Year 11 and Year 13 Design, Technology and Engineering students were fortunate enough to visit the BMW Ifactory plant in Oxford. With the help of their reliable partners, the BMW factory has expertly taken advantage of the rising technology like AI, automation, and data analytics in the world. By combining these advanced technologies with the flexibility and problem-solving abilities of humans, they have created a highly efficient manufacturing process that produces their cars. We learnt that it takes innovative skills and expertise of machinery and maintenance to keep the business running all the time. During many of the processes there were lots of noticeable skills that we have learnt in school that we saw in practice, such as metal welding to make the car frame and the use of robots to make products and move components using robots around the factory floor.

It helped us think about the work of Engineering, allowing us to see how our engineering skills could be used in industry such as the car industry. Some facts that we learnt include that in just 22 hours you can make a car from sheet metal. There is a 2:1 ratio to cars sold internationally to ones sold in the UK and 90% of the manufacturing of the car manufacturing systems are run by AI. Solar Panels are used to power the plant for sustainability.