The birthplace of jaguar XE visited Jaguar Land Rover Solihull Factory.

Solihull Factory History/jaguar XE Aluminum Sheet Metal Workshop When it comes to Land Rover brand, we have to mention Solihull Factory, which was used to produce military engines with a long history before World War II. After World War II, the Land Rover brand was born here, and successively came down from Land Rover Defender, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport Edition and Discovery Series. It is also the birthplace of Land Rover's all-aluminum body. Now this 75-year-old factory has started to produce another brand of cars-jaguar XE (see transaction price | model details). Because of an activity of Jaguar Land Rover in the UK, I was lucky enough to come to this factory and see that this factory producing the world's top four-wheel drive off-road vehicles produced non-four-wheel drive vehicles for the first time.

Unfortunately, due to the security measures of Solihull factory, I was unable to take photos after entering the factory park. The pictures in this article are all from the Internet and official photographers of Jaguar Land Rover. I use them to introduce my visit experience to you.

Sujar factory is located in Sujar metropolitan area, West Midlands, England. This is an area between Birmingham and Coventry. It was once chosen as the most livable city in Britain. It is also on this land that it was once the "shadow" factory of the British government during World War II, and its purpose was to produce tank engines, so the Solihull factory was also called the meteor factory.

After World War II, 1945, in order to revive the British economy, Rover Motor Company obtained the right to use this land from the government for free. In order to give full play to the scale advantage of the factory, Rover decided to develop a brand-new model. /kloc-in the summer of 0/947, the first batch of prototype cars were assembled, and the new car was named "Land Rover", thus the Land Rover brand was born. From 1948 to 202 1, Solihull became the exclusive factory of Land Rover brand.

The factory covers an area of 300 square acres and has more than 9000 manufacturing employees. It is one of Jaguar Land Rover's three major automobile manufacturing plants in the UK. The factory has a stamping workshop, two welding and loading production lines, a painting workshop, two aluminum body welding and assembly production lines, three assembly production lines, a visitor and delivery center and a Land Rover Experience Center.

At present, the factory produces Land Rover Defender, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport Edition, Discovery 4 and jaguar XE. New cars 1300 can be manufactured every day, including 300 jaguar XE models, 0/00 Land Rover Defender/KLOC-0, 900 Land Rover Range Rover, Range Rover Long Wheelbase Edition, Range Rover Sport Edition and Discovery Edition.

As mentioned above, Solihull Factory is the exclusive factory of Land Rover until 202 1. Until 202 1, according to Jaguar Land Rover's plan, Solihull Factory has retired the only non-four-wheel drive model-jaguar XE. The body of this car is made of aluminum, and more than 75% of the whole car is made of aluminum. Due to the limited visit time, I only visited jaguar XE aluminum sheet metal workshop and No.2 assembly workshop.

In order to support the production in jaguar XE, Jaguar Land Rover built the largest aluminum body welding workshop and the second assembly workshop in Europe, with an investment of 500 million pounds, creating 2,200 jobs. According to the staff, because the factory has built new workshops in recent years, employees' private cars have no place to park. Some employees can only park their cars at Birmingham airport and then come here to work by factory bus.

On the way to visit the workshop for the first time, I passed the stamping workshop of Solihull factory. Although we didn't stop to visit, the staff gave us an explanation. At present, this stamping workshop is not only responsible for the production of some land rover bodies, but also for the hood of jaguar XE. Aluminum plate or steel plate can be punched at the same time, and each plate can be punched in 45 seconds.

First, we visited the aluminum sheet metal workshop in jaguar XE. After passing through the glass revolving door, we saw not the whole workshop, but a big lounge. Due to the high confidentiality of the factory, we signed a second confidentiality agreement before entering the workshop. At the same time, in order to ensure the personal safety in the factory, everyone in the factory will receive a set of reflective clothing and goggles here.

In the middle of the room, we saw three badges. Don't underestimate these three badges. They represent the meaning of British royal certification or royal use. From left to right, these three are Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Prince Charles. At present, only three companies are eligible to issue certification badges. Members of the royal family must personally use the supplier's products/commodities for five years before they can consider granting certification. At the same time, the three certificates issued by the above three people have the highest product level, and these three badges are all awarded to the Land Rover brand.

After learning about the three royal badges, we entered the aluminum and metal workshop in jaguar XE through the small door on the right side of the room. Jaguar XE's car body is manufactured in this workshop, and most of XE's car body parts are manufactured by Jaguar Bromage Fort factory, and then loaded and sent to Solihull factory for splicing. The body of a jaguar XE consists of 354 panels made of different materials, including all-aluminum body frame, chassis structure, doors, hood and trunk lid, all of which are made of steel.

