Jaguar Land Rover’s Halewood plant has now entered its new phase of 24-hour production, five months after JLR revealed its 1000-strong recruitment drive in March.
The firm’s round-the-clock workforce (a first in Halewood’s 50-year history) will be used to "meet strong global demand for the Range Rover Evoque", according to JLR. Since its introduction in July 2011, 88,000 Evoque units have been sold worldwide.
The 1000 new recruits – joing a workforce which now totals 4500 - have also been drafted in for production of Land Rover’s revised Freelander 2 model.
Halewood operations director Richard Else said: “Moving production to three shifts and working 24 hours a day will allow us to significantly reduce the time a customer has to wait for their new Range Rover Evoque.”
JLR HR director Des Thurlby added: “With 4,500 employees, JLR Halewood has trebled its workforce in just three years – and the size of the workforce is now the highest it has been for 20 years.”
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DC061...fair points...but
DC061, I get your point about the reliability surveys but I have to say that I think that magazine long term tests are worth even less than other surveys. Lets face it, if a modern car can't be reliable for 12 months or less then that is appalling. Most modern cars won't have got to their first service before the car is handed back.
3 years is a good point to look at cars, it is when they begin to go wrong, as they come off company car duty with a big mileage.
With regard to Land Rover, the Freelander was introduced in 2006 (minor facelift since), the Discovery in 2004 (facelift 3 years ago) and the Range Rover 10 years ago (with one or two facelifts). So, the survey data is reasonably accurate.
You are right, Jaguar's turnaround in reliability has been stunning. Since the launch of the XK8 in 1996 they have steadily got better and better....let us hope that Land Rover does the same.
Broughster.
Broughster.
You are too cynical. Is it good news? No, adding 1000 jobs is bad.
What a stupid comment.
pychris...please don't misquote me
Pychris, I never said that adding 1000 new jobs was bad news....it would help if you read my comments properly before calling them stupid. My point was about the reliability of the cars produced under that regime.
Broughster, One thing rarely
Broughster, One thing rarely mentioned in reliability surveys is that the data used is for cars that are 3 years old. The company could have made massive improvements since then (see Jaguars latest results for instance) but they willl not show for another 3 years. So don't always read too deep into the surveys a better indication is by the magazine's long term vehicles.
Broughster wrote: Pychris, I
I thought the same, wonder what the attention to detail's like when it's 4 in the morning on those first few shifts. I know mine would drop.
Broughster
Your point is will 24/7 work? That the risk does not justify it.
Of course it does. JLR have too many orders to process and they are probably losing orders because of the time it takes to get cars to customers. Many industries work 24/7. Do more patients die at night in hospital? No. Does the blast furnace stop at the steel plant? No. Does Pilkington glass have issues in the early hours? No.
This is providing 1000 jobs to an area of high unemployment. They get used to it and there are shift patterns.
Pychris
No, once again you have missed my point. I know that many industries work 24 hours, including many car manufacturers. My point was that the reliability of these particular products is already known to be poor and this was unlikely to make things better. If they can't produce reliable cars in 8 hours or 16 hours how is this going to make them better? Cars are getting more and more complex and are difficult to make reliably, unlike glass or steel.
Your point about hospitals is interesting. I don't know the statistics on nights, but there has been some recent evidence that deaths reach higher rates at weekends in hospitals. This may be due to a number of factors, but less experienced more tired staff has been mooted as a reason.
Finally, yes, it is good to see jobs going to an area of high unemployment, fingers crossed that the Evoque remains a strong seller and that it isn't just a flash in the pan.
Am I being too cynical?
Perhaps it is just me, but as Land Rover seems to prop up the bottom of every reliability survey that I have ever seen for the last 5 years is this really good news? Would you want to have the Evoque that was built at midnight?
I know that is their better factory (Freelander 2's aren't that bad in reliability terms) and one should appalud the fact that we are producing something that the world wants....but even so...