The Car Industry - links for study...

In the news in April 2005 is the collapse of MG / Rover, following the collapse of a deal with a Chinese car firm. This will mean over 6000 redundancies in the factory itself, plus over 15 000 jobs in supplier companies. The administrators have suggested that there will be the sales of assets, and possibly the name. Longbridge plant been in operation for almost 100 years.

There was a lot of coverage at the time in newspapers.

A lot of useful BBC ARTICLES too, such as THIS ONE.

The Car Industry is an ASSEMBLY industry (also called 'screw driver' industry) Sub-assemblies or components are brought to one place for final assembly.

There is a great tradition of car manufacturing in the UK in areas such as the East Midlands. There has obviously been a lot of change since the 1970s (as featured in the recent BBC adaptation of 'The Rotters Club')

Assembly line production was introduced by Ford to make the Model-T which was famously available in 'any colour you like as long as it's black...' This allowed production to be speeded up, and for workers to specialise in particular stages of the production.

What are the key factors affecting the location of car production sites in the UK ?

Communications

Large site

Workforce with appropriate skills / tradition of working in the industry

Suppliers of components

Flat land

Government / regional incentives and grants available

Need to produce an A3 poster to summarise the factors affecting these particular locational decisions. These are also involved when the company is deciding whether to stay in a particular place or relocate.

What would be your concerns as to relocating or not from various viewpoints. Need to justify what you are saying. Think about the differing viewpoints of the following:

I have used these 2 worksheets to explore the changing role of the car industry, and the different aspects affecting its location.

Also an issue with capacity in the industry. Keep an eye out for news articles over the next few months as we study this topic. Also check out the GEOGRAPHY IN THE NEWS site for more interesting links.

Preparation for timed essay on changing industrial location: comparing modern locational factors with the classical location theory. This is an interesting area.

The car industry of today has changed a lot in terms of the factors affecting its location.

China, Eastern Europe and India are likely to take not only the manufacturing jobs themselves away from MEDCs but also the parts making operations (the DIRECT suppliers). The INTERATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION has produced a report recently on this issue.

Also need to do searches of BBC and other news archives. You'll find a 2002 article looking at the future of the car industry in the UK. Try the BUSINESS section of the news in particular for various up to date stories. The BBC NEWS article referred to above is also useful as it has links to all the various UK based car firms.

The Toyota site has useful information relating to the company. One interesting detail is that they are developing bioplastics for use in the various interior mouldings in the car which are made from sweet potato.

NEWLY ADDED WEBLINKS

http://www.travelmag.co.uk/article_726.shtml - article on the Cambodian car industry

http://www.sociology.org.uk/p1me6n.htm - excellent summary of FORDISM

http://www.channel4.com/learning/microsites/I/italia/prog1.html - site with animations on FIAT car factory in N.Italy - Turin is the home of Fiat and Juventus...

There's a rather wonderful 'transparent' car factory in Dresden, Germany, producing the Phaeton luxury model, which is featured in a forum posting linked to below: http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=183764 Has some excellent images of the various stages in manufacturing. This is not mass production, but is useful to show the stages in the construction of a car. Beautiful clear images too...
Also some excellent detail in an article by Neil Steinberg in Granta 89, relating to the Ford car plant at Chicago in the USA. The plant sits on the south side of the city. http://www.granta.com/extracts/2259 is an extract from the article, which contrasts the car plant with a lamp making workshop...

Ford pioneered mass production in the manufacture of the Model T Ford, which was famously available in any colour "as long as it's black"

Plant was built in 1924, originally to make Model T Fords
Now has 2.8 million square feet of space
A typical Ford car consists of 10 000 components, which are put together to make 2 400 sub assemblies e.g. instrument panel for dashboard of a car
A car is finished every 64.8 minutes
The 'assembly line' is no longer a conveyor belt, but a computer controlled monitored track with a series of racks holding the partially assembled vehicles
There are 2 000 employees, divided into teams - plus a series of robots, which are sophisticated and are self-cleaning and self-adjusting - the teams are known as KAIZEN groups, following the Japanese theme which is mentioned elsewhere in this page and is followed by TOYOTA too
There are only enough parts in inventory for the plant to operate for another 3 hours !
It costs money to hold stock in inventory, so by reducing the time, Ford increases profit (about $7000 per vehicle) - this is risky as one missing piece can bring the factory to a halt.
Components are manufactured in a special area half a mile from the plant called the Chicago Manufacturing Campus.