I was just reading an article I thought was going to be the doom and gloom sort of thing about MINI and how Brexit will hit the economy.
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/03/brexit-uk-car-industry-mini-britain-eu
But it turns out the crankshaft in the MINI's engine (which I thought would be made in Hams Hall, i.e. BMW's engine factory):
1. Cast in France and shipped to Hams Hall
2. Worked on at Hams Hall and shipped to Germany to be put in an engine
3. Engine shipped to MINI Oxford
4. Final assembled car might then be exported
That's a lot of wasted transportation there - what about the CO2!
And the article has another example:
1. Bentley bumper made in eastern Europe somewhere.
2. Bumper shipped to Crewe
3. Bumper sent to Germany for finishing
4. Bumper sent back to Crewe for assembly
Although I know Bentley's aren't all assembled in Crewe and this last example is probably trying to give some 'made in UK' marking of some kind.
What a waste of time shipping these components multiple times. Even if jobs are lost that isn't necessarily a bad thing for the environment.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 3 Mar 17 at 23:46
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I thought much the same thing. I know that there can be benefit to having a few centres of excellence - but the transportation over very long distances feels very inefficient.
I suspect BMW aren't paying the full cost of the environmental damage they cause.
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"I suspect BMW aren't paying....". Spot on Tigger. Trouble is virtually no one does.
For example, some of our waste and junk gets sent off to third world countries where labour and environmental laws are not so strict. Pollution ensues. Personally I order stuff of Amazon that I could get by walking down to the High Street but instead have it shipped half way across the country to save a few bob but add to transport pollution and congestion. We buy non seasonal food that gets flown over from Peru, Mexico etc. The majority of us are part of this problem to various degrees and but many people never think about it.
I think I first heard of "polluter pays" concepts more than forty years ago at University. Still more of a concept than a reality. Or misjudged like emissions based car taxation or wood pellet power stations. Quite depressing but then again the doom-mongers have been proved wrong too in a lot of their predictions.
Back to Brexit I am no ecomomist but I read somewhere that if we don't get the right Brexit trading terms agreed then each stage of these cross border transactions could give rise to a duty or tax liability. Probably not hard to solve in itself but just one of many things that need ironed out
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It's not just the motor trade. As many of you know I work for a major animal feedstuffs manufacturer; we have an organic range which is produced in one mill in Dorset. For fairly obvious reasons it cannot be manufactured in a mill which also produces non-organic feeds, nor should the load be sent out with non-organic feed on the same vehicle; this applies only to bulk deliveries though.
This means that when an organic dairy farmer requires feed in our area, we have to send an empty lorry all the way to Dorset to collect the stuff (this is usually done overnight) and then deliver it the following day.We do try to organise it so that the lorry comes back with a full load but that of course does not always work out and occasionally it can be as little as six tonnes, a third of the vehicle's capacity. Said vehicle probably averages eight miles per gallon by the way.
If the folk who buy organic milk knew how many food miles were actually involved in its production they might well think twice about it. It does however go some way to explaining why it has a price premium.
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My example about Bentley shipping things isn't quite as bad as it sounds when you consider where the bodies for the cars are made.
The 'body' of a Bentley is made in Germany. These are then shipped to the UK. Instead of the lorries returning empty to Germany they then send bits made in Crewe back to Germany so cars destined for countries other than the UK can be assembled there. So the seats and leather trim which is stitched in Crewe and wood veneer etc. are sent back. Also the engines are assembled in Crewe and completed units are sent to Germany.
I suppose it's not economic to have a state of the art factory for just Bentley to make the car bodies. Economies of scale.
But if tariffs are imposed on export/import this gets complicated with components.
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Nothing new, been going on for years, largely unknown to the great public.
About twenty years ago I was working on contract with a retailer of clothing. For one of their lines, the patterns were cut in the UK. They were then trucked to Eastern Europe where the patterns were stitched. The garments were then trucked to somewhere on the French/Italian border where they were packaged into the fancy glossy boxes before being transported back to the UK distribution centre.
