Jaguar Land Rover's Halewood expansion

As the UK car industry begins to recover, Jaguar Land Rover are busy upgrading their Halewood plant's production press. Britain’s largest car manufacturer, owned by parent company Tata Motors, said it'd completed a £45million high production press line at the plant in northern England, which will help save time to stamp it's steel and aluminium panels.

Britain's car industry has experienced a revival this year, as a more flexible workforce and state schemes to boost investment and research have helped it to recover from the 2008 economic downturn. Land Rover's announcement comes a day after rival luxury brand, Bentley, announced it'd make 100 jobs as it moves production of it's W12 engines from Germany to Britain.

The new Jaguar Land Rover Halewood press

The new machine is 13 metre tall and over 85 metres long and should reduce the time it takes to change the die casts, moulds made from metal, from 55 minutes to 5 minutes. This will potentially add hours of production per week. The new line has a combined press stamping capacity of 7,900 tonnes, making it the fastest and one of the biggest and most powerful press lines across Jaguar Land Rover.

The new press line should speed up the delivery of the required pressed parts produced at Halewood. It will then feed the body shops across the group's line, which are working around the clock to meet increasing global demand. In 2013, Jaguar Land Rover's best ever full year performance global sales performance retailed 425,006 vehicles, up 19%.

Comments on Jaguar Land Rover's Halewood upgrade

Jaguar Land Rover Operations Director at Halewood commented, “This investment ensures we can make more panels, even more efficiently and will continue to do so for many years to come," he added. The new press line will speed up the delivery of the required volume of pressed parts produced at Halewood. The company said installation of the metal stamping press will be completed by the end of March and trial pressings will commence in April and the facility will begin stamping panels for use across Jaguar Land Rover from the Summer. By Autumn the facility will be up to full speed making up to 20 strikes per minute.”

The company's Halewood Operations plant manufactures the Land Rover Freelander 2 and Range Rover Evoque. The firm has invested more the £230million in the plant since 2011 and the plant is operating at full capacity for the first time in 50 years.

According to the company, installation of the metal stamping press will be completed by the end of March and trial pressings will commence in April, with the facility stamping panels for use across the Jaguar Land Rover line from summer.