BMW opens Industry 4.0 developer hub with NTT Data in Romania

BMW Group has opened a new IT and software hub in Romania to accelerate the company’s digital transformation across both its driver-facing automotive software activities and its production-based Industry 4.0 initiatives. These include “cloud innovations and AI”, it said. The new site, called BMW TechWorks Romania, will become its European hub for innovation, it said. It is a joint venture with NTT Data, the system integrator division of Japanese telecoms conglomerate NTT. The pair have worked together for 30 years, they said.

NTT Data brings experience in agile software development and local knowledge of the Romanian IT landscape, it said. The facility is located in Cluj-Napoca, a university city in the Transylvania region in the northwest of the country, and a “dynamic environment for innovation and IT talent”, according to BMW. The Munich-based automotive firm said it expects to double the number of existing staff at the site, to 250 by the end of the year (2024); and to employ more than 1,000 at its Romania hub “in the long term”. BMW employs 9,400 people globally in software development.

It wants to achieve a “double-digit million turnover” at the facility by the end of the year. The stated aim of the site is to develop “central building blocks for IT projects” in the EU region, with a focus on “connected procurement” to underpin “highly complex supply chains and control systems”, “digital shopfloor” to create a “modern production IT” infrastructure as the “backbone of the BMW iFactory” strategy, and a “direct sales model” to develop “central IT components” to enable direct sales if BMW- and Mini-branded cars in Europe.

BMW’s iFactory gambit is billed as a “revolutionary strategy for automotive production” that sets a template for “lean, green, digital” Industry 4.0 practices covering “flexible, efficient, sustainable, and digital manufacturing technologies”. It is being implemented at all BMW plants worldwide. BMW signed a deal with NTT Data in March to establish a joint venture in Romania to expand its network of software hubs and hire new developer talent. The new facility in Romania joins a network of TechWorks hubs in Germany, South Africa, the USA, Portugal, and China

Alexander Buresch, chief information officer and senior vice president for IT at BMW, said: “We are strengthening our footprint in the EU and contributing significantly to the digital experience of our customers. Our global IT hubs secure our business IT and software expertise in the long term and accelerate the implementation of our IT strategy based on latest technologies such as cloud innovations and AI.”

Chieri Kimura, executive vice president at NTT Data, and chief executive of the company in the region (Europe, Middle, Africa, and Latin America), said: “Our collaboration with the BMW Group is a testament to our mutual respect and shared vision for the future of the automotive industry. By combining our strengths, we are poised to deliver innovative and transformative solutions that will benefit our customers worldwide.”

Marian Haus, chief operating officer at BMW TechWorks Romania, said: “We want to attract qualified IT talent for our rapid growth… and are therefore particularly pleased about the excellent technical education at the universities in Cluj-Napoca and the city’s lively tech scene.” Ralf Waltram, vice president and head of global ‘devops hubs’, said: “Cluj-Napoca, known for its innovation-friendly ecosystem, entrepreneurship, start-ups and high density of IT talent, offers ideal conditions for the joint venture.”