BRITISH LEYLAND BANKS ON ROBOTS.

The launch this year of British Leyland's Mini Metro marks an enormous step for carmaking in this country. When the new Metro plant at Longbridge comes fully on stream, for example, it will be the UK's largest single user of industrial robots, with 28 alone being used to spot weld body shell and other tackling tasks like welding sub-assemblies and spraying underbody sealant. The body area at Longbridge occupies 750 000 ft**2 and, in addition to the advanced technology present in the area, there is extensive use of computerized checking for dimensional accuracy, weld consistency and material quality. With this approach, BL is hoping to raise car body manufacture to high levels of quality and precision.