Dürr receives large
paint systems order in U.S.
Stuttgart, Germany-based The Dürr Group has received a major order from the BMW Group for its U.S. plant in Spartanburg, SC, worth more than €100 million. The production capacity will be increased from 160,000 to 240,000 units by 2012. The required expansion of the paint shop will be realized largely by Dürr.
Dürr has received several small and medium-sized orders for paint systems in the U.S. in 2007. “This large order from BMW Group now assures us very good capacity utilization in the U.S. for the long term,” said Ralf Dieter, CEO of Dürr AG. “It also underscores the confidence placed in Dürr as a capable provider of comprehensive systems and technology expertise.”
The order will be executed under the leadership of U.S. subsidiary Dürr Systems, Inc.
The paint shop, built by Dürr in 1996, is to be expanded so the X3’s successor model and the X6 can be produced there in the future in addition to the BMW X5. The paint shop will be expanded by 28,000 square meters or 80%. Dürr is going to build three new areas for this paint shop including a base-coating facility with pretreatment, dip-coating and drying, where the RoDip rotation dipping process will be used; a primer line and a top coat line with connected finishing and waxing lines for post-treatment and transport sealing; and a sealing line for weld seams and underbody protection.
While production is supposed to begin in the first two areas in mid-2009, the sealing line’s startup is planned for mid-2010. Capacity is to increase from 27 units per hour now to 46 as a result of expanding the paint shop.
The project in Spartanburg is the BMW Group’s third-largest plant remodeling job for Dürr since 2003. Most recently Dürr expanded and modernized the paint shop at the BMW site in Oxford, England, where the MINI model is produced. In 2003, Dürr remodeled the paint shop at the BMW site in Shenyang, China. In all three projects, Dürr’s role is to provide not only the equipment, but also the upstream planning of the paint shop layout and processes.