Jaguar
Land Rover, a Tata Motors owned company based in the UK and a leading manufacturer
of premium vehicles has invested £45m (Rs 455 crore approx.) in a new
state-of-the-art servo press line at its Halewood Operations, near Liverpool,
England. This was stated by the company in a press release.
Halewood
Operations manufactures the Land Rover Freelander 2 and the Range Rover Evoque.
The plant is operating at full capacity, 24 hours-a-day, for the first time in
its 50 year history. More than £230million (Rs 2326 crore approx.) has been
invested in Halewood since 2011 and Jaguar Land Rover has invested more than £3
billion (Rs 30,336 crore approx.) in UK
supply contracts linked with Evoque production. The workforce has trebled in
the past three years to 4,500 and over 2200 employees have completed
Apprenticeships in the past two years.
The
new Servo stamping line, the first of its kind to be built in the UK, is 13
metres tall and over 85 metres long. It 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, stamping both steel and aluminium panels.
Installing
this giant facility required a major reconfiguration of the Halewood press
shop, with the plant roof raised by almost 12 metres to accommodate the new
machinery. The press shop bay also had to have its footprint extended by almost
50pc, compared to the previous stamping machine.
Richard
Else, Jaguar Land Rover, Operations Director - Halewood, said: “This colossal
new press line reinforces Jaguar Land Rover’s long term investment in UK
manufacturing. Halewood is one of the most flexible, advanced automotive
manufacturing facilities in Europe, producing two of the highest quality,
largest selling Jaguar Land Rover vehicles to over 170 countries world-wide.
This investment ensures we can make more panels, even more efficiently and will
continue to do so for many years to come.”