Mrs F's current job is on a project looking into implementing 'lean' production system practices, as used in car production, in hospital theatres. So today her team went on a tour of the MINI plant in Oxford, where they use lean to do body shell production, paint and assembly:
www.mini-production-triangle.com/static/en/planttour/plant_tour.html
And she really enjoyed it. She said the robots were initially quite scary, but then she starting feeling sorry for them, stuck in their protective pens doing the same job all day(!). All the cars they build are built to order, and the suppliers have to put the order-specific parts on the lorries such that they come of the lorry in the correct sequence to be used. Clever stuff.
Sounds like it might be worth a trip - website says £15 for individuals.
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I love the tour rules and concur. No 'messers' allowed.
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Went to see the Ford Sierra being made at Dagenham in '83. Quite impressive then!
The parts thing should be industry standard by now, saw it a few years back for Honda parts. Also they had to go on special stillages that the robots could handle and were designed to fit the maximum number in a delivery truck.
Would seriously like to see how the Mini is made.
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I've had a tour of Bentley in Crewe. That was impressive. Very clean and efficient. I particularly liked the rolling road test - the cars were basically going flat out!
All the intricate leather work is done at the plant too.
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>> Went to see the Ford Sierra being made at Dagenham in '83. Quite impressive then!
So it was your mouldy sandwich festering in the door cavity of my 83 Sierra then.
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I found a solidified turd in the spare wheel well of a factory fresh Maestro. I hope it was a dog turd.
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Yeah, but you just know in your heart it wasnt....
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I've done the tour of Lotus, Vauxhall (Luton) and Aston Martin (Newport Pagnell).
Lotus impressed me the most, Vauxhall not at all and Aston Martin build quality was a pile-of-poo (although the engine plant was like stepping back a couple of generations).
Last edited by: bathtub tom on Fri 16 Dec 11 at 22:51
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Many years ago I drove all the way from sunny N Yorks down to Newport Pagnell. Now that was a tour I still salivate about. I didn't care about the economics of production. I just wanted tio see some bloke hand building an engine. And I did.
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I had a tour of the Oxford (Cowley) plant back in the late 80s when it was making the Rover 800.
One of the most impressive things my then 12 or 13 (can't remember which) year old eyes had seen, and still memorable today. Started at the presses stamping out the body panels, and walked through the whole process to see the finished cars being driven off the line. The only bit we missed was the paintshop, for obvious reasons.
We then got to sit in the fully loaded Sterling model in the showroom and play with all the gadgetry. My dad was driving a 2.0 Sierra GL at the time, and I remember thinking how expensive the 800 looked and felt inside, and how many toys there were to play with.
Last edited by: DP on Sat 17 Dec 11 at 19:07
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I visited the Mercedes C-Class production line in Sindelfingen a year or so ago. There are 28,000 employees at this location. I find the scale and speed of modern automotive mass production processes fascinating. Car manufacturers are experts in shifting material in and out in as short a space of time as possible to keep inventory levels low.
One of the most impressive things is the way the doors, boot and bonnet are mounted on the bare bodyshells to go through the paintshop. Afterwards, the painted components are taken apart again and go their separate ways around the factory. The bodyshells get drivetrain, dashboard, interior and stuff put in, the doors get the trim put on. At final assembly, all the bits are brought back together again in the correct sequence and assembled. 4,000 times per day without a single mistake in the sequence!
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Plant tours have always fascinated me. From Dagenham in the mid-70s when Mk 3 Cortinas were going down the line (and the workers were all playing cards, even during a tour!), to Coventry to see the Peugeot 405, to Norfolk to see Elans being glued together, to Sindelfingen to see Merc E & S class being assembled. I have also beeen to Stuttgart for the Porsche 911, and Leipzig for the Porsche Cayenne. The later was the most disappointing as the bodies come ready assembled and fully trimmed from VW, which Porsche just drop on their chasis and engine!
After the Mercedes visit when you see the complexity of designing the manufacturing process, the number of employees involved, the size of the plant and the machinery required (which applies to all car plants) you can't help but think that cars are actually incredible value for money.
Last edited by: Boxsterboy on Tue 20 Dec 11 at 18:20
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>> The later was the most disappointing as the bodies come ready assembled and fully trimmed from VW
Bentley Continental GTs arrive like that. In fact they have the chassis as well. But the assembly of a car like that is still impressive.
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i like the Royce plant tour. lots of skilled crafts men taking pride in the work and we were treated to a ghost engine in a test rig at full song. all gflowing red and giving out 550+ hp and it had been running flat out for 12hrs
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MINI plant tour - MD
