The press shop at the BMW Group’s home plant in Munich turns more than 30,000 blanks a day into vehicle body parts. Since 2019 each blank has been given a laser code at the start of production so the body part can be clearly identified throughout. This code is picked up by the iQ Press system, which records material and process parameters – such as the thickness of the metal and oil layer, and the temperature and speed of the presses. The parameters are then related to the quality of the parts produced.

Uploaded to the cloud in real time, the data is immediately available in its entirety for the production team to gain a clearer picture of the manufacturing process. iQ Press data is an important tool for them, as it eliminates the need for each body part to be checked in minute detail, in quality control for example, and picks out only irregularities that require action.

Artificial intelligence also offers potential to identify recurring patterns in a process, based on the data collected, to support continuous optimisation. So, as well as improving the efficiency of production systems, iQ Press helps to further increase hourly output from the press shop.