Back to work
LEONI · Jul 2018 — Sep 2020
Frontend — BMW Line Relocation & Ramp-up
Relocated a BMW front-bumper cable project across countries — three production lines moved, reconfigured, fully tested, and brought to full capacity.
Program Delivery
Systems
Manufacturing
- Lines relocated
- 3
- Transfer downtime
- 1 week
- Ramp-up to full capacity
- 2 weeks
01
Problem
- A BMW front-bumper (Frontend) project had to be relocated from Bistrița, Romania to the plant in Niš, Serbia.
- Three production lines needed to be moved, set up, and verified — without disrupting the customer's supply.
02
Research & Discovery
- As part of the core team, mapped the process flow and every system dependency: applications, scanners, printers and configurations.
- Identified what had to be replicated exactly vs. what could be improved during the move.
03
Solution
- Owned process flow, application settings and device configuration (scanners, printers) for the relocated lines.
- Relocated all three lines, set them up in Niš, configured the systems and fully tested everything before start of production.
04
Impact & Metrics
- All three lines went live and the project now runs at full capacity.
- Completed the transfer with one week of downtime, followed by a two-week ramp-up before reaching full production capacity.
05
Trade-offs
Every project involves choices. Here I explain what I didn't do, what I chose instead, and why that was the better call for the business.
- Invested heavily in full testing before go-live instead of a fast switch-over, trading speed for a clean, low-risk launch.
- Standardized device configuration across lines rather than per-line tweaks, accepting less local flexibility for easier maintenance.
06
What I Learned
- A 'move' is really a re-launch: treating it as a project with clear acceptance criteria avoided nasty surprises at ramp-up.
- The boring details — scanner and printer configs — are exactly where production stoppages hide.