My family and I went to England and Scotland for 10 days over the Easter week. I arranged a tour of the BMW Mini plant in Oxford, England. It was a two hour walking tour on the plant floor - I mean right next to the production line. We were literally an arm's length away from the cars as they were assembled and could have touched them. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in the factory, but below are some visitor center pics and interesting tidbits of info.
All of the minis are built on ONE production line - coupes, convertibles, left and right hand drive, and are built in dealer order sequence. They don't build a run of same colors, or models, and then retool. The line is highly automated. Each unit body gets a transponder which contains ALL of the order info. As it moves down the assembly line, the assembly & welding robots are instructed what components are required. The robots even changed "heads" automatically when a convertible came down the line and required different tooling for the A pillar and windshield assembly. They said there were about 275 robots on the line. Even though I work in plant automation, I have never seen so many robots working in amazing synchronization. The software is incredibly complex.
Almost all the unit body assembly and welding is done by robots. After painting of the unit body, most of the rest of the assembly is done by people. It takes about 24 hours to build the car from start to finish, including about 8 to 10 hours of painting and curing time.
Major option parts are preassembled (dashboard, engine and engine subframe, seats, etc.) and are delivered to the assembly point on elevators. They essentially just appear from above the line and the workers install them. Again, the software to coordinate this JUST IN TIME delivery of custom options to the assembly point must be incredibly complex.
QC tests are run on all cars as they leave the line, but 10% of the cars are pulled aside for a detailed several hour diagnostic and QC check. They said that this same program is performed at ALL BMW plants for ALL models.
Pix:
- The Entrance to the Visitor's Center
- Austin Powers Movie Car (One of 35 built for the movie)
- Red Mini Stunt Car from Austin Powers - This car has TWO steering wheels - one functional and one fake. The Actors drove the fake wheel, while the stunt driver actually drove the car. The stunt driver was then edited out of the image!
If you ever go to England, this is DEFINITELY worth seeing. Oxford is about an 1 to 1 1/2 hour drive from London.
All of the minis are built on ONE production line - coupes, convertibles, left and right hand drive, and are built in dealer order sequence. They don't build a run of same colors, or models, and then retool. The line is highly automated. Each unit body gets a transponder which contains ALL of the order info. As it moves down the assembly line, the assembly & welding robots are instructed what components are required. The robots even changed "heads" automatically when a convertible came down the line and required different tooling for the A pillar and windshield assembly. They said there were about 275 robots on the line. Even though I work in plant automation, I have never seen so many robots working in amazing synchronization. The software is incredibly complex.
Almost all the unit body assembly and welding is done by robots. After painting of the unit body, most of the rest of the assembly is done by people. It takes about 24 hours to build the car from start to finish, including about 8 to 10 hours of painting and curing time.
Major option parts are preassembled (dashboard, engine and engine subframe, seats, etc.) and are delivered to the assembly point on elevators. They essentially just appear from above the line and the workers install them. Again, the software to coordinate this JUST IN TIME delivery of custom options to the assembly point must be incredibly complex.
QC tests are run on all cars as they leave the line, but 10% of the cars are pulled aside for a detailed several hour diagnostic and QC check. They said that this same program is performed at ALL BMW plants for ALL models.
Pix:
- The Entrance to the Visitor's Center
- Austin Powers Movie Car (One of 35 built for the movie)
- Red Mini Stunt Car from Austin Powers - This car has TWO steering wheels - one functional and one fake. The Actors drove the fake wheel, while the stunt driver actually drove the car. The stunt driver was then edited out of the image!
If you ever go to England, this is DEFINITELY worth seeing. Oxford is about an 1 to 1 1/2 hour drive from London.
