Last week 25 Business Studies students were treated to a visit to one of the Jaguar Land Rover production sites, Castle Bromwich, home of the Jaguar XJ. This trip provided a fantastic opportunity to bring the theory studied by students over the two year course to life.The lengthy coach journey seemed irrelevant as we pulled up to the vast site which consisted of various production factories and an education site which served as our ‘base’ for the day.
Here we were treated to a brief history of Jaguar Land Rover, taking us through how the world renowned luxury car maker was founded. Students then had the opportunity to hear about the various marketing strategies implemented by the business, whilst asking some very insightful and interesting questions. They benefited from experiencing operational layout and systems in action whilst completing a student based activity involving constructing ‘Duplo’ trolleys and delivering them to the retailer; a task which illustrated the importance of teamwork, quality control, site layout and division of labour.
After completing these exercises we then experienced the main focus for the day: the factory visit. Students were superbly guided around the site by retired JLR employees who had spent many years working on the site themselves. Students were enthralled throughout the tour and were fascinated to see how key operational and human resource strategies studied in class had been implemented in a real world setting. Seeing lean production, kaizen, J-I-T systems, workplace layout, automation, TQM, motivational strategies, organisational design etc. in practice was extremely worthwhile for those enthusiastic and passionate Business Studies students.
We are so grateful to Jaguar Land Rover who once again made out visit so enjoyable and worthwhile and look forward to returning next year.
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