Work on the new facility, which will employ more than 80 people, started in May last year. The installation of the new 90m-long assembly line, which has 16 work stations, began in January 2016, and several weeks of extensive commissioning to handle the current 700 wheel and tire derivatives has now been completed.
Transfer of the line from the existing facility on Torrington Avenue will begin in July. When combined, the two lines will have the capacity to produce around 2.5 million assemblies per year based on three shifts. Assembly of wheels and tires for Jaguar Land Rover has started and will gradually increase over the next few weeks.
Phillip Spencer, Voith Industrial Services’ sales and business development director, said, “Our new plant covering 150,000ft2 is over 50% bigger. The investment in a new assembly line with the latest automated technology means that we can complete a wheel and tire assembly in only 12 seconds compared to 20 seconds on the old line.
“The new line can also handle up to 1,000 different derivatives of wheels and tires. It can produce almost a million assemblies per year on a two-shift basis with the ability to complete 1.5 million with three shifts.”
6 June, 2016
