May 5

Day 3 marked the beginning of our company visits with our tour of BMW in Munich. Before we were given a tour of the factory, we were able to visit BMW world and the BMW museum. Looking around at luxury cars, old and new, was definitely a good way to start the day. Although the museum was cool too, I found BMW world more interesting. Perhaps the most interesting was the factory tour. We were able to see the steps BMW takes to make their famous cars. My favorite part of the factory tour would have to be seeing the tasks that the robots were able to perform, I especially liked watching them apply the paint. After close to 3 miles of walking the tour was over and we headed back to Augsburg to visit a BMW dealership. It was cool to see how some of the cars are distributed after we just saw how they are manufactured. It was also interesting to learn that the typical buying process in America is different from that of Germany. Germans tend to prefer to order the car and wait for it to be made exactly how they want it, while Americans usually choose the best car available for purchase off the floor, so they can have it right away. After a long day of learning, we chose to celebrate Cinco de Mayo by eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant.