MINI Plant visit
Vivaan (Year 12) recounts his experience visiting the MINI Plant in Oxford:
Last month, Year 12 and 13 students enjoyed the privilege of visiting the MINI Plant in Oxford to gain an insight into the process of making a MINI Cooper. Initially, we were given the chance to explore the museum, on-site at the factory, where there was a display surrounding the design of MINI cars and their progression and history. The museum also housed some exotic MINI cars, including one covered in cow fur.
The main part of our trip began here, where we embarked on a tour of the factory itself. Our first stop was at the Body-in-White factory. Here, the raw sheets of steel were assembled using robotic spot welding into a solid car skeleton. Perhaps the most impressive things were both the size of the building (over 20 football pitches) and the level of automation - almost everything was done by robots, with minimal human intervention. Unfortunately, the next part of the process, painting, is not open to visit, but regardless, our tour guide gave us an excellent explanation of the paint shop process, running through everything from applying the base coat of paint to polishing with ostrich feathers.
We then entered the final assembly building, which was a spectacle in itself: a continuous series of conveyor belts running through the building, where workers worked on MINI cars on specific and individual tasks. These ranged from installing the dashboards to laying out the electrical wiring inside the car; it was impressive to see how the conveyor did not stop at any point in the factory - every single process was carried out on a moving platform. This amazing sequence of processes ended in quite the view: watching a MINI being driven off the end of the conveyor belt inside the factory.
At the end of the day, all of us had gained a vast wealth of knowledge regarding more industrial and commercial manufacturing processes and as we headed home, we were left to marvel at the amazing robots we had seen, moving around whole car bodies with the appearance of weightlessness.