Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover claims a training programme developed to provide a new career route for the next generation of digital engineers has helped "deliver more than GBP430m in value for the business over the past year".
The data engineering conversion programme, launched in 2021, has provided dozens of new data engineers within JLR with new skills.
Digitally skilled workers are now able to use data to predict global supply and manufacturing challenges to make decisions to protect build schedules for a strong order bank of 150,000 vehicles, contributing to a record cash flow performance for the business for the first half of the 2023/24 financial year.
The multi million pound value return was achieved by developing digital tools to deliver process efficiency, automate parts ordering to protect supply and monitor global industry trends to understand the risk of future challenges and trigger mitigation activities.
These digital tools are also enabling the automaker to achieve its sustainability goals. For example, they enable data processing of vehicle CO2 emissions optimisation and manufacturing waste management.
Use of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) products to deliver this suite of tools has resulted in a Google customer award for manufacturing in 2023 which recognises innovative use of its products on a global scale.
The training programme has seen 30 colleagues ‘graduate’ since its first cohort.
Those graduates worked their way through an eight week intensive course followed by an additional six months of once weekly training before being embedded in specific areas of the business to support their digital needs.
The activity is another key part of JLR’s commitment to providing digital upskilling for its workforce, as part of its Future Skills Programme which supports its Reimagine strategy to make its vehicles available in pure electric form by the end of the decade.
The programme complements the Multiverse Data Apprenticeship scheme, already under way, as well as the recently announced Everstream Analytics programme which embeds artificial intelligence into supply chain mapping capability.
Christine Kemp, chief data and digital product officer, said: ““Our ‘graduates’ are now embedded across the business as data engineering experts empowered with ability to make data driven business decisions using bespoke digital tools that can be developed in days, not months, using GCP.
“This in turn allows us to generate savings and invest in more technology and to be more resilient to the continuous challenges that the global automotive industry faces.”
