Morning Reads: Thursday, 28 February 2008

[mika]

TodayÔÇÖs Birthdays / Calendar

motostation.com
Interview: The little secrets of BMW F800GS and F650GS


motostation.com
Test BMW F650GS: A pleasant surprise!


motorcyclist-online.com
Why not? BMW F1200GS


motorcycledaily.com
Jeremy McWilliams test the KTM RC8 1190


brianbucketmag.com
Honda to end motorcycle production in US


cmgonline.com
Pricely ride cancelled


duccutters.com
UtraMotard ÔÇô Project by Roland Sands Design



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BMW Sauber F1
BMW Motorsport


BMW Sauber F1 Team - Barcelona Test - Day three
02-27-2008 Press Release
February 25th ÔÇô 27th 2008
Day three ÔÇô Wednesday


Weather conditions: Clear sky and sunshine all day.

Temperatures: Air: 16 ÔÇô 23 ??C, Track: 16 ÔÇô 24 ??C

Number of drivers participating: 19 of 10 teams (one team running only one car)

Fastest lap overall: Jarno Trulli (Toyota Racing) 1:20.801 min

Circuit length: 4.655 km


Robert Kubica
Chassis / engine: BMW Sauber F1.08-03 / BMW P86/8
Test kilometres today: 433 km (93 laps)
Fastest lap: 1:22.299 min


Nick Heidfeld
Chassis / engine: BMW Sauber F1.08-02 / BMW P86/8
Test kilometres today: 284 km (61 laps)
Fastest lap: 1:22.624 min


Programme:
With the third day of testing in Barcelona the team basically concluded the preparation for the 2008 season. In perfect weather conditions Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld worked again on the set-up of the BMW Sauber F1.08 evaluating the latest aerodynamical updates for the upcoming race in Melbourne/Australia. Both drivers also conducted several practice pitstops and starts. In the morning Nick Heidfeld did a precautionary stop on the track because sensors were indicating a gearbox problem.

Covering 189 laps (880 km) and 213 laps (992 km) respectively over the three days period Kubica and Heidfeld continued development work on the teamÔÇÖs new car as scheduled. Test driver Christian Klien completed another 42 laps (196 km) on the first day.

Looking forward to the Australian Grand Prix Nick Heidfeld said: ÔÇ£Since the rollout of the BMW Sauber F1.08 we made significant progress. I canÔÇÖt wait for the first race to start.ÔÇØ Robert Kubica added: ÔÇ£Everybody in the team worked flat out to improve the car. We are already in a quite strong position, and there is still a lot of potential in the car.ÔÇØ

autoweek.com
Boyd Coddington Dies, age 63


So you want to build an Audi TT
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wheels24.co.za
SUV safety questioned

BMW Website Review:


worldofBMW.com
Se the wonder Down Under on a hired BMW


BMW Yachtsport


BMW Golfsport


BMW Oracle Racing


BMW Sport website


BMW PressClub




Impressive results for MINI in NHTSA NCAP Crash Testing ]/b]
02/27/2008

Whitby. The second generation MINI Cooper hatchback earned impressive scores for front and side impact and roll-over testing in the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) testing.
In the NCAP side impact testing, the 2008 MINI Cooper received a 5-Star rating for front seat occupant side-impact protection - the highest rating issued by NHTSA. In the same test the MINI Cooper received a 4-Star rating for rear seat occupants.

In frontal impact testing the MINI Cooper received a 4-Star rating for both front seat occupants. In addition the MINI Cooper carries a 5-Star rating for rollover safety.

The MINI Cooper and Cooper S, of course, share the same body structure and passive safety features and optimize occupant safety with a total of six airbags - two frontal impact bags, two seat-mounted side impact bags and a Head Protection air bag curtain that protects both front and rear passengers in the event of a side impact or roll-over. MINI's crash worthiness is also enhanced by a rigid steel safety cage that helps to redirect impact forces away from occupants.

ÔÇ£We are delighted with the NHTSA test results which echo impressive performances in earlier IIHS and Euro NCAP tests " said Stephen McDonnell, Director of MINI Canada. "These results underscore the level of safety engineered into our cars, making MINI one of the safest small cars on the road today.ÔÇØ

A suite of advanced electronic braking and traction management technologies, including standard Anti-Lock Brakes, Automatic Stability Control +Traction (ASC+T), Brakeforce Distribution (EBD), Cornering Brake Control (CBC) and available Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) all assist the MINI driver in avoiding the unplanned testing of MINIÔÇÖs excellent passive safety pedigree.


