Jaguar Land Rover has chosen specially adapted cargo trains to move parts around its new £500m Engine Manufacturing Centre, in Wolverhampton which has been officially opened by the Queen.
The facility will be home to the ‘Ingenium’ engine family, which will power a new generation of Jaguar Land Rover products designed, engineered and manufactured in the UK. This starts with the two-litre diesel engine in the Jaguar XE.
A spokesman said: “The logistical challenge that a facility of this scale represents is immense, and the logistical department is every bit as vital to the success of the centre as the manufacturing process itself.”
The 100,000 sq m Engine Manufacturing Centre has 71 suppliers, approximately 30 per cent of which are based in the UK. Hundreds of individual parts will be required when both diesel and petrol divisions are operational.
These will be delivered to two main receiving areas – five bays in the Assembly area and two in the Raw Materials area. Once inside the facility, the parts will be transported on specially adapted cargo trains, making 133 movements a day, facilitating a large volume of engines.
JLR says this process has an inherent capacity for flexibility, allowing logistical operations to keep up with the rapidly evolving demands of the modern automotive industry.
When operating at full capacity, the Engine Manufacturing Centre will employ 1,400 people with a further 5,500 jobs created in the supply chain, where production of these engines will help provide a critical mass for inward investment.
