Retooling & Maintenance at BMW
Retooling on the move at BMW Spartanburg
Plant Spartanburg's $1.7 billion retool now runs petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric X5 variants down a single line, while Plant Woodruff strips a step out of battery assembly entirely. Equipment renewal, not just new buildings, is doing the heavy lifting.
BMW's decision to build the new X5 across five drivetrains on one assembly line was widely reported at the "Home of X" event in June. Less widely reported is what that decision actually required of the tooling, the shop floor layout and the maintenance regime underpinning it, since a line capable of building a diesel, a plug-in hybrid and a battery electric SUV back to back is not achieved by simply widening a door.
Retooling an existing line, rather than building a dedicated one, was itself the strategic choice. Milan Nedeljković, Chairman of the Board of Management at BMW AG, framed the completed $1.7 billion investment as continuity rather than disruption. "Our strategic course remains unchanged. We will continue to pursue the same technology-open strategy that has made BMW successful and will continue to make us successful in the future," he said.
Plant Spartanburg becomes, on BMW's own account, the first site in its global network able to assemble a single vehicle across five different drivetrain technologies on one line, internal combustion, battery electric, plug-in hybrid, diesel and, from 2028, hydrogen fuel cell.
Dr Robert Engelhorn, President and CEO of BMW Manufacturing Co, was direct about what that flexibility is for. "From highly efficient combustion engines and plug-in hybrid systems to battery-electric and future hydrogen-powered vehicles, Plant Spartanburg will be able to assemble a broad range of drivetrain technologies for customers in the US. and around the world. This flexibility of Plant Spartanburg and our global production network strengthens our resilience, supports customer choice, and enables us to meet customer demand at any level."
It is a manufacturing argument as much as a commercial one, hedging against the pace at which any single market shifts between combustion and electric demand.
New vs old, retooled not rebuilt
The clearest evidence of that hedge sits in Hall 52, where variants of the X3 are currently built and where the electrified iX5 will join them. BMW describes the hall as having been "extensively expanded and updated" ahead of iX5 production, with digital applications used during planning continuing into daily operations under the BMW iFACTORY approach. Before a single physical component reaches the line, virtual 3D simulations are used to sequence the retool, with the stated aim of enabling "error-free implementation from the outset."
The BMW Virtual Factory tool simulates human movement sequences across the hall, refining manual processes from the planning stage through to the line itself, with employee ergonomics named as a specific objective of the retool rather than a byproduct of it
That virtual-first discipline extends to ergonomics as much as layout. The BMW Virtual Factory tool simulates human movement sequences across the hall, refining manual processes from the planning stage through to the line itself, with employee ergonomics named as a specific objective of the retool rather than a byproduct of it.
Spartanburg's press shop, the BMW Group's first in North America, is a useful marker of how equipment renewal has been staged ahead of need. Opened in June 2024 at a cost of more than $200 million, the 219,000 square foot facility currently stamps sheet metal for the X3 and is now tooled to stamp parts for the new X5, having been brought online roughly two years before the vehicle it was partly built to serve reached the line.
Maintenance and the equipment that keeps running
Retooling gets the attention, but the fact sheet BMW supplied around the X5 launch points to a parallel discipline, keeping existing equipment running longer and more efficiently rather than replacing it. Working with iVentures partner Turntide Motors, Spartanburg has installed more than 300 energy-efficient smart motor systems in air handling units across the site, cutting HVAC energy use by 40%. It is a retrofit rather than a rebuild, applied across existing infrastructure rather than folded into a single new construction project.
The plant's material handling fleet tells a similar story at greater scale. Around 800 pieces of forklifts and tuggers run on hydrogen fuel cell technology, refuelled in minutes at dozens of stations across the site, making it one of the largest hydrogen fuel cell fleets on a single site anywhere. Landfill gas piped 9.5 miles from the Palmetto Landfill still supplies close to a fifth of the plant's total energy needs, on turbines that were themselves replaced in 2009 to improve efficiency - an equipment upgrade sitting quietly inside a programme now approaching its third decade.
