“Fabulous insight” into flexible manufacturing at BMW’s Mini Plant
Sixth-formers saw up-to-the-minute manufacturing technology on a visit to one of Britain’s most famous car factories.
The first QE trip of its kind to the historic Mini Plant Oxford provided a look behind the scenes at how advanced manufacturing processes, automation, and teamwork are combined on a single production line.
The Year 13 pupils also learned about the history of the iconic Mini, from the 1960s classic car through to today’s newer version, first produced in 2001.
QE’s Head of Technology Bilaal Khan said: “It was an outstanding experience for the students, allowing them to see the theories and concepts they have been studying brought to life in a real industrial setting. The trip not only deepened their understanding, but also inspired many of them to think more broadly about future careers in engineering, technology, and design.”
The plant on the Oxford ring road was the car body manufacturing business of the Pressed Steel Company, founded in 1926. It became part of the huge Morris Motors – later British Leyland and then Rover Group – site at Cowley, which incorporated three factories. Today only the Mini plant remains.
The original Mini became an icon of the 1960s, featuring in the 1969 film caper, The Italian Job. Its role was reprised by the modern Mini in a 2003 remake of the film.
BMW bought the Rover Group in 1994. The new Mini was first unveiled as a concept car in 1997. When BMW sold the other parts of the Rover Group in 2000, it retained the rights to the Mini.
After an initial tour during which they learned about the history of the iconic car, the pupils were shown around the factory.
Among the group was Danyal Talha, of Year 13, who said: “We witnessed a clear progression in the design styles of the cars, with evident links to design movements and ideas of the time.
“The factory tour then took us through one of the most advanced flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) in the world. FMS allows for various specifications of a product to be produced on a single line, and we witnessed this, with endless variations of Minis being made: from cabriolets to hard-tops, left and right-hand drives, with customised-to-order body colours and wheel alloys.”
They delved into details of the manufacturing process such as the ‘Prüfcubing process’, used to evaluate the fit, function and development of parts before a model launch. The boys saw a Prüfcubing body – a life-size model of a car body with a tolerance of +/- 0.2mm that was manufactured from solid aluminium, taking 2,000 hours to machine and worth some 1m Euros.
The group also saw automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in use. These are portable robots which, unlike autonomous robots, rely for their navigation on infrastructure in their environment, such as lines or wires on the floor, radio waves, or lasers.
“While we had already learned about AGVs in our theory lessons, getting to see them communicate with one another and work seamlessly to optimise the production line’s efficiency was fascinating,” said Danyal.
“Overall, the trip was a fabulous insight to real-world flexible manufacturing systems, and taught us about the evolving nature of production lines becoming fully automated.”