associates. At present, 450 people already work at the factory. This number will rise to approximately 650 by the end of the year.

There is certainly no shortage of people eager to work for BMW at the most modern engine plant in the world. Within a week of job advertisements being placed in regional newspapers in the West Midlands at the end of last year, almost 9,000 people expressed their interest in the jobs on offer. As part of the rigorous recruitment procedure, applicants are currently being invited to special weekend "open days" before being formally interviewed. In view of the large number of applications, this is a procedure which will take several months to complete.

Hams Hall's Plant Director, Colin Mitchell, has been delighted at the extremely positive public response to the job opportunities being offered by BMW: "The quantity of applications we have received, and, more importantly, the quality of the applicants we have met, gives us the confidence to say that we will match the very high standards which have been set by BMW's other production plants."

(8. Februar 2001)

  Photos: BMW AG

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