BMW Group is transforming global manufacturing operations with advanced digital twin technology. The world’s leading manufacturer of premium cars and motorcycles is scaling its Virtual Factory, with production planners continuously expanding applications in the digital twins of over 30 production sites to accelerate production planning worldwide.
What once required several weeks of real-world modifications and testing can now be precisely simulated in the Virtual Factory, with BMW Group planning to integrate more than 40 new or updated vehicles into its global production network between now and 2027.
This will first be done virtually to ensure immediate stability at the plants. Going forward, the BMW Group’s Virtual Factory is projected to reduce production planning costs by up to 30 percent.
How digital twins help BMW Group transform global manufacturing operations
By intelligently linking building data, equipment data, logistics information, vehicle data and 3D simulations of manual work processes, the company creates virtual replicas of all its production plants worldwide.
These digital twins are powered by a cutting-edge industrial 3D metaverse built on NVIDIA Omniverse, allowing real-time simulations for optimizing factory layouts, robotics and logistics systems. The BMW Group’s Virtual Factory continues to evolve, now integrating generative AI and agentic AI assistants to enhance productivity, decision-making and operational efficiency in smart manufacturing.
Before launching any new vehicle, the BMW Group must ensure the model fits seamlessly into the production line without any interference. Using its state-of-the-art Virtual Factory, this verification process is now fully digital, automated and completed in just three days, compared to nearly four weeks of manual testing in the past.
By combining detailed construction data with high-precision 3D scans, the system simulates a vehicle’s movement and rotation throughout the production line, performing real-time virtual collision detection.
Previously, physical vehicle bodies had to be manually maneuvered through the assembly process to identify potential obstructions. In the paint shop, this even meant draining and cleaning dip coating tanks to accommodate test runs, resulting in high costs and extended downtime. Today, BMW Group’s digital manufacturing simulation dramatically reduces time, labor and expense, while increasing precision and efficiency in production planning.
The Virtual Factory is advancing rapidly, enabling an increasing number of applications to be scaled. In addition to virtual, automated collision checks, this includes human simulation that optimizes manual production steps and automated identification of maps of the surroundings from existing 3D scans for smart transport systems.
Image credit: BMW Group
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