Preparing for the new Range Rover: fighting complexity with education

Land Rover Manufacturing Director Marin Burela is aiming for improvements in quality and efficiency by providing the company's workers with better training and greater decision-making authority.

Many car companies produce 4×4s or SUVs as part of their composite model range, but Land Rover has always been the exception. It is a dedicated 4×4 vehicle manufacturer and has been for more than 50 years. Land Rover's original model of 1948 reflected the design philosophy of the World War II Jeep, and while the faint image of that concept remains the form of today's Defender (which can be specified for military and civilian use, with more permutations of equipment and mechanical detail than the company is prepared to enumerate), the Land Rover range also includes the small, monocoque Freelander, the Discovery, and the luxurious Range Rover. The new Range Rover has a steel monocoque structure, while previous Range Rovers had a body mounted on a separate box-section chassis.

All four Land Rover models are manufactured in England on the same site, at Solihull (near Birmingham). The manufacturing challenge is to produce, at one end of the range, a rugged, all-terrain, relatively basically equipped model (Defender) that may be used by farmers, firefighters, or the armed services in many different forms, and at the other, the Range Rover, also an all-terrain vehicle but with the luxury status of a premium sedan. Introducing a new version of its top model has brought new challenges and an investment of at least $290 million.