Last week, The Diesel Driver spent an entire day at the BMW’s Vehicle Distribution Center in New Jersey and they were able to share with us some behind the scenes information.
For those of you that might not know, the BMW Vehicle Distribution Center (VDC) is the point of entry for all BMWs, Minis, and Rolls-Royce models arriving in the United States. This is a facility where your car will spend up to three days being prepped for the American market, and being repaired to factory specifications if any damage have occurred in transit.
For those of you that have been through the BMW European Delivery program, the process oftracking your car from its inception to delivery, can be quite intriguing and VDC is the one place that can speed up the process of your delivery. The amount of work these fellows are putting into, is admirable.
“The New Jersey VDC processes an average of 300 cars per day (and, at times, up to 600) including new and European Delivery BMWs, Minis, and Rolls-Royces, which arrive from Austria, Germany, South Africa, Spartanburg, and the United Kingdom. The facility holds 3000 cars, and a recent 10-acre expansion can hold an additional thousand vehicles.
There are five departments at the VDC, not including administrative and management functions:
- Production – processes the car, performs the pre-delivery inspection, installs labels including the Monroney sticker, inspects for damage, removes shipping labels
- Workshop – performs mechanical repairs, campaigns, software updates; installs accessories such as driving lights and power kits
- Body Shop – performs body repair, paint, repairs of scratches and scuffs, paintless dent removal; installs body kits
- Quality – monitors procedures, reports issues to the factory, ensures quality control throughout the facility
- Parts – stocks and distributes replacement parts”
Continue reading the 335d’s adventure through the process.
Author: Horatiu B.
Source: http://www.bmwblog.com/2010/02/08/insid ... ew-jersey/