MINI Factory, Monster Mechanics

OXFORD, England—When BMW decided to revive the MINI in modern form, after buying the old Rover company, they needed a factory that could handle the task. What better choice than the facility on the outskirts of Oxford, where original Minis were produced from 1959 into the beginning of the 21st century.

M-Robot
MINIs are manufactured in three buildings at the sprawling 112-acre facility, located on the Oxford Ring Road at Cowley. As you walk into the first one and look around, an eerie sensation takes over. Where are the workers? There's plenty of typical factory noise, but few people visible. In the next building, it turns out, assembly workers are engaged in the usual tasks of an auto manufacturing company. Through the first stages, however, robots basically do all the work.


A total of 256 robots are on-site in this "body-in-white" area. Here, you find "more robots than people," said John Strange, who's worked at the Oxford factory since 1962 and conducted this tour for a single visitor.


Because BMW is the parent of the MINI operation, comparisons are often made to the German automaker's factory operations. Obviously, they want the MINI to gain a reputation for quality comparable to that of BMW models. BMW's factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina uses considerable automation, yet it doesn't give off the weird sensation that robots are in charge.


"Body in white" is the term used to describe the unfinished basic car body, before it's painted or has any components installed. The underframe goes through a series of preliminary steps, before it's ready to move into Framing areas 1 and 2. "One of the key features of body-in-white is measurement," Strange said. The body "must be accurate before it goes to the assembly hall."