THE LARGEST CAR FACTORY IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7018, 18 September 1929, Page 15

THE LARGEST CAR FACTORY IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE

FALLACIES ABOUT MASS PRODUCTION

(By WILL APPLETON.)

i. - —— T.rHOUGH only a river separates Ford, Ontario, I Canada, from Detroit, i MJ KSjMfl/ United States, and it is f difficult for a stranger to realise the difference beItauuSESSSs twoen the two countries from a topographical point of view, residents of the Canadian territory soon clear up any doubts you may have on the point. Canadians are justly proud of having tho largest car factory in the British Lnipire. They are proud, too, of their lord plant, .and prouder still of the fact that it is controlled and operated by Britishers on behalf of the 28,000 Canadian shareholders. Due no doubt to tho proximity of the United States, thero is more British flavour about the lord plant in Canada than I have experienced in any other Canadian city. It is really remarkable kow the employees cn m&sse resent any suggestion that the Pord car is made in America and only assembled in Canada. 1 spent a day at the Canadian works, and I must say I was amazed at the extont of the work that is done at Pord City. With the exception of the glass and a few hunor points, every single bit of the Ford is made in