CHERY Jaguar Land Rover, a premium automo-tive Sino-British joint venture, has entered a stage of dual-brand operation with both Jaguar and Land Rover being launched and developed in China’s auto market.
Last year has been a busy and fruitful period for Chery Jag-uar Land Rover. The company established dual-brand opera-tion with successful launch of the new Jaguar XFL in August. Also, the firm is bringing new material and technologies to China, said Murray Dietsch, president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover.
The company has introduced three locally-produced cars in 18 months after its Changshu plant opened in October 2014. Starting with the launch of Range Rover Evoque, the firm introduced Land Rover Dis-covery Sport in 2015 and then Jaguar XFL in 2016. Sales of the three models accounted for half of total sales that Jaguar Land Rover has achieved so far in China.
Behind the success of the products is a company that keeps gaining strength in new material, intelligent manufac-turing, advanced technologies and superior operations man-agement system.
The company built and put into operation China’s first alu-minium body shop to produce Jaguar models in its Changshu plant in Jiangsu Province, mak-ing it the leading auto company of aluminium body technology in China.
Chery Jaguar Land Rover has invested more than 600 mil-lion yuan (US$86.7 billion) in the aluminium body shop. The body shop was first put into operation in April 2016 and covers an area of 48,384 square meters.
The advantages of alumin-ium are lighter, stronger and recyclable. Aluminium body of vehicles is 20 percent to 45 percent lighter than steel body under the same structure. This new material was first devel-oped for use in aerodynamics.
Apart from the use of new material, the company also takes advantage of its intel-ligent manufacturing. The plant’s manufacturing ex-ecution system connects with over 80 percent of automated equipment to run the plant as a “mastermind.” The plant boasts high automated rate, with 335 robots working in the alu-minium body shop, including 232 for self-piercing riveting. To ensure the whole automated process runs smoothly and precisely, software simulation known as “visual manufactur-ing” is adopted at a very early stage for production test and validation.
A big connected informa-tion network streamlines the operation of the plant from processing orders, estimating sales, to planning production, designating work all in a seam-less way. Every car rolls off the product line with RFID labels attached. It enables tracking throughout its life cycle to improve quality control and after-sales services, which are also available with remote on-board diagnosis.
Advanced manufacturing is not only about improved ef-ficiency and quality, but also eco-friendliness, said Chen Xuefeng, deputy president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover. Shared value is within Chery Jaguar Land Rover’s mindset that drives the company to carry out a series of environ-mentally-friendly measures.
The plant in Changshu has temperature monitors and en-ergy gauges which can track environment and energy con-sumption in a timely manner.
The aluminium body itself can significantly cut fuel con-sumption and carbon emission. The self-piercing riveting tech-nology used at the aluminium body shop, for example, is a cold joining technology with less noise and zero smoke emission.
With the implementation of the dual-brand strategy, ad-vanced technologies, as well as global standards and process-es, Chery Jaguar Land Rover is aiming to deliver world-class products to more Chinese cus-tomers in the future.
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