The supply chain of a new M3

[335speed]

Hey fellow bimmerposters,
I will be engaged in a college project to follow the supply chain of an item of my choosing. I have chosen to follow the leather in the seats of a new M3, from me (the customer) all the way back to the animals the leather is made from.
Without any research my example would be....

Customer->Dealership in Orange County->Port of Los Angeles ->German Port -> Manufacturing Plant -> Seat Manufacturer-> Leather Maker-> Farmer->Animal

Since I figured many of you have done previous research on one or more of these places or steps on your new wonder machine, I was hoping to get some help. If you have any detailed information, such as specific locations or steps I may have missed, it would be sincerely appreciated.

Thank you

P.s. If there is any interest at all, I may keep this thread updated with my findings

[Wah]

So what you're saying is that you want us to do your homework for you?

J/K... good luck.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by 335speed

Hey fellow bimmerposters,
I will be engaged in a college project to follow the supply chain of an item of my choosing. I have chosen to follow the leather in the seats of a new M3, from me (the customer) all the way back to the animals the leather is made from.
Without any research my example would be....

Customer->Dealership in Orange County->Port of Los Angeles ->German Port -> Manufacturing Plant -> Leather Maker-> Farmer

Since I figured many of you have done previous research on one or more of these places or steps on your new wonder machine, I was hoping to get some help. If you have any detailed information, such as specific locations or steps I may have missed, it would be sincerely appreciated.

Thank you

P.s. If there is any interest at all, I may keep this thread updated with my findings

Actually I'm very interested. Please keep me posted. Also, tracking those is easy, and you just call bmw and they'll sing you the song mainly, but if that is all there is to it, you need to get into a better school.

The seats are more than leather, so be prepared to work really hard on this if not only the cow is needed in the story. I would say to save you a lot of time and money in the future, track the tires of the cars. That would make you one of my favorite persons on the planet for one, and also this is a real issue no one wants to know about.

[335speed]

Originally Posted by Wah

So what you're saying is that you want us to do your homework for you?

J/K... good luck.

well at least the grunt work... cmon can't hurt to ask i figure someone wanted to know where there car was made or what port it came through!

[schmitzna]

Originally Posted by 335speed

Customer->Dealership in Orange County->Port of Los Angeles ->German Port -> Manufacturing Plant -> Leather Maker-> Farmer

The seat subcon needs to be added to your flow:

http://www.lear.com/user_area/extran...3_Combined.pdf

Don't know if Lear makes the M3 seats so this is just an illustrative example. Car companies generally do not make seats.

[dmk08]

No credit to the animal?

Originally Posted by 335speed

Hey fellow bimmerposters,
I will be engaged in a college project to follow the supply chain of an item of my choosing. I have chosen to follow the leather in the seats of a new M3, from me (the customer) all the way back to the animals the leather is made from.
Without any research my example would be....

Customer->Dealership in Orange County->Port of Los Angeles ->German Port -> Manufacturing Plant -> Leather Maker-> Farmer

Since I figured many of you have done previous research on one or more of these places or steps on your new wonder machine, I was hoping to get some help. If you have any detailed information, such as specific locations or steps I may have missed, it would be sincerely appreciated.

Thank you

P.s. If there is any interest at all, I may keep this thread updated with my findings

[JTO24]

Depending on the manufacturer, we may have product in the seats we supply to Recaro and a few others but we're just plain bearings lol fun fact: we are in E36 M3 manual transmissions and pretty sure the ZF 8AT.

[335speed]

Originally Posted by schmitzna

The seat subcon needs to be added to your flow:

http://www.lear.com/user_area/extran...3_Combined.pdf

Don't know if Lear makes the M3 seats so this is just an illustrative example. Car companies generally do not make seats.

I'll throw that on there, thanks!

[335speed]

Originally Posted by dmk08

No credit to the animal?

fixed

[Damasconian]

Fly into Munich and take a tour of the factory. There is a whole stop on the tour dedicated to leather and how it is applied and protected at BMW. They take a great deal of pride in that division and the tour stop shows that.

Would the school pay for that? If so, send me an application please.

[335speed]

Originally Posted by Damasconian

Fly into Munich and take a tour of the factory. There is a whole stop on the tour dedicated to leather and how it is applied and protected at BMW. They take a great deal of pride in that division and the tour stop shows that.

Would the school pay for that? If so, send me an application please.

Man do I wish..... Hopefully someone who is lucky enough to have been there could indulge us? I doubt a trip to Europe for a lowly operations class would be fiscally responsible!