Visit any car manufacturing plant in the world and the vast majority of production equipment will be similar, if not the same – that’s the view of Cem Temel, head of Ford’s Gölcük and Yeniköy plants in Turkey and assistant general manager for new projects at Ford Otosan. “The paint shop will come from Durr, the robots from Kuka or ABB, and the operating systems from Siemens,” he mused.

The real differences between the factories, he believes, are the human workers and the way in which technology can be used to optimise their environment. One of the most obvious and widely-used approach is the use of wearables, and some companies are testing new devices that could soon be rolled out across car manufacturing plants around the world.