| BMW Emergency Vehicles |
Quickly and Safely on the Road
 Integrating special equipment The work involved in integrating the special equipment ranged from developing a variety of electrical and electronic components and wiring loom modules, adapting the vehicle’s electrical system and designing the necessary brackets and retainers inside and outside the vehicle through to developing prototype components and incorporating them into prototype vehicles. The objectives of the project were to allow the equipment to be "fitted on the standard production line" and to be "removed easily and cost-effectively". In addition, special requirements had to be taken into account in the development process. For example, the special equipment in unmarked police cars must not be visible from the outside and therefore had to be integrated into the interior fittings. From the very beginning of the project, the Bertrandt development team worked closely with the relevant departments at BMW to develop the concepts. A project office was set up for the Bertrandt team in order to ensure that the project ran efficiently and that the design (CAD) and electrical development units were closely networked to allow for direct cooperation between the two teams. In order to integrate the electrical components, such as the radio, roof signalling unit, loudspeakers, front and rear signalling units and an additional backup power supply, the standard wiring loom had to be extended. The bodywork and audio wiring loom modules were developed using the "Grivad" tool. Preparations were made for the release of the modules for volume production in close cooperation with the suppliers of the individual emergency vehicle components and the supplier of the wiring loom. From prototype development through to small-scale production After the detailed concept design process was completed, the prototype components for mounting the special equipment were produced. Using these parts, it was possible to test the ease of assembly on prototype vehicles on the production line. A wide range of manufacturing processes were used to produce the functional prototypes, ranging from sheet metal working and the creation of polyurethane castings through to coating the plastic components. The special fittings from the various suppliers were modified sufficiently to allow the components to be assembled without problems on the production line. After optimisation loops had been incorporated in the prototyping process, the final concepts and the "final" volume production status were determined. The next step was to verify the production status using volume production processes during the pre-production and production start-up stages.
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