Feature


Manufacturing in The Midlands Buy British Support Midlands manufacturing By Sue Cooke


Toyota Manufacturing UK (TMUK) was established in 1992 as Toyota’s first European manufacturing operation. Since then the UK based operation has benefited from more than £1.85 billion investment in its East Midlands car plant at Burnaston in Derbyshire as well as at its engine factory in Deeside, North Wales where TMUK currently builds engines for both its UK- manufactured vehicles and for export. Burnaston is the global production centre for the


popular fleet car, the Toyota Avensis and influenced the design of the new model programme from the very early stages. In 2015, TMUK simultaneously started the production


of two new models at this site, a first for the UK company. The Avensis is built alongside the Auris, on the same production line, including weld shop, paint shop and so on. With the launch of the new Avensis and the new Auris together the manufacturing plant had to ramp up production from zero to 800 vehicles a day over a period of just 10 days. Press, weld and paint shops had new tooling and jigs


to support body manufacture and painting, and the substantial number of improvements to the vehicle, in


Toyota Avenis interior


areas such as safety and handling, required additional parts and processes. The greatest level of change was in the plastics and


assembly shops. In plastics, most of the processes were affected by the introduction of the new vehicles, calling for new moulds and a great deal of new tooling and equipment.


44 CHAMBERLINK December 2016/January 2017


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