BMW saves kilos of plastic through… falcons!

A car factory is a complex entity. Anyone who wants to make hundreds of cars a day faces logistical challenges that only affect normal people in their worst nightmares. It has become clear again today that not all of these challenges are equally obvious. In Leipzig, where BMW wants to build around 300,000 compact models this year, the cars are briefly parked outside after production. This takes place on a huge site next to the factory hall that is invisible to the outside world, because there is also a pre-production model that has yet to be revealed.

As the Small Orchestra once made very clear, one category of living beings pays little attention to German walls: birds. In the case of BMW Werk Leipzig, until recently this specifically involved pigeons, which often left their droppings on the brand new cars. That is very undesirable, because, especially with fresh car paint, pigeon droppings quickly eat into the car in a nasty way and the cars are actually damaged before they are transported to the customer.

To prevent that scenario, the cars were largely wrapped in plastic for a long time. By covering the hood, roof and other sheet metal parts before driving outside, the paint was at least protected. However, the disadvantages are evident: plastic costs money, plastic is harmful to the environment and plastic has to be applied, which costs serious time and therefore money for hundreds of thousands of cars per year.

The pigeon droppings problem in Leipzig is now a thing of the past, the PR manager tells us. The enormous factory site has now been discovered by falcons, and since then there has suddenly been no pigeon to be seen. As a thank you – and out of self-interest – the factory has provided the falcons with a house itself, mainly to encourage them to stay for a long time. That saves BMW a lot of effort and a lot of plastic, because since the appearance of the falcon, BMW has dared to simply roll out the fresh goods without a protective layer.