The BMW South Carolina plant is in the midst of a $1 billion investment to increase the plant’s capacity by 50 percent by the end of 2016. The plant will also add a fifth vehicle model, the BMW X7.
The increased volume is expected to add 800 new jobs to the plant’s workforce and make the South Carolina plant the largest BMW Group plant worldwide.
BMW Manufacturing also announced two new senior management appointments this week.
The company named Franz Linner as vice president of its supplier network in the Americas and Johannes Trauth as vice president of human resources.
Linner is now responsible for supply chain partners throughout North and South America. In October, he joined the Spartanburg management team from Munich where he has served in various quality management, development and purchasing positions throughout BMW Group since 1985.
Linner succeeds Philip Heinrichsdorff, who recently became vice president of production control and logistics.
Trauth arrived in South Carolina in early November to head up the plant’s human resources function. He was previously the head of compensation and benefits/job evaluation for BMW Group in Munich.
Prior to beginning his career with BMW in 1999, Trauth worked with Rolls Royce GmbH as head of human resource management.
