Jim Harper

Background

About Jim Harper

I have been at Jaguar Cars/Jaguar Landrover for 35 years and during my time at Jaguar I have work in Stamping Engineering developing the feasibility of Stampings from Clay to Press. In 1998 I had a lead role in the development of Aluminium Stampings for Jaguar's Lightweight Vehicle Programmes. I spend a lot time in Dearborn, Detroit at Ford, developing Stampings for the early CP builds of the first all Aluminium production XJ in 2001. I used CAE/FEA Simulation tools and prototype tooling to develop the feasibility and learning to take into Production Stamping. In 1998/9 I was part of the development team put together to set up and build the first all Aluminium Press shop at Jaguar Cars plant at Castle Bromwich. In 2004 I became Tooling Engineering Manager in the Castle Bromwich Press shop. Since then Tooling Engineering at CB Press shop has successfully delivered HLTO on Jaguar XF, XJ and the All New Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. Tooling Engineering has been party to the development of new alloys for the lightweight vehicle programmes within Jaguar Land Rover where we have completed a range of Stamping trials for new material developments. I moved to a new role in 2013 from the CB Press Shop where I have been working closely with External Suppliers of Critical Press parts to JLR. Here I have to used my Technical Knowledge of Aluminium to Help Develop Process and Tooling for these critical parts. I have also aided in resolving Tool running and Quality issues for parts where the Tooling is Poorly made. In November 2020 I moved into STA in JLR to set up a new Part Feasibility Tooling Team for all of the External Supplier parts. I now have the focus to drive developments with JLR to improve the Future programs and their delivery to production on time. Since the team has been set upI have Driven the feasibility into JLR latest model program and also worked closely with our purchasing team to develop how we source parts for Quality.