Production of the Mini at the Longbridge plant

8.Made in England – Then and Now. MINI Production between Past and Future.

The first Mini was an Austin Seven coming off the production line in Austin's Longbridge Plant in Birmingham on 4 April 1959. The team of twins was subsequently completed five weeks later, the first Morris Mini-Minor leaving the Morris Plant in Oxford on 8 May.

The two models were presented to the public together for the first time on 26 August 1959. Despite their different origin, the Austin Seven and the Morris Mini-Minor were virtually identical, the only distinctions on the outside being their radiator grilles, the wheel caps and body colours: The Austin Seven was available in Tartan Red, Speedwell Blue, and Farina Grey, the Morris Mini-Minor came in Cherry Red, Clipper Blue, and Old English White.

Production at the two plants continued for ten years with the model built in Longbridge bearing the name Austin Mini as of 1962.

Plant Oxford, which had been building cars since 1913, built exactly 602, 817 units during this period, all of them the basic version of the four-seater. All other model variants ranging from the Mini Van through the Mini Pick-Up all the way to the Morris Mini-Traveller and Austin Seven Countryman were built in Longbridge.

In 1969 all production activities were concentrated at the Longbridge Plant, with the model range being streamlined and Mini becoming the brand name for this revolutionary compact car. So the days of the twin brothers (or sisters?) were over once and for all.

A million cars in six years: the MINI repeats the rapid start of the classic Mini.

With the brand being re-positioned in 2001 under the guidance of the BMW Group and production of the modern MINI starting as planned, it was only obvious that MINI had to move back to Oxford, the plant so rich in tradition thus once again becoming the starting point for a genuine revolution in the small car market. And like the classic Mini, the MINI made a remarkable start into the market exceeding all expectations: within just six years, Plant Oxford built no less than a million units of the MINI. This was indeed just as long as the classic Mini had taken to exceed the one-million mark, but back then production was still at two plants.

After 41 years and a production volume of more than 5.3 million units, the last classic Mini left Plant Longbridge on 4 October 2000. Since the decision to build the modern MINI in Oxford had already been taken half a year before, only nine months remained from then on to the start of MINI pre-production and just 13 months to the start of actual series production. Clearly, therefore, the roughly 2,500 employees in Oxford at the time and their colleagues from BMW Plant Regensburg supporting the modernisation process faced a great challenge and a truly tight timetable in making this new start into the market.

MINI production in Oxford according to the strict quality standards of the BMW Group.

The BMW Group had already invested some £ 280 million in the Rover Plant in Oxford back in 1996/1997, thoroughly modernising the Bodyshop and Final Assembly. Another project also completed back then was a state-of-the-art Paintshop, at the time the second-largest construction project in Great Britain following the Millennium Dome. And now this was followed by further investments amounting to some £ 230 million serving to modernise and re-structure the plant.

All this made Oxford one of the most modern car production plants in the world, boasting cutting-edge technology specifically for the production of the MINI. No less than 229 production robots were installed at the time to build the body-in-white, with a laser measuring system serving to check the body of the MINI down to a precision of no less than 0.05 millimetres.

The Paintshop was likewise custom-built for the requirements of MINI production, not only allowing very precise and environmentally friendly application of the paint, but also providing the contrasting paint finish on the roof so typical of the MINI Cooper.

Oxford also became the first European car production plant to make exclusive use of electrical tools in final assembly, while the KISS (Core Production Integrating Management System) serves to fully automate communication in the production process by using the most advanced information technology. In this process the complete production of each individual model is electronically documented from the body-in-white all the way to final assembly, again ensuring that every MINI meets the supreme quality standards of the BMW Group.

The original sales target of 100,000 cars a year was exceeded right from the start in the first full year of production, with Plant Oxford passing the 200,000 units a year mark in 2005, a year after the MINI Convertible had been added to the range.

This ongoing success of the MINI called for permanent expansion of production capacities, the BMW Group again investing some £100 million in the Plant in 2005 to prepare facilities for production of the second-generation MINI and to increase overall capacities to some 240,000 units a year.

Flexible, efficient and quality-conscious production in the MINI Production Triangle.

Most of this money was invested in modernising and extending the Body Assembly Shop and in the construction of a second Paintshop.

For the first time within the BMW Group, the Paintshop uses an Integrated Painting Process (IPP) where the rustproofing and primer are no longer applied in separate processes, but rather together with the first layer of paint.

Upon the start of production of the new MINI in autumn 2006, the three productions plants in Oxford (Bodyshop, Paintshop, Assembly), Swindon (Pressings) and Hams Hall (Engine Production) were integrated for the first time in the MINI Production Triangle.

Body panels have been produced in Swindon, some 70 kilometres west of Oxford, since 1954. Today some 1,000 employees in Swindon make about 90 per cent of the pressings and 80 per cent of the pre-assembled body components such as lids and doors for the MINI Bodyshop at Plant Oxford. In all, these pressings are made on 19 pressing lines with a total of 50 individual pressing machines ranging in pressure from 400 to 5,000 tonnes. Each pressing machine is tailored to the size and complexity of the respective component.

The Engine Plant in Hams Hall, by comparison, is relatively new. This Plant near Birmingham has been the BMW Group's Competence Centre since 2001 for the production of four-cylinder gasoline engines with a capacity of up to 2.0 litres. Since 2005, the BMW Group has invested some £ 30 million in the production of gasoline engines for the MINI.

At the Hams Hall Plant some 1,000 employees build engines with the most advanced technology featuring innovative valve control based on the BMW Group's VALVETRONIC technology providing optimum power in the four-cylinder engines featured in the MINI One, the MINI Cooper, and the MINI Cooper Clubman, as well as twin-scroll technology ensuring immediate response of the turbocharged power unit in the MINI Cooper S and the MINI Cooper S Clubman. The plant delivers up to 800 MINI engines per day to Oxford, just in time and just in sequence, that is at exactly the right time and in the right sequence for final assembly.

The innovations in production at the Body Plant in Oxford enlarged once again for even greater capacity include Mobile Standard Production Cells (Mobi-Cells) developed by the BMW Group for a flexible and rapid increase in production in response to current demand. The number of production robots in this sector has increased to 429, making production of the new MINI highly flexible in accordance with the BMW Group's Customer-Oriented Sales and Production Process (COSP). This allows the customer to change the configuration of his car up to just six days prior to the start of assembly.

Assembly of the MINI, MINI Clubman, and MINI Convertible all in parallel.

In the assembly process, the MINI comes off the same line as the MINI Clubman in production since 2007 and the MINI Convertible now also in its second generation. In accordance with the customer's specific order and the equipment/options required, the workers fit up to 2,000 components on each individual MINI.

With numerous quality tests integrated in the assembly process, the workers use cordless, portable hand-held computers identifying the vehicle by means of its scanned-in chassis number and then following specific test requirements. After assembly each car goes through a comprehensive inspection regime including an active driving test on the dynamometer and a wide range of electronic tests.

In all, Plant Oxford currently has some 3,700 employees. With demand for the MINI made in Oxford growing consistently, global sales of the MINI in 2008 amounted to over 232,000 units, the number of cars built since the re-launch of the brand thus exceeding the 1.4 million-unit-mark at the beginning of this anniversary year.

A further significant point is that not only the MINI, but also the Oxford Plant is celebrating an important anniversary in 2009, the production of 10 million cars in this university city ever since William Morris started building cars here back in 1913.