GCSE business students visit Jaguar Land Rover

The GCSE business students had a productive, well organised and well hosted day at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in Solihull, where they learned about lean manufacturing and saw first-hand how Land Rovers are manufactured. The day started at JLR with an important briefing and overview about the company and what happens at this Solihull plant. The group then split into two – one group undertook a lean manufacturing activity, while the other went on a guided tour of the factory. 

 

The lean manufacturing activity called Kando, involved the pupils organising themselves into teams to produce a series of Lego-style trolleys to a specific design in a timed situation. This situation changed each round, as the tasks became more complex, the orders were larger and the time scale was shortened. To break the activity up, the pupils listened to a presentation on lean manufacturing itself – what it was, what it needed and why it was used. With this theory in my mind, the pupils did a final task and performed exceptionally well, producing all the trolleys in the allocated time and with no faults. It was a superb activity to get across the concepts of quality control, stock control, team work, communication and of course, lean manufacturing. 

 

The guided tour was equally as interesting and engaging, as it was led by ex long serving JLR employees, who knew so much about the company. The site itself is massive - the group were taken around in a minibus! It has over 12,000 employees and a car rolls off the production line every 86 seconds to a small fanfare. Workers earn from £35000 upwards and have many fringe benefits. The tour started at the pressing plant and its imposing noise, where the group saw sheets of aluminium pressed into bonnets and doors. From there, the group saw how the sheets are glued and riveted together in the body shop. And then the group went on to the final assembly, where in a huge plant, they saw engines put together and the car body put on to the chassis, before seating, windows and electrics were added. A complex task made easier and quicker through the use of robots. All this time, brand new cars were being test driven. 

 

This was a super visit, enthusing the GCSE pupils even more about their studies and bringing a lot of their theory to life and giving them many ideas to bring back to the classroom.