BMW Group Plant Oxford starts installing MINI production line

Work has started at BMW Group's Oxford plant to install the
Body-in-White and Assembly facilities for the new MINI. In the past
eight weeks the Rover 75 line has been completely dismantled and
transported to the Phoenix Consortium's Longbridge plant. In turn,
equipment for the MINI production was shipped from Longbridge to
Oxford. Thus the first part of the exceptional logistical challenge of
exchanging production facilities has been concluded on time. The
equipment for the production facilities is on site and the buildings
are ready for installation. A nine-week extended summer break had been
agreed for the Oxford workforce during this phase. The employees will
return on 11 September 2000 to find that preparations for the
production of MINI at Oxford are well underway. The most visible sign
over the past weeks for the changes taking place at the BMW Group Plant
Oxford was the demolition of an old conveyor bridge next to the Oxford
ring road - until now a trademark of the site. The bridge is being
dismantled to allow restructuring of the site for MINI. £280
million have been invested at Oxford over the last years to modernise
the production facilities, this included the building of a completely
new Paintshop for £80 million, as well as the total refurbishment
of Body-in-White and Assembly halls. Other improvements were the
building of an Integrated Logistics Centre and of a Quality Centre for
finished cars. British firms played a key role in the modernisation of
the plant. The state-of-the-art facilities for Body-in-White and the
Paintshop were provided by leading European suppliers, as is standard
practice at BMW. For the start-up of MINI production in early summer
2001 the BMW Group will invest another £230 million into
machinery, facilities and infrastructure on site. Production of the
MINI is set to reach up to 100,000 units per year and running at that
capacity the plant will offer employment for around 2,500 people. The
site infrastructure would allow an increased production capacity in the
future of up to 200,000 units per year. In order to achieve this,
further investment into production facilities ? especially into the
Paintshop - would be needed. The structures at plant Oxford will be in
accordance with BMW Group?s production strategy, which means that it
would be possible to build other BMW Group products at the plant if it
was necessary. The flexibility created by this strategy has been a
major factor in the extraordinary productivity of BMW plants. Dr
Herbert Diess, Managing Director Plant Oxford, said: "MINI will be
built here at Oxford using the latest technology and to BMW's stringent
quality and production standards. Our employees have already shown with
the Rover 75 that they are capable of delivering this quality. We have
successfully completed the first challenge and I am positive that
together with our suppliers and the support of the whole BMW Group we
can fulfil the high expectations for the launch of MINI." On 28
April 2000 Plant Oxford was taken out of the former Rover Group and
became a 100 per cent subsidiary of BMW (UK) Holdings Ltd. as BMW UK
Manufacturing Ltd.