Quality assurance equipment has followed the same trajectory, moving from human inspection toward camera and sensor systems feeding an AI layer. AIQX, described by BMW as an in-house standard now being assessed for supplier rollout, uses sensors and cameras along the line at both Spartanburg and Woodruff to automate inspection and return real-time feedback to associates, rather than waiting for a downstream fault to surface.
Physical AI is arriving in that same maintenance and logistics space, deployed, at least for now, specifically where repetitive or physically demanding tasks sit. Ulrich Wieland, Vice President of Production Control and Logistics at BMW Manufacturing, described the shift from the Figure 02 pilot to its Figure 03 successor.
"Plant Spartanburg is the birthplace of humanoid robotics in BMW Manufacturing's operational day-to-day activities. Having already successfully completed a pilot with Figure 02 in our body shop, we are now looking forward to deploying Figure 03 for a sequencing use case in logistics." Figure 02 supported production of more than 30,000 X3 vehicles over an 11 month deployment, inserting sheet metal parts in the body shop, a task BMW itself flags as physically demanding.
Brett Adcock, Founder and CEO of Figure AI, framed the deployment as evidence the technology has moved past demonstration stage. "Our 11-month deployment of Figure 02 proved that humanoids are no longer lab experiments, they can be a valuable asset in establishing a flexible, reliable manufacturing workforce. We are excited to continue our work in Spartanburg as Figure tackles the complexity of the assembly and logistics hall."
With AMS on the ground, we witnessed this nex-gen humanoid, Figure 03, execute a complex logistics tasks by picking unsorted car parts out of large storage bins and placing them in the correct order into a specialised sequencing trolley. This "just-in-sequence" workflow prepares the components so they can be smoothly delivered directly to assembly line workers for vehicle production.
Figure 03 itself represents an equipment generation shift rather than a like-for-like swap. "The robot introduces several new features for expanded applications. These include soft components designed for enhanced safety, wireless charging designed for higher availability and audio functions for speech-to-speech communication, along with improved hands with tactile sensors and palm cameras designed to increase precision and dexterity," Adcock explained.
With AMS on the ground, we witnessed this nex-gen humanoid, Figure 03, execute a complex logistics tasks by picking unsorted car parts out of large storage bins and placing them in the correct order into a specialised sequencing trolley. This "just-in-sequence" workflow prepares the components so they can be smoothly delivered directly to assembly line workers for vehicle production.
The new sequencing role sees Figure 03 sorting unsorted components from delivery containers into trolleys for onward transport by tugger or Smart Transport Robot, with enhanced capabilities in geometric and spatial recognition; a task BMW notes recurs frequently across automotive logistics and offers scope for further scaling.
Converting for both EV and ICE, not choosing between them
Where Spartanburg retools an existing line for multiple drivetrains, Woodruff represents the opposite strategy, a purpose built facility for one job, high voltage battery assembly, sited 15 miles away under BMW's local-for-local principle. The 315-acre site, a former peach farm, now houses a 1.4 million square foot facility that will begin series production in October 2026, having already assembled first pre-series battery modules in July 2025.
The equipment logic at Woodruff is defined by what it removes as much as what it installs. Following the "Cell-to-Pack" principle, cells are assembled directly into the housing, eliminating the separate processes of cell coating and cell module production that earlier generations of battery assembly required. It is, in effect, retooling by subtraction, a shorter equipment chain rather than a longer one.
Sustainability targets are built into the plant's specification rather than retrofitted. Woodruff runs without fossil fuels in normal operation on 100% green electricity, was designed "solar ready" for a future rooftop photovoltaic system, and operates at 67 kWh per square metre annually, a figure BMW characterises as highly energy efficient. CarbonCure technology, already piloted at Spartanburg's Logistics Centre for X Models, injects captured CO2 into fresh concrete during mixing, a process BMW says increases the strength of the concrete while sequestering the CO2 permanently.
It is yet to be determined whether the wider industry follows Spartanburg's retool-in-place model or Woodruff's purpose-built approach; decisions that will likely depend on how quickly demand for any single drivetrain moves in a given market. BMW's answer, for now, is to run both strategies from adjacent sites and let the equipment itself carry the flexibility.
