Planning labor - BMW
BMW's workforce is aging But as Richard Roth reports, it is perhaps better.
In a world where the road is always picturesque and the road is still open, the car manufacturer BMW was worried he might be losing a race against time.
It's catching up with the 18,000 workers who build luxury car brand in Dingolfing, Germany.
Production Manager Helmut Mauermann crunched the numbers and found that BMW's workforce is aging.
No surprise, Mauermann said it is part of the changing demographics of the German nation as a whole, or even Europe as a whole.
Demographers call money Tsunami A rising tide of gray hair.
Americans over 65 are more than 16 percent of the population within 10 years, Germany is aging even faster More than a fifth of the country on June 21 will be over 65 by the year 2020.
Older workers have more patience and skill that comes from experience, studies say, but less flexibility, strength and vision - the real liabilities on a production line which depends on the precision engineering and many of hard to turn over 1,200 cars a day job.
BMW could force retired its older workers, or even dismiss But Mauermann said that's not the solution.
This could be the easiest way to solve the problem, but we have a social contract in Germany, or BMW Group, where we say, this is not the solution we will look - especially since we didn enough young people to replace them, it wouldn t work even if we wanted to, he said.
In what the Harvard Business Review called experience to defuse the demographic time bomb, BMW decided to look to the future.
Management has tinkered with an assembly line in a division of a large car factory, and turned more overnight they endowed it so that the average age of workers is 47 - exactly what should s seven.
They then asked the workers how to improve things.
When workers said their feet hurt, the company that made them special shoes, and put flooring Some somewhere to chair a hairdresser, changed to the assembly line.
Rudolph Mohr, 56, worked here for 35 years, he finally got a chance to stretch - right on the factory floor when I go home, I have more energy, says Mohr.
Some tools have been improved and new computer displays were introduced, with more type.
Overall, the company says it has 70 small changes in the workplace, reduce the risk of errors and reduce physical fatigue.
BMW says that the project will cost about 50,000, including lost time.
All these changes are very obvious, but you will not do these ideas sitting somewhere in an office, then think, How can I change the workplace of a worker who is a half-mile away Mauermann said.
Other things have also changed productivity increased seven percent absenteeism fell below the average of the plant.
And the default rate of this assembly line has dropped to zero.
It is so simple, but it seems to work, said Mauermann.
Not all automotive manufacturing can be redesigned to an older workforce but BMW says it is enough can test and refine the experience in other plants, including the U S.
Except for managers no longer call a project to help older people; it is simply fresh new BMW plan to improve productivity CBS 2010 All rights reserved.
How BMW is about an aging workforce CBS News, Aging workforce.