FEATURE | AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS
started operating last summer. The press shop is crucial for the
production of the BMW X3 Sports Activity Vehicle, stamping large metal parts like doors, fenders, and body sides. This facility is part of BMW’s larger strategy to transition to electric vehicle production, with plans to begin assembling fully electric models in Spartanburg by the end of 2026. “We are further expanding our board member at BMW. “At the end of 2026, assembly of all-electric Sports Activity Vehicles will start here in Spartanburg.” The new press shop in Spartanburg
represents a $200 million investment and will play a key role in BMW’s goal of assembling at least six fully electric models in the US by 2030. The press shop is equipped with the latest technology to improve efficiency and quality. The high- speed presses are capable of producing up to 10,000 parts per day, with a new automated system designed to move blanks from one station to the next quickly and efficiently. After the parts are stamped, they go through quality control, where they are checked under special lighting that mimics natural daylight to ensure consistency and accuracy. BMW’s Spartanburg facility, which has been operational for 30 years, has produced more than 6.7 million vehicles and remains one of the largest automotive plants in the world. The site is highly automated, with over 2,600 robots used in various stages of production, including assembly, painting, and material handling. The plant is also committed to sustainability, generating around 20% of its own power from methane gas and using hydrogen fuel cell technology to power around 800 pieces of material handling equipment. According to Tad Dunville, managing
partner of Safe Lifting Partners, stamping cranes, like those used in BMW’s press shop, are among the largest in the automotive industry. These cranes are essential for moving heavy steel coils into the stamping area and for changing dies in the stamping machines. The dies, which can weigh up to 40 tons, are crucial for shaping car body parts like doors, hoods, and fenders. “Stamping cranes usually have two main tasks: one, to move the steel coils off of railcars and trucks into the inventory of the stamping plant and then from inventory to the processing area where the coils are decoiled - unrolled - then blanked - cut into flat sheets of perhaps 4’ square - and
26 | January 2025 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
BMW is working with Schuler and Konecranes at its press shop in Spartanburg, US.
then stamped into car doors, hoods, roofs, and fenders; and two; for changing the dies in the stamping machines so that the stamping machine in a particular area can change from making left doors to hoods or similar,” he said. “As time goes on the human cost goes up, and that includes safety and injury costs. The BTH, as we call it, or Below the Hook device, has gone from a couple of chains to rigid C-hooks and/or spreader bars to motorized retracting and rotating devices. What this has enabled automakers and steel companies to do is keep hands away from the load, which has been shown by empirical evidence at companies like Nucor Steel to be leading cause and cost of injuries. “The next generation of change is to take
“smart crane” features like sway control and load monitoring and make the BTH smart with similar products. This is because it is very important to automakers to change stamping dies very fast but the dies are very expensive, very big, very heavy, and hard to see around. One stamping die is the size of a small Volkswagen and weighs over 40 tons, which is the weight of 40 Volkswagens. A stamping die is essentially two solid blocks of steel stacked together, with the mated faces in the shape of the door or hood that is desired.” He explains; as powered BTH devices
are becoming more common, companies are trying different things to make them smarter and improve productivity. “Some things have failed - for example, workers in certain Detroit factories took offense at the presence of cameras, even though they only fed to the crane operator’s control box and not to management. Other ideas
have worked better, such as strain gauge sensors that detect the presence of a load and the even distribution over lifting points. You might be surprised to hear this, but many companies required a red circle light to shine under the crane. My company has an innovative light that is not only brighter for better visibility in well-lit buildings, but the pattern of light it throws is faster recognized by the human eye. This device is quickly becoming popular in environments where the company wants operators - and their hands - to stay away from the load for safety reasons. “Another BTH innovation that myself and some other guys came up with for an automotive stamping project at a leading Japanese-American manufacturer and have used repeatedly since then is the automation-ready BTH. In the past, there were silos of buyer/contractor/ crane builder/BTH builder/automation contractor. Each had their own goals and the back-and-forth just to design and estimate the costs was costly and time-consuming. With our pre-engineered automation-ready BTH, we had most of the smart crane sensors required to perform common tasks and could quickly estimate and produce an automation-ready BTH. “As smart cranes and smart BTH become
more and more common at top tier manufacturers such as big auto and big steel, we’ll see these features start to trickle down into steel services, processing, and distribution to speed up throughput and prevent injuries.” Meanwhile, Yuantai Crane (part of Dongqi Group) based in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, otherwise known as “the Hometown of Hoisting Machinery of China”;
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