Mini

I’m referring to the car launched in 1959 which has become a motoring icon. I recently was able to tour the plant making it. This tour was organised by a local garden centre who also do a range of coach trips. Roughly every month these are organised for members of their gardening club. We joined for the discounts and this was the first of their trips we have been on.

The Mini plant is at Cowley  in Oxford. This modern factory is built on the site of the body works of the Morris factory. Morris cars were assembled at an adjacent factory on the other side of the ring road. A covered bridge used to connect the two plants. Morris merged with Austin before WW11 to form BMC which then swept up many other companies becoming British Leyland. BL began a long slide not helped by the awful strike record particularly at the key Longbridge plant. Through a series of changes the Cowley plant is now owned by BMW.

It has to be said that BMW have worked wonders for the Mini. A tired model it was revitalised with a new design which has been successfully extended over the years to embrace a wide variety of variants. Recently these have included hybrid electric models with all electric soon for launch.

Our trip started with mini breakfast and coffee at the garden centre We gathered far too early and suffered the first of several long periods of waiting. After travelling via the M40 and A34 we arrived at the tour assembly point at the plant. This had a small shop selling Mini related items and three holding rooms. The coach load was split into three groups for the tour. I say holding advisedly as we waited for some time for the previous group to conclude their tour.

After a health and safety briefing we were all issued with safety glasses, high visibility tabard colour coded for our group and a radio with earpiece to listen to the tour guide.

Essentially the tour was divided into two parts. The first was the “body in white”; this is the steel shell. The plant is very dramatic. Fully automated the robots are in large cells surrounded by a tall mesh fence. There are few staff ( called associates ) to be seen just the huge robots moving , cutting and welding steel. The robots were orange monsters and dramatic as they moved large body parts around. The most dramatic was the floor assembly. The plant is on two levels and the part completed floors come down on automatic lifts, are picked up and transported  with floors held high then turned and placed for the next series of operations. As far as I could see the robots were Swedish and Japanese and their controls which were outside the cell were German.

The only workers which could be seen were feeding parts into the cell from outside. Access to the cells is dangerous and strictly limited. The robotic cells were working all the time and the worker feeding in components had the minimum aperture necessary to feed parts into the cell. A part of the body shop was given over to stock of various necessary parts called the “supermarket”.

We then re-embarked on our coach and after a long wait were driven to the assembly plant.  We only saw part of the line; some pre-assemblies such as the dashboard instruments and heater were inserted as one. All is done to ensure the minimum of effort so that a powered tool picks up and places the cluster. Components are moved around by automatic trolleys following set routes. These trolleys are rather charming in that they stop for any obstruction such as stepping in front of them and gently beep asking you to move out of their way. Some parts are fed from the upper floor such as wheels., Unlike some factories I have seen the assembly line doesn’t move continuously  but rather stops at each station for a predetermined time.

The exception in the continuous final assembly line. Doors are painted with the body but not assembled, held on the upper floor and then drop down to be fitted. Every effort is made to present the work in the easiest way for associates including fixtures which roll the car on its side or upside down.

Engines are made separately at the Hams Hall plant near Birmingham and then merged on a subframe with suspension before mating with the body shell. The final stages check the electrics, fill with fluids and check on a rolling road. Acceptable cars are driven to storage while defects are put on one side for rectification.

We were told the plant produces about a 1000 vehicles a day  on a 3 shift, 5 day week. Each shift is 7.5 hours to give a 1.5hr maintenance period late in the night. Export cars go by rail at the rate of 350 per train, twice a day to the exporting dock at Southampton.

After further waiting on the coach we returned our gear, rescued our coats and phones and left the plant about 6 pm. There was a time when I visited a lot of car plants with Castrol and the big change was the degree of automation at the body in white stage. It is now far more widespread and integrated so all the body work manufacture is automated.

How do you get a one armed Essex girl out of a tree?

Wave to her