Tata Motors‘ UK luxury vehicle unit Jaguar Land Rover has spent GBP45m (US$74m) on a new art servo press line at its Halewood Operations factory, near Liverpool, England.
The new servo stamping line, the first of its kind to be built in the UK, is 13m tall and over 85m long and has a combined press stamping capacity of 7,900 tonnes, making it the fastest and one of the biggest and most powerful press lines in JLR’s entire manufacturing operations, stamping both steel and aluminium panels.
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Installation required a major reconfiguration of the Halewood press shop with the plant roof raised by almost 12m. The press shop bay also had to have its footprint extended by almost 50% compared to the space occupied by the previous stamping machine.
At the end of this month, supplier Aida will complete the finishing touches of the installation and trial pressing starts in April. The facility will begin stamping panels for use across JLR products from the summer and, by autumn, it will be up to full speed making up to 20 strikes per minute.
The servo press is the first of its type used by JLR. Compared to the more mechanical operation of the existing Halewood presses, the direct drive servo system can handle higher tonnages in addition to working at higher speeds, allowing Halewood to increase the volume of stamped parts. The new line also uses less power and incorporates an energy recovery system that captures energy from the draw action and converts it into electricity.
The design of the Aida press also allows for faster die changes (the metal moulds that form the panel shapes). Changes can be achieved in under five minutes, compared to up to 55 minutes for the largest existing mechanical Halewood press line. This will improve the flexibility of the press shop, increase stamping capacity, speed and volume.
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By GlobalDataHalewood was built in the early 1960s as a Ford plant but, after decades of production of cars like the Anglia and Escort, was assigned Land Rover (and, for a time, Jaguar) products during Ford’s ownership of the brand.
The factory now makes the Land Rover Freelander 2 and Range Rover Evoque and is operating at full capacity, 24 hours a day for the first time in its 50-year history.
Over GBP230m (US$379m) has been spent on the plant since 2011 and JLR has spent more than GBP3bn (US$4.9bn) on UK supply contracts linked to Evoque production.
The workforce has trebled in the past three years to 4,500 and over 2,200 employees have completed apprenticeships in the past two years.