In the assembly station of the car body frame, the punched car body frame parts are assembled here, in which the aluminum material adopts riveting technology, and rivet holes are not reserved on the car body parts, but riveting robots are directly inserted into two aluminum plates to achieve the fixing effect. There are 3 1 rivets on the body of a jaguar XE, totaling more than 2,000.

In addition to riveting technology, because there are some steel structures on the floor in jaguar XE, gluing and spot welding technology are also adopted. But because only a small amount of steel needs spot welding, the whole factory can't see the scene of sparks flying.

In addition, there are almost no employees in the body assembly process, because the employees here only need to monitor and transport some body parts in the control room to supplement rivets for the robot.

After the body assembly is completed, the body frame structure will enter the assembly stage, and the new car will be assembled with the roof, four doors, front hood and trunk lid. All this is done by robots. After the body splicing is completed, the new car will be sent to the inspection station, and four robots with cameras will take photos to check 80 points to ensure the reliability of the body manufacturing. In addition, at present, the sheet metal workshop in jaguar XE still uses manual sampling to ensure product quality.

At present, the factory operates one shift a day, and Jaguar will increase the production of XE models in the future, so that the workshop can operate two shifts a day.

Suolihaer factory 2 nd assembly workshop

On the way to the next workshop, the staff introduced the painting workshop of Solihull factory, which is the largest automatic painting workshop in Europe at present, with seven processes. However, we didn't witness the production process in this workshop. Through introduction, we know that the current production capacity of this workshop is 320,000 units/year. Judging from the current sales volume, the production capacity is relatively tight. In the future, Jaguar Land Rover will increase the production capacity of this workshop to 350,000 vehicles per year.

Next, we come to No.2 assembly workshop, where jaguar XE will assemble and leave the production line. It is worth mentioning that due to the large demand for Land Rover Range Rover at present, the original Land Rover Range Rover automobile assembly workshop has been used to produce Range Rover and Range Rover long-wheelbase models respectively, while the Range Rover Sport Edition has been arranged to be produced together with jaguar XE*** in the No.2 assembly workshop.

The painted car body will begin to assemble the whole car here. As can be seen from the flow chart of the workshop, the door of the new car will be removed first, and then the skylight or panoramic skylight selected by the customer will be installed, and then the frame number and wiring will be embedded for the new car.

At the same time, during the assembly process, the whole assembly line is covered with wooden floors, which also makes employees more comfortable at work. In addition, the support of the lifting frame can be lifted and lowered, and can be adjusted according to different heights and different assembly positions of production vehicles, which is convenient for assembly workers to assemble at the most comfortable angle of human body.

At the same time, on another assembly line, the engines, gearboxes, transmission systems, exhaust and braking systems of jaguar xe and Land Rover Range Rover Sport Edition are also assembled by workers. The powertrain assembled here includes 2.0T gasoline, 2.0T Ingenium diesel, 3.0L V6 supercharged diesel, 3.0L twin turbocharged diesel and 5.0L V8 supercharged engine.

It can be seen from the factory workers that the proportion of female employees here is not very low, and they are active in different positions. For example, the female employee in the picture is responsible for the assembly of the transmission part. In addition, it is reported that the Solihull factory recruited more than 80 former soldiers, including veterans who joined the army in the early years and some wounded.

After the body and powertrain are assembled, the vehicle enters the receiving station, and the body and powertrain on the two production lines are spliced by robots, and then further assembled by manpower.

After assembling the powertrain, the vehicle will be equipped with front and rear light groups and front and rear bumpers. After assembly, workers will also cover the front and rear parts of the vehicle with protective covers to prevent the paint surface from being damaged. Finally, the four doors of the new car will be reinstalled and equipped with wheels. But this hasn't officially gone offline yet. Every new car also needs an ignition test and a rain test. Before the completion of six test projects, the brand-new XE or Land Rover Range Rover Sport Edition was officially born.

Edit summary:

During the short visit, we only visited less than a quarter of the factories in Solihull. Although we only visited part of the birth process of jaguar XE this time, we also learned about the production process of Land Rover during the conversation. Before we set out, our guide, an old employee of Solihull factory with a history of more than half a century, said to himself, "It won't be long before the doorman here will stop production. This is a car I like very much, and all the employees here don't want the doorman to stop production. " I asked curiously, "won't the next generation of guards be produced here?" The old man replied, "This feeling is different. Guards grow with the factory. The next generation of guards may not only produce here, but also set up factories in Changshu, Brazil, Austria, Poland and China. We still need to wait for the company to decide where to produce the next generation of defenders. "

I can understand the reluctance of the old employees to the guardian model, and I can once again understand that this super factory was born during World War II, and there are many secrets that we don't know. Every old employee here can tell an unknown story. If possible, I hope to visit the Solihull factory again to see how the Land Rover model was born here. @20 19