Automotive manufacturing is witnessing a sea-change due mainly to the convergence of formerly distinct technologies into powerful new synergies. Some of these include innovations such as 3d printing (an outcome of Computer-Aided Design meeting Robotics); extremely enhanced vehicle surface inspection, (a product of machine vision technology meeting Artificial Intelligence); or more recent, and still budding, paintshop innovations, (the result of automation fusing with ink-jet technologies).

At the very same time, there is the unstoppable quickening towards increasingly digitalised production systems, such as can be seen at BMW’s Munich plant, or with JLR’s cloud-based global production network, and the veritable capstone of digital production, can be found in what has come to be known as the ‘virtual production network.’