SLAVES OF THE MACHINE

Evening Star, Issue 19522, 1 April 1927, Page 9

SLAVES OF THE MACHINE

THE HUMAN FACTOR IN MASS PRODUCTION Lately we have heard much of mass production, and having read recent articles on this subject in ‘ John o London’s Weekly ’ from the pen of Lord Riddell (writes “A Craftsman,” in that journal). I have thought it would be of interest to readers to hear the views of a workman on the subject. Bluntly, from the workman’s point or view, mass production as applied to engineering or machine construction is the most soul-killing and nerve-racking labor human beings have ever been forced to undertake since the days of the galley slaves. QUICK WORK. First, let us understand clearly what is meant by mass production. In the fitting together of, say, an agricultural tractor or a car, a platform or chain, somewhat on the lines of a horizontal escalator, moves slowly—about a yard in three minutes—between two rows of workmen. During the three-minute period each workman, as the tractor or car slowly passes, performs one simple operation. Perhaps, for instance, he places three bolts in position. The next man will screw tho bolts “ hand tight,” and the nest will tighten each bolt with a wrench. At the top of tho chain appears the barest possible skeleton the car or tractor. By the time it readies the bottom of the chain the construction is complete, so complete in fact, that, while the machine is on the last few yards of the chain, the tank is filled with fuel, an automatic starter puts the engine into motion, a man jumps into the seat, and drives the machine away to the paint shop under its own power. DEADLY MONOTONY.

It is very marvellous, but the weary monotony of doing the same thing day after day, week after week, in the midst of clanging, shrieking machinery, is more than any human being can stand. The working hours are certainly short, but you can’t measure hours by the clock. Given congenial occupation, a ten-hour day is much shorter than a six-hour day of such monotonous labor as I have described. The work also, at chain assembly is physically easy, but hard work is not hard work when you enjoy the job, and when there is something to interest and occupy the mind. It is in this latter respect that mass production fails very badly. Men have no love or pride for a mass-produced machine. Nay, they positively hate it. When you have robbed a man, especially an engine-fitter, of the love of his job and pride in his work, you have robbed him. of one of the dearest things in life. < . I know what lam talking about. I worked at engine-fitting before mass production came along, with a very old-fashioned firm, so old-fashioned that, at the completion of_ a difficult job, the boss would call us into his office, ask us to sit down, give us a tot and a cigar; and his few words of praise meant more to us than an extra month’s wages. COGS IN THE WHEEL. This brings me to another feature of mass production—as applied to engineering. The chain-assembly system not only kills all interest in work, but stifles good-fellowship amongst workmen. Just exactly how this comes about I find it difficult, to put into writing. Of necessity, under mass-producing conditions, every man is Just a cog in a wheel. He has to stick to his one and only job. He can’t leave it for a minute. If ho does, he automatically stops, say, 600 hands, sometimes tho whole factory. Under the old system there was a spirit of camaraderie throughout tho whole works. Perhaps the head carpenter -would come along to me with a piteous tab concerning a consignment of wood chisgls. of which the cutting edges were too “ snappy ” and which had produced snappy tempers among* his men. Well, wood chisels were no concern of mine, but “ Chippy ” was a decent sort, and would be invited to leave a few behind, and 1 would see what could bo deni fnmrg dinner nonr in the vt.y of ietempering. LEVELLING DOWN. The n-tempering involved a visit to the blacksmith’s shop. . The right tempering medium having been determined, tho information would bo passed on to tho smith—whose job it was to temper tools —and one had the comfortable feeling of having helped two mates out of a difficulty. The matter did not stop there. Some evening we three would foregather and, over a glass of beer, talk for hours about the vagaries of tempering steel. Having all three worked aboard ship, yarn followed yarn, and those defective wood chisels would carry us round tho globe before tho night was done. Under the mass-production system you know only the men on either side of you, and you probably wish you didn’t. It is a levelling-down, not a lovelliugup system. For instance, when you apply "for a job, you are subjected to a very keen cross-examination. If it turns out that you have previous engineering experience, the fact is specially reported to the gauger. On putting you to work the latter impresses upon you the absolute importance of forgetting everything yon know. PRIDE OF WORK. People in the higher walks of life may “ boast of dukes and earls they dined with but yestreen.” Just so, and men who built the Forth and Menai Bridges and worked in the Mersey tunnel are rather proud of it. Why, before ray boys were properly breeched they had learned that their greatgranddad cast and assembled the first steam-roller. When next some of you important people go rolling along in your motors on a smoothly-made macadam road, give a thought to the men who made such roads possible by the introduction of the steam-roller. On tho first steam-roller you meet you will note a rampant horse, with the word “ Invictas ” written beneath. The old man used to say it was the only Latin word he understood, or that any engineer needed to know. Boys yet u'nborn will trace their ancestry to the man who, no matter how minor the part, had a band in building the Cobham aeroplane. MEMORIES OF THE PAST.

Pride and tradition stand for a tremendous amount amongst engineers. That yarn—l think by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne—•about fitting a steamer with a new tad shaft in mid-ocean isn’t a yarn at all, but a true story. There are old men, on every waterfront of the British Empire, who can supply tho details. .

I can remember one December being on board an old tramp steamer, off, Ushant, with a cargo of iron pyrites, wallowing in a nasty sea, with not enough steam in the boilers to cook an egg, due to a breakdown in the waterfeed donkey engine. The chief engineer, with nothing but hand tools, fashioned and fitted a cylinder head to that donkey engine ,out of a' piece of cold footplate. As the only other sober member of the crew, I helped him to do it, Mac carefully explaining to me the while that he “ didna min’ missin’ the Christmas feesteevities,” but he has promised his “ auld lady to be hame again for the New_ Year.” One wonders what, in the face of any crisis similar to the above, the mass-produc-ing engineers would be capable of. It seems extraordinary how a man in Lord Riddell’s position can have got such a grip of the subject, and equally extraordinary how he seems to have overlooked the effect on the human material engaged in mass production—really a serious oversight For the author of ‘Some Things That Mattes.’