Our Year 12 A Level Business students recently had the fantastic opportunity to visit the BMW MINI factory in Oxford – a fascinating look behind the scenes of one of the UK’s most iconic car brands.

The visit brought the manufacturing process to life as students explored two of the three key stages in producing a MINI. First was the ‘Body in White’ area, where the car’s metal frame begins to take shape. Later, they saw the ‘Final Assembly’ stage, where the vehicles are customised to customer specifications – both inside and out.

As well as a look around the museum, which featured historic models and the latest electric MINI, students also enjoyed an in-depth 100-minute guided walk through the factory floor, with opportunities to ask questions and observe live production in action.

This experience offered valuable insight into operations management, lean manufacturing, quality control, and product customisation – all key themes on the A Level Business syllabus. Seeing these concepts in practice helped students connect classroom theory to the real world of large-scale, high-precision manufacturing.

An inspiring and insightful day out – thank you, BMW MINI Oxford!

Mrs A Tynan, Head of Business, Economics and Enterprise

Here are some student quotes from the day:

“Our trip to the MINI factory was really enjoyable. I found it an engaging and informative experience, providing valuable insight into production methods in action. I gained a much deeper understanding of our current topic (Operations), as well as general industry applications that will be useful for the rest of our A Level Business course. Our tour guide was excellent. She answered our questions in detail, enhancing our learning and understanding with interesting facts and figures. I would highly recommend this tour to other students!” Bailey B

“I really enjoyed the trip to the MINI plant. It was really interesting to see the Body In White factory, completely run by robots. We saw how each individual car is made to order and assembled, exactly to the customer’s specifications. It was useful to see cell and flow production in action and to have lots of practical examples to apply in our exams!” Lucy L

“I really enjoyed seeing how the cars were produced from start to finish. The most fascinating bit was seeing how all the robots had separate jobs and finding out that if production was delayed by even 1 minute it led to a loss of £21,000! It really reinforced the importance of coordination and communication in flow production. It was such a great student experience!” Jemima S

“My favourite part of the trip was watching the engines being installed into the cars and watching the video about the painting process and seeing samples of all the shades available to choose from. It was amazing to see how quickly the cars moved from one stage to another and how complex but precise the robots were.” Izzy L