The distribution centre was less than ten miles from where the patterns were cut.
Keeps truckers in work I suppose but the environmental costs are huge.
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Not just manufactured goods either.
Twenty plus years ago there was much public campaigning about export of live farm animals. Rules were revised a few prosecutions instigated. In one case sheep were moved from the South Downs to York, then to Kent for embarkation onto ship.
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These are all expenses in account statement. Companies shuffle across countries so that they can pay less tax. Doing all stuff in one country would make hiding things more difficult.
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They dont need to physically ship stuff across borders to account for items and pay less tax, Ask any of your apple/starbucks/Amazon corporate accountants.
In one morning I counted 7 courier companies servicing my road. I personally have received three items in one day from three different carriers, all with (in effect) duplicated hubs and intermodal trunks.
In truth little of what we purchase these days is produced or sourced locally, or consumed in season.
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While it's great for people working at the factory in N Wales, flying Airbus wings on specially built planes to assembly plants elsewhere in Europe seems particularly bizzare to me.
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>> While it's great for people working at the factory in N Wales, flying Airbus wings
>> on specially built planes to assembly plants elsewhere in Europe seems particularly bizzare to me.
Split production sites for Airbus probably originated in the transnational deal between then nationalised aircraft industries that gave us the original A300. It has though continued.
It's not just the wings that move about, other parts do too and there are at least two final production sites for civil products; Toulouse and Finkenwerder (Hamburg). The military A400M is assembled at Seville.
Boeing also shuttles parts around in specially built planes:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter
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Some plants are set up to be near existing skill sets, material availability or suppliers. Suppliers also move to be near their larger customers.
So Wings from the Airbus from the UK relates to existing infrastructure - there was a plant in Filton building aircraft already so skills were there and it made sense to use them. It also benefits redundancy - you don't want all your eggs in one basket, economically or re disaster, strike etc.
Problems may arise with Brexit and duty charges and customs delays for parts shipped around Europe, will a bumper made in the Czech Republic with plastic from the UK have have duty paid on it when the plastic leaves the UK, when the bumper enters the UK and when the car leaves the factory to go back to Europe?
Of course hold ups in customs could increase the costs because companies could have to hold more stock!
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IIRC there was a recent report thay scottish prawn are sent to be shelled and the returned to the UK.
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>> So Wings from the Airbus from the UK relates to existing infrastructure - there was a plant in Filton
Don't forget Broughton.
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>>Don't forget Broughton.
Yeah, he's good ain'e he: www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3v0ToMWzZQ
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A lot of where and who does what on things like that are political as well. Especially the ones that involve multiple countries, especially so if they relate to defence projects.
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Transport costs on some items can be VERY low. The way to make money transporting goods is to keep lorries full on both journeys. So less loaded routes can have very low shipping costs - the extra costs incurred can be very low.
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Broughton is where all the wings are built with the exception of A400M - they are built in Filton (where I used to work)
Filton has little manufacturing, its the center of excellence for design of wings, landing gear and fuel systems for the group.
The odd logistical routes are mostly born from the original trans national work share agreements where work was shared by percentage splits - to give you an idea how it worked in its extreme I used to buy the overhead stowage bins for the A330 / A340 aircraft. They were supplied from an interiors company in California. In parallel a colleague in France used to buy the doors from another supplier - we both shipped into Toulouse where the doors were fitted to the bins. This was all down to workshare - the supplier of the bins could have supplied them with the doors fitted.
The situation has improved over the years, and the change in shareholder structure went a long way towards addressing some of the issues, but its pretty difficult to move large assembly sites - not just logistically, but also due to the availability of the correct skill sets. Also large investments in plants have been made by Govts by way of grants / development funding etc etc
There are 5 final assembly lines now - Toulouse, Hamburg, Tianjin (China) Sevillia, Mobile - Alabama. Tianjin and Mobile just produce aircraft to supply the local markets
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A Brexit problem or unnecessary transportation - Tigger
