Introducing a new vehicle is never easy; the more so if it is a van. Unlike cars, new vans roll out only once every 12 years or so – the team that launched the last one is unlikely to be that which launches the next.
And so it is at the Vauxhall plant in Luton where engineers are making ready for X82, scheduled for launch in the second quarter of 2014. According to plant director Mike Wright, it is important for the project team to be in place well ahead of the launch. “We have to make sure the team we have is capable of building the vehicle,” he says. “Very soon, we will be off to France with a hand-picked team of our most experienced people. They will see the vehicle for the first time. In November they will see prototypes when they go to Sandouville, near Le Havre.
“We expect our first build vehicles here in June 2013. We have seen computer-generated images of the new vehicle. It looks fantastic.”
The X82 will replace the X83 Vauxhall/Opel Vivaro, a joint venture of General Motors and Renault in France. Luton currently supplies Renault with 16,000 vehicles a year, but from 2014 the entire output will be Vauxhall and Opel only. Renault will build its own version of X82 at Sandouville. Indeed, from next January Luton will be purely an Opel/Vauxhall plant.
Some 12 years ago, plant engineering at Luton was Renault’s responsibility but with X82 Vauxhall engineers have an opportunity to refine major production areas to optimise manufacture and increase efficiency through TIP – throughput improvement process – to achieve targets for each individual shop.
In an iterative process, various areas of manufacturing are being improved. New robot cells are being installed, new lines laid, banks and buffers changed to allow more floor space, a new seam-sealing cell introduced in the paint shop, and in the press shop work on the blanking line has prepared for refurbishment.
The bodyshop is where Wright and his team have most work to do. During the summer shutdown, £4 million worth of new facilities and robot cells were installed.
Already, significant flooring work has been completed: an area the size of a football pitch was concreted over to make way for the new standalone bodyside and framing lines that will form part of the X82 process route. Before vehicle launch, the old X83 lines will be bypassed and removed and the new X82 lines opened up.
Last month, during a plant shutdown, four new robots out of 22 were introduced as part of a trial in the bodyshop. In total, more than 100 robots will be installed, forming part of a £95 million investment at the plant. Wright and his team are working their way through their programme of work to update the factory ahead of the van’s launch. But the main installation will take place next year – engineers are now in the planning and trial phase.
The press shop, bodyshop, paint shop and general assembly are the principal recipients of investment. In the bodyshop, there will be new bodyside lines, new bespoke cells for X82, and a new framing line. The existing underbody line will remain.
Nearly half the £95 million can be accounted for by the bodyshop that produces van shells before painting. Planned investment in the paint shop is £6 million as new robots and equipment are installed. The press shop will call for £4 million, and the rest will be spent in general assembly. About £1 million has been spent in the press shop.
Robots are sourced from Fanuc, GM’s preferred supplier. The main spend is not on individual robots but on controls, the infrastructure, and time taken to adjust the equipment to make it operational. Robot welding guns, for example, can be more expensive than robots. Some robots carry tool changers and anti-collision devices to obtain two functions of welding.
In the press shop, 29 new dies for X82 will be split so that two sets of panels can be taken down the line. The current set-up accepts only single panels. Mechanical overhaul of the blanking lines has been completed and electrical overhaul is due later this year. Most dies will be sourced from China and Korea.
“We have our specialist die engineers from the UK going to China next month to work with the Chinese suppliers to improve the quality of the dies and reduce costs. We are supported also by the GM China organisation. This is when we lever the full resources of GM as a global manufacturer,” says Wright.
Although most of the main pressings are done on site, there remains a strategy to examine unused capacity and effectively fill up the press lines to improve utilisation. It may be possible to introduce more work on to the lines. Engineers are also looking at an alternative: companies that can undertake small pressings and structural parts. These companies are trusted suppliers to the motor industry and Vauxhall.
In any plant, hours per van (HPV) and gross conversion ratios (GCR) are crucial performance yardsticks. If Luton had run at its maximum capacity of 103,000 units in 2009 it could have hit an HPV of 19.5 and a GCR of 4. Wright describes 4 as “fantastic” and a benchmark performance. In 2011, Luton hit 68,103 units with a year-end workforce of 1,100. (GCR is a ratio of HPV to basic engineering content (BEC) or the total added-value work content to build a van.)
General assembly of X82 will be greatly simplified as powertrain options will be reduced from nine to three. However, with X82 there will be greater emphasis on SVO – special vehicle operations – where additional value-added can be introduced into what are effectively bespoke vehicles. SVO will have new robots and a new spray booth to give better uptimes. “We will be able to put the main line colours in the SVO booth,” says Wright. “That will increase our throughput in the shops. We will be spraying SVOs much more efficiently.”
For X82 introduction, Luton is edging towards 1,013 employees, with contract staff also well under the previous level of 400. The Luton workforce may even dip below 1,000 for the first time.
Luton is not a highly automated plant but it is nevertheless small and efficient. Space is at a premium and several decisions regarding the location of vendors on site have yet to be resolved, including for example manufacture of longitudinals and cross-members, tyres and wheels, and small structural parts.
As the launch date approaches there will be pressure on the sales teams to balance run-out sales of X83 while generating new business for X82. Luton only builds to order to reduce inventory.
Ironically, Luton will play an important role in helping Renault introduce its vehicle. In the past, Renault has not built the Trafic but relied on Nissan in Barcelona and Opel/Vauxhall in Luton to meet its requirements. So Renault’s engineers have no experience of building this size of van; a point not lost on Wright and his team. Renault’s engineers will want all the help they can get.