(EN) Process Confirmation Standard for Kaizen at BMW Dingolfing—Part 1

Continuous improvement in lean works through work standards. Improving the standards improves your processes. However, all of this is for naught if the standard is not followed. In this series of blog posts I will look in more detail at how the BMW Group Dingolfing plant (a company on par with Toyota in terms of efficiency) does process confirmation on the shop floor. And, maybe even more important, how they drive the whole improvement process through the front-line workers on the shop floor using this process confirmation.

Introduction

For decades, I have been comparing the automotive (and other) plants worldwide (e.g., through my Grand Tour of Japanese Automotive and my Grand Tour of German Automotive). I am particularly interested in how efficient they are. Going by my own method of estimating the percentage of value-adding time, Toyota comes out on top as the most efficient automotive company in the world, having between 50% and up to almost 80% value-adding time for their assembly lines. Nissan is also very good. But such an outstanding performance is not limited to Japan. At the automotive plants of the BMW group I find similar percentages of value-adding time of around 60% to 70%. This puts BMW in the same category as Nissan and Toyota, and way beyond the rest of the automotive world (that I have seen). See also the overview graph below, and the detailed blog posts in the series of the grand tours.

Comparing Toyota, Nissan, and BMW with other automotive plants, the key difference is how they do continuous improvement. I recently had the opportunity to have a thorough visit to the BMW Group Dingolfing plant, thanks to Thorsten Ahrens, Head of Assembly iX, i7, 8, 7, 5 Series in Dingolfing (many thanks, Thorsten!). (Note: This also inspired parts of the post On the Use of 3D Printers in Lean Manufacturing, as they use 3D printing directly on the shop floor for improvements.) The BMW Dingolfing plant, established 1973, is with over 300 hectare the largest plant of BMW in Europe, producing almost 300 000 cars per year (2024), ranging from the BMW 4 Series, 5 Series, 7 Series, and 8 Series to the fully electric BMW iX. It is the Leitwerk Oberklasse (i.e., the reference plant for the high-end BMW vehicles [not that BMW has really low-end cars…]).

Overall, the BMW Group Dingolfing plant is an outstanding plant, producing cars very efficiently. There were lots of small gadgets and tricks all over the shop floor that made work easier (as for example, their Low-Tech Alternative to Pick by Light: Pick by Stencil). Hence, in this post, I will look in depth at their process confirmation. They also use AI on the shop floor, which will be the subject of a later post.

The Framework for the Process Confirmation

Process confirmation is a daily task for each group leader (Vorarbeiter) on the shop floor. Every day they have to go through a process confirmation checklist with twenty-two questions, divided into five groups. Each group leader has a group of around twelve people. Every day, the group leader has to work through this checklist for the work of two to three people. Hence, doing a daily process confirmation for two to three out of around twelve people, they will have done a process confirmation for everybody every week. The checklist is in digital form within their shop floor management software, indicating which task was checked when, and what the outcomes were.

And, this checklist is followed up by the next level management, and even the head of assembly verifies a selection of these checklists regularly. Naturally, not every day has perfect checklists all around (otherwise you would need no checklists, or—more likely—the people just check all boxes to make management happy). There are follow-up processes to help the group leader if there are issues. But more importantly, the group leader himself has the power and the resources to change things himself and to rectify issues on his own (e.g., using the aforementioned 3D printer to create gadgets). Additionally, the group leaders are properly trained in the use of these checklists, and, maybe most important, also have the time to go through them and the time and resources to follow up issues on the checklist.

Also, just as a side note, this checklist is also improved regularly. When I visited in May 2025, the checklist used was last revised to version 2.2 in April 2025, only one month earlier. Both the date and the version number indicate a regular improvement of the checklist, and by the time I am writing this blog post, it is probably changed again, and will probably be changed again by the time you are reading this post. To become really, REALLY good (like Toyota and BMW), you do need fast improvement iterations!

The Work Standard

To be excellent, you need excellent work standards. And BMW makes great use of work standards. For example, the Dingolfing plant final assembly line has for each station around one hundred pages of work standards. The one hundred pages describe in great detail the eighty-three seconds of work (one takt at the time of the visit) for six different models. And this detailed work standard is not only a paper tiger (like in many other plants), but it is actively worked with. Whenever there is a defect, flaw, or work-related problem, the primary question is „What does the standard say?“ Did the worker deviate from the standard? Then he needs to be trained better. Did the standard have a flaw? Then the standard needs to be changed (and the workers trained accordingly).

In my subsequent post I will go into more detail on the actual work standard, a checklist, that BMW uses for its process confirmation, going through all the items on the list that the group leader has to check on a daily basis. But now, go out, think about what you would include in a process confirmation, and organize your industry!

PS: Many thanks to Thorsten Ahrens, Head of Assembly iX, i7, 8, 7, 5 Series in the BMW group Dingolfing plant, for showing me his very well managed shop floor!