BMW Group specifies changes to personnel structures in the course of implementing strategy Number ONE
27.02.2008

Lower personnel costs by improving efficiency
Continuing demand for specialists and executive staff
Commitment to Germany as key production location

Munich. As the BMW Group implements the new strategy Number ONE, the company is working hard to secure its future. A key element in this effort is the goal of turning profitability figures around.
To reach their goals, the BMW Group intends to realize improvements on the cost and performance side amounting to EUR 6 billion by 2012, compared to initial plans. The greatest savings potential has been identified in the areas of material, production and development costs.

Flexibility as a traditional key strength of the BMW Group

Another step towards reaching the target rate of return is lowering personnel costs. Substantial efficiency improvements, mainly in production, allow for the reduction of staff capacities. To this end, the BMW Group implements a whole series of flexibility measures.
"Flexibility has long been a key strength of the BMW Group", said Ernst Baumann, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, responsible for Human Resources, in Munich on Wednesday. "We have always been able to ride the ups and downs of the market."
Planned steps include the application of various working time models, time accounts, partial retirement as well as temporary staff.
The number of temporary staff working for the BMW Group in Germany is supposed to be cut by a total of approximately 5,000 by the end of the year. About 2,500 people have already left the company.
Ernst Baumann: "Temporary workers are not employed by us but by their respective temporary employment agencies. There they will keep their jobs because the current market has a high demand for temporary staff."

Reduction of permanent staff on voluntary basis

Cuts at the BMW Group's domestic production locations will affect 2,500 employees or around three percent of an overall 80,000 permanent staff in Germany. "What matters to us is that bringing the headcount down must happen on a voluntary basis - in accordance with the BMW Group's basic principles to which we have committed ourselves. These include that leadership is founded on mutual trust, respect and fairness", Baumann said.
The three percent reduction of permanent staff applies to all locations but Leipzig where the BMW Group will only make some minor adjustments.
Of the 28,000 permanent staff abroad 600 positions will be cut, mainly at the more than 40 global sales subsidiaries.

Further demand for specialists and executive staff

In the next few years, the BMW Group will create new mobility concepts and will open up additional business areas in the Financial Services segment. These steps will require new knowledge structures. Management and employee representatives are currently discussing ways to achieve this change.
The goal is drawing up a company agreement on "Skills Management". Its purpose is to get suitable employees ready for new assignments via advanced training and qualification programs. However, as this will not satisfy demand completely, job cuts are counterbalanced by new jobs as well. The BMW Group will continue to recruit highly qualified and skilled workers and executives. In 2008, the company plans to open up approximately 500 new positions.
Ernst Baumann: "Engineering our successful future has always been a key strength of the BMW Group. Our strategy Number ONE provides us with the means to continue to do so in the future."

Germany to remain key production location

In order to uphold Germany's significance as a strong base for the company, the BMW Group intends to further strengthen their competitiveness. "For this purpose efficiency improvements are imperative - efficiency improvements that consistently lead to more output per employee", Baumann emphasized.


Majority of staff employed in Germany, majority of vehicles sold abroad

The BMW Group is among the few companies that employ the majority of their staff in Germany while selling most of their products abroad. Last year, the BMW Group sold more than 1.5 million automobiles worldwide, 285,000 thereof in Germany. This means that over 80 percent of all units produced are sold outside of Germany. The company employs close to 108,000 permanent staff worldwide, 80,000 or three quarters thereof in Germany.

BMW PressClub: Continued on page 2

Statement
by Ernst Baumann
Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG
Human Resources

Press Talk
Munich, February 27, 2008

BlogRoll: some of the blogs I have collected while purposefully wondering around the internet.


M.R. Traveler


Places 2 Ride Blog


www.biker-events.com
Finding the Good Time on 2 Wheels


Horizonsunlimited.com ÔÇô Newsletter

2008 International Rally
Gillette, Wyoming, July 17-20 2008


Mining The Website


A message from home, the Home Page that is.

NEW FEATURE: Picture This!
As inspired by the Forum, each month we'll provide a topic for photo contributions. Members are invited to submit one photo that best depicts the topic. Photos will be judged by MOA staff. Those selected will be featured in the BMW Owners News. Each photo must include a 50 word (or less) description, your name, member number, city, state. Topic: Where I keep my Owners News. Send your photo to picturethis@bmwmoa.org. The winners will appear in the APRIL issue of the BMW Owners News.



Threads worth following:

Photo Assignment:
Here is a link to the PHOTO ASSIGNMENT INDEX, with links to the various excellent Photo Assignment threads

Latest project: ÔÇ£Old CroÔÇØ the R-evolution

Diary of a Barn Queen

ItÔÇÖs time to switch the ratchet over to tighten.


TodayÔÇÖsRoadFood.com


Woot

Todays Woot
The Blog

Packer News: Packers.com, jsonline.com - Packers Plus Online


Humor

Over Heard in New York | Voice of the City
Sluggy Freelance
The Onion
xkcd


Bike Candy:

faster and faster



THE END

 

[mika]

Page 2: BMW PressClub continued

Statement
by Ernst Baumann
Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG
Human Resources

Press Talk
Munich, February 27, 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for joining this press conference. I am delighted about this opportunity to speak with you today as we unfortunately did not have the chance to do so before Christmas.
You may remember that, a few days before Christmas, the media coverage on changes to the BMW GroupÔÇÖs personnel structures took on a momentum of its own. A premature report by the German weekly DER SPIEGEL forced us to start communication right away. We had intended to communicate our plans at a later point of time as we wanted to deliver specific facts ÔÇô rather than talk about unconfirmed rumors regarding an issue of such great sensitivity. Now, after due consideration, our plans are complete and we can name exact figures.
Our associates are being informed simultaneously in order to prevent uncertainties and to avoid more rumors.

Reasons for changes to personnel structures in relation to the strategy

Let me start by reminding you of the reasons for these personnel measures:
This year, as we implement our strategy Number ONE, we are moving into a decisive phase. We are laying the foundation we need to turn our profitability figures around. All our measures are designed to secure our future and to enhance value.
More specifically: We want to raise our rate of return. Two figures are of crucial importance here:
First: The Return on Capital Employed. We want the RoCE in our automobile business to increase to more than 26 percent by 2012.
Second: The Return on Sales. We are aiming for an increase of 8 to 10 percent in the automobile business by 2012.
For us, this means realizing improvements on the cost and performance side amounting to 6 billion Euros by 2012, compared to initial plans.
And how are we going to do this?
As we have already said, we identified the greatest savings potential in our material costs. With an amount of around 25 billion Euros, materials are the biggest expense factor for the company. We expect to realize two thirds (or 4 billion Euros) of the complete potential of 6 billion Euros in this area.
Another step toward achieving our target rate of return is the reduction of personnel costs.
There are two aspects to consider: In production we have been able to generate major efficiency improvements. In the last couple of years the increase in productivity amounted to between 5 and 10 percent a year. We will strive to maintain a minimum annual productivity rate of 5% in the future.
At the same time, retail volumes wonÔÇÖt rise as much as they did in the last years. In 2007 alone we achieved a sales increase of almost 10 percent. When you look at our sales target of 1.8 million cars in 2012 you will understand that we are not anticipating comparable growth rates in the coming years.
This means: In the near future, progress in productivity will be greater than growth in sales. And this is why we will adapt the number of staff accordingly. This will help us increase efficiency and thus improve our competitive positionÔÇöa crucial prerequisite to securing future employment for the majority of our staff in Germany. Currently three quarters of our worldwide 108,000 workforce is located here in Germany, at our home base.

Flexibility as BMW Group strength/ Temporary workers

Flexibility has long been a key strength of the BMW Group. We have always been able to ride the ups and downs of the market. A whole series of flexibility measures have helped us do so, ranging from flexible working hours - the BMW Group has more than 300 different flextime models -, demand-driven shift models, time accounts, partial retirement packages to the employment of temporary staff.
In order to reduce personnel costs, we take advantage of the flexibility offered by contract work. We are employing additional measures within a planned and controllable scope among our permanent staff ÔÇô via working time adjustments, regular staff attrition, partial retirement and voluntary severance payments.
Overall, from 2009 onwards, we plan to achieve cost reductions in the realm of 500 million Euros per year.

Job cuts: Total of 8,000

How many jobs will be lost?
Back in December, 8,000 jobs, as quoted by the media, was a reasonable interim figure. In the meantime we are looking at a figure well below 8,000 since in the last quarter of 2007 our divisions were able to put significant process improvements into practice. I will get to the specifics in a moment.
There is one thing I would like to clarify regarding ÔÇ£8,000ÔÇØ figure:
We are not talking about 8,000 BMW staff losing their jobs! Temporary workers are not employed by us but by their respective temporary employment agencies. They will keep their jobs at their respective temp agencies because the current market has a high demand for temporary staff. This has been confirmed to us by the local work agencies.
So what are the exact figures?
According to our plans, we are looking at an overall figure of 8,100. This figure splits up into 5,000 temporary workers and approximately 3,100 permanent staff worldwide of which the cuts affect 2,500 people in Germany.

Job cuts in detail: Temporary staff

To begin with, let us have a look at temporary staff: Of the 5,000 contracts quoted earlier, we have already reduced 2,500 in the last quarter of 2007 ÔÇô which means that this year we only need to reduce another 2,500 jobs of our temporary workers.
The number of temporary working staff will always be subject to market conditions. Especially here in Germany we will continue to depend on the flexibility that contract work offers.
This is why it has been so important to us to set pay standards for the future. Last November, the Board of Management and the General Works Council of BMW AG agreed on regulations for the cooperation with employment agencies: It was agreed that the company will only work with service providers that pay staff dispatched to BMW on a temporary basis in accordance with the negotiated wages of the metal and electronic industries.

Personnel cuts in detail: Permanent staff

In Germany, we will have to reduce 2,500 of an overall 80,000 permanent staff. This affects about three percent of jobs at the production locations in Germany. We have already begun to talk to a specific number of employees in order to find individual solutions that are satisfactory for all parties involved.
With the decision to set up a new plant in Leipzig we once again made a conscious commitment to Germany as a key production location. A prerequisite for Leipzig was to be able to implement, from the very beginning, processes and structures in automotive production on benchmark level for the entire industry. Since opening the plant in Leipzig in 2005 we have created around 2,700 new jobs at BMW AG. Adding to this figure temporary staff as well as the workforce of numerous service providers and suppliers, 5,400 people currently work on the premises of BMW Plant Leipzig.
I would like to emphasize at this point that in Leipzig there will be no serious actions concerning temporary workers or permanent staff. We will only need to make some minor adjustments.
So what will staff reduction among permanent employees look like at our other plants?
Controllability is and will remain the basis of all our planning. This is why at present we are looking at the before-mentioned three percent job cuts for permanent staff at our various locations.
The 600 jobs that we will need to cut abroad will primarily affect employees at our 41 global sales facilities.
What matters to us is that bringing the headcount down must happen on a voluntary basis and in mutual agreement - in accordance with the BMW GroupÔÇÖs basic principles to which we have committed ourselves. These include that leadership is founded on mutual trust, respect and fairness.

Outlook: We will continue to recruit skilled employees

So, what does the future hold for us?
As mentioned before, apart from profitability increases and cost reductions, we aim at raising our car sales to annually 1.8 million by 2012. We also aim at raising motorcycle sales to 150,000 units a year within the same time frame.

In addition to that, we will implement our plans such as those for financial services and for new mobility concepts.

In the financial services segment, we want to open up additional business areas. We are thinking of other-brand financing, car-related insurances and direct banking. We have set up a comprehensive innovation project to develop new concepts of mobility. This is about completely new vehicle and drivetrain concepts, for example for megacities.
We will continue to recruit highly qualified and skilled workers and executives so as to meet the various challenges that the future will bring. We need highly skilled and qualified staff, especially engineers, if we want to achieve our goal of creating new vehicle concepts for individual mobility.
To manage the change of knowledge structures in our company, we strategically develop our employeesÔÇÖ skills. Management and employee representatives are currently discussing ways to achieve this change with the goal of designing a company agreement on ÔÇ£Skills ManagementÔÇØ. Its purpose is to get suitable employees ready for new assignments via advanced training and qualification programs.
However, this will not apply to all cases and all new requirements. We cannot reach our goal with staff training and qualification programs alone. And this is why job cuts are being offset by new jobs as well - at places where we need the expertise. In 2008, we will open up approximately 500 new positions ÔÇô mainly for engineers and IT specialists.
Before I close, I would also like to mention vocational training: Apprentices make up more than 5 percent of our workforce, which means that we still train beyond actual demand.

An attractive employer

Strengthening our reputation as an attractive employer is crucial if we want to recruit the best professionals the market has to offer, even in times when skilled workers are in short supply. For several years now, we have been ranked as the top choice of employer by engineering and business graduates in Germany.
What makes us so attractive as an employer is not only peopleÔÇÖs passion for mobility and a fascination with our products, but also our corporate culture, a culture that recognizes our staff as a key factor for our success. Last but not least, our above-average pay makes us very popular.
Our strategic realignment will require all associates to make their contribution to reducing personnel costs. Given the recent development of our financial result, the decision to limit profit-sharing bonuses in all salary brackets to 2006 levels is much more than a symbolic gesture.
We will, however, continue to pay competitive salaries ranging in the upper third of the industry. Our goal has not changed: We want to remain one of the most attractive employers in the future.
After all, ÔÇ£business is peopleÔÇØ and ÔÇ£the best business is achieved with the best people.ÔÇØ That means: We need the best workforce in the market to reach our ambitious targets.
The BMW Group will remain committed to Germany as a key production location. We will continue to employ the majority of our staff in Germany while selling the majority of our products abroad.
In order to uphold GermanyÔÇÖs significance as a strong base for our company, we intend to further strengthen our competitiveness. For this purpose efficiency improvements are imperative - efficiency improvements that consistently lead to more output per employee. Only by doing this will we have a chance to have Germany remain our key industry location in the long run.

Thank you for your attention

 

[mrich12000]

Lets hope they don't let the bike builders go, like the engine guys