Investigating Business - Aims and Objectives of Land Rover.

• Steel Press – Making the steel into the shape you need.

• Logistics – people figuring out how the vehicles will get to their destinations.
• office workers, health centre workers
• fire crew
• gardeners
• Nurses(hospital)
• Production line workers
• Administrator staff
• Test drivers
• Supervisors

• There are 8000 people employed at the Land Rover site.
• The Land Rover site covers 3000 acres, it used to cover 6000 but Land Rover sold 3000 acres to a housing development company.
• The main customers of Land Rover are foreign and live overseas, other buyers of Land Rover cars are people in the UK, the amred forces and local authorities such as police and fire departments.
• Land Rover exports to Spain, France, Portugal, Italy and Germany.
• During the years of 2002- 2003, the sales of Land Rover changed dramatically. Sales to North America, Europe and ROW went up by over 2000 cars and the UK went up by just over 2000 cars.  (state what total sales are – see magazine)
• The main competitors of Land Rover are other 4x4 companies like Nissan, jeep, Ford, Mitsubishi.
• The competitors may have more space on their factory site or they may have better ways to reduce pollution and keep noise levels low and they might have better technology and machines to make cars.
• Using CAD (computer aided design) the computers help in the design of the vehicles and their components and CAM (computer aided manufacture) the computers contribute to the production process. These processes mean that most of the work done at Land Rover is aided by the computers, some parts have to made by workers and the workers have to supervise the machines.

Task 3 – Ownership of Land Rover

Brief history of Land Rover

• 1946 – Rover moved to Solihull, the site was a shadow factory, government gave it to Rover.
• 1947 – Became Rover Car Company, first vehicle made by Wilkes bros. ministry of defence sold the vehicle used to the company.
• 1968 – became British Leyland
• 1970 – Launch of first range rover
• 1975 – Company became Land Rover Limited
• 1076 – One million land rovers built by this date
• 1987 – Became British Aerospace
• 1994 – Sold to BMW for 8 million
• 1997 – Launch of Freelander
• 2000 – Sold to ford motor company for 8 billion

b)

• Advantages of having owners like BMW and Ford are that

• The cars made can be sold all over the world. Another advantage of having large companies as the owner, means that these companies can invest a lot of money into the company and help it grow and expand. The amount of people investing in the business will be low because they may think that the company will change owners again.
• Disadvantages of having many owners are car prices can differ from different owners another is there is no continuity in the business

Task 4 – The location of Land Rover

   

• Land Rover is in an urban community
•  It is situated in the middle of a housing estate
•  It is near the town of Solihull
•  6-7 miles from Birmingham city centre.
• Just off the M42.
• Near to Birmingham International Airport
• In the West Midlands

• A lot of the cars are sold overseas.
• The parts for the land rover cars are imported from overseas by boat, lorries, planes etc. so the company does not need to be near its suppliers because the supplies needed for the cars can be transported by road.
• Land Rover pays rent to the council to use the site.
• The government gave Land Rover a factory to set up the company. The company is situated there because it made aircraft engines during the war.
• Most of the workers at Land Rover come from the local area and Warwick University.
• Warwick University is closely connected to the site because there is a special training program students can do to work at land rover. Students can take a special degree at Warwick university to have a job at Land Rover.
• If the production moved, there would be more space, the wages would be the same and it is near the coast.
• If the production moves, people may lose their jobs and some might have to move to nearer the site.
• If the production moves, the Solihull plant might be able to concentrate more on the pollution levels, noise levels, and profits, upgrading technology on the other production lines or revamping parts of the factory.