Germany’s heavy-weight transport provider Spedition Bohnet has helped production line expert Schuler deliver a 170-ton press crown to from its factory in Göppingen, southern Germany, to BMW’s facility in Leipzig.
At 169 tons (8.4 x 4.2 x 3.7 metres), the Schuler press crown was the largest piece of a servo press line being assembled at the car plant for completion in July 2009. Other pieces, also handled by Bohnet, are coming from Erfurt (also from Schuler), Hamburg and Chemnitz.
“We are responsible for the entire transport to BMW Leipzig, this project covers 32 heavy transports,” said Bohnet spokesman Holger Kunz.
In the first leg of the press crown’s 14-day journey, by road from Göppingen to Stuttgart, Bohnet used 12-axle semitrailers. From there it was taken by boat along the Neckar, Rhine and Elbe rivers, and the Mittelland canal, to the Port of Aachen and driven on a 16-axle, 34-metre, flat-bed truck to Leipzig.
As part of the preparation for the heavy transport, the access road to the building site at Leipzig was specially reinforced.
The delivery of the press crown is part of an order that the Schuler Group received from the BMW in late 2007. The line consists of six individual presses and is the first servo press line of this scale. BMW will produce more than 40 different parts for the BMW 1-series on the line.