Manufacturing
Sector Focus
It’s not all machines: an assembly worker at Castle Bromwich
lightweight body structures and are looking at every component in the car, from how to replace traditional wiring looms with printed electronics, to developing prototype seats much lighter than they are today. The tour of the plant finishes in Body in White where
more humans operate to fit clean, uncluttered dashboards, the unique rising air vents of the F-Type, the flat bottomed steering wheel and paddleshift gears. But it all depends on what the customer wants. Every car on the production line has an owner and every owner will have stipulated left or right hand drive and the colour of the paintwork (with lots of white paint wanted by North Americans.) The biggest export markets for the F-Type are China and America. Only Michelin tyres are fitted for the French market and a satellite navigation system with a male voice is required by Arabic countries. I have to admit the part I enjoyed the most was hearing the quite electrifying moment when power pulses through a Jaguar for the first time. When firing on all cylinders the engine sound is quite incredible. Following the tour (and costing around £300) you
can book an afternoon at the MIRA track to try out what you have just seen being built. JLR has invested heavily in its Castle Bromwich facilities and the UK supply chain has benefitted from
Jaguar Land Rover’s product expansion with a total of £13 billion worth of UK supplier contracts awarded. Rather exclusively as it is not available as a tour, JLR
offered me the opportunity to have a look around the more robot intensive G1 Body in White facility where the XF saloon is assembled, which is all aluminum. Two years ago, JLR invested £500m in this state of the art building installing equipment which is even more contemporary than that found in the F type building. The line has the capability of building three or four body styles and was put in with longer term plans in mind. The company’s cutting edge innovation pushes boundaries. There is a lot more activity in the roof and everywhere I looked there was a robot. Jaguar Castle Bromwich was voted the UK’s number
one employer last year and if you want a job, you will have to go on the one year waiting list. The UK automotive manufacturing sector now employs
169,000 people, including many skilled EU nationals recruited to fill vacancies which SMMT says the local labour force could not meet. To ensure the automotive sector’s continued growth and with it the thousands of jobs it supports, Mike Hawes, Chief Executive of the SMMT, says: “Tariff-free access to the single market, economic stability and record levels of productivity from a highly skilled workforce should be our priorities”.
September 2016 CHAMBERLINK 57
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