There was a great program on National Geographic last night, It showed the entire production process of a BMW Z4, worth looking out for if you're interested in cars ;-) Pitty that a lot of the workers in the film will have been laid off by now I would think ?
Simon
We did the tour of the Munich BWM plant a few weeks ago on an Oktoberfest trip. It's amazing to see the process right from starting with sheet steel all the way to the finished product. I highly recommend it and it's very cheap. They do it in English too.
Tony
A group of about 12 lads from College went up Norf to watch them assembling Austin Marinas or some such and as you say (and even then) it was a very interesting trip.
The bits I found especially interesting were seeing all the customer order vehicles coming together ... the right wheels with the right trim / spec / colour, all controlled by some punch cards on a clockwork computer somewhere and the last 50 ft of the line where they popped in a gallon of juice, span it up and wheel span across the car park!
Ah, ours was in Brummy but we understood most of it. ;-)
T i m
Groan, that was just one of the plants I supplied with various assemblies/subassemblies, etc, over the 12 years I worked in the Automotive industry. Happy days!
Until you supplied Rover Longbridge. If ever a plant deserved to close it was that one - I hated it and it was as grotty as hell - even the Fiat plant in Turin is far, far better. My favourite was the Toyota plant near Derby - progressive, clean, well run and forever changing - I never tired of walking the tracks because nothing ever stayed the same. Oh, and the canteen served great food!
Even Ford's fiesta plant at Dagenham was better than 'grottsville' Longbridge. The only place to have more stuff stolen was Halewood. (Before they installed the metal detectors at the gates,,,)
;-)
That reminds me of another aspect of building a car (in those days) I wasn't expecting, hammering the windscreen in!
A manually guided arm lifted the screen into place and two burly geezers with large rubber mallets 'fitted' it. ;-)
I did visit the Peugeot / Talbot [1] plant (as a Datacomms Eng at the time) and remember that being fairly 'backward', certainly from the computing pov?
Again, only visited the Comms suite but remember that being a bit more modern.
Oooerr.
[1] I think they used to have a deal where depending on your rank you earned points and points meant cars. If you were a lowly supervisor you got say 3 points and with that you could have a 'free' Talbot Horizon. A Manager might get 6 points and that either got him an Alpine or two Horizons (one for him, one for the Mrs). All you had to buy was the insurance and you got a new car after 6 months. You couldn't have a Peugeot for some reason .... ;-)T i m gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Yep, I saw that at Jag's Browns Lane plant, mid '90s. The screen was lifted in, and sat in place. The guy looked at the tour group, grinned an evil grin, and fair TWATTED the thing - real swing-with-vengeance - right in the middle with a mallet. We all ducked...
"I'd get it one piece at a time And it wouldn't cost me a dime You'll know it's me when I come through your town I'm gonna ride around in style I'm gonna drive everybody wild 'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round."
- J Cash
:-)
LOL, yep, that was it and had the exact same reaction with our group.
It's amazing what sort of punishment they can take ... although they did admit the odd one or two exploded but better there than on the road I guess. ;-)
The Z4 windscreen is fitted completely by a robot, no mallet required. As with the majority of the welding and all the painting. Interesting to note also that the engines apparently only get a 'cold test' before they are fitted. They only start them up for a final test.... They're getting a bit more affordable 2nd hand these days I wander if now might be my chance to get one whilst every one else is struggling with their mortgages ;-)
Simon
Fabrication robots fascinate me, as do some of the engineering 'tools'(?) you get now days:
Was it Fiat or Honda (or another) that first featured fabrication / manipulation robots on their TV commercials? I know Citroen did with the Picasso?
I guess there are programming mistakes. A mate bought a new NC mill for cutting holes for sinks and taps in granite worktops. When they did their first real job it had cut a lovely rounded corner sink_hole in the work top and when it finished it cut straight through the job to 'park' the cutter. Someone forgot to add the 'up' command!
You have probably seen this one as well:
There are some strange things going on out here eh. Like the F1 engines that are seized solid at room temp?
Not sure it would be considered an investment and you could end up swapping it for a loaf of bread the way things are going! :-(
In message , Brad Thrust writes
My favourite was Rolls Royce at Crewe, but not the area where they prepped cars for crash testing and stored the results which was where I usually ended up working. Although I did once get to sneak a look round some screens that I shouldn't have done....
There were rumours that you were able to buy whole cars in the local pubs around Widnes and Runcorn, assembled in sheds at home. Even after they installed the metal detectors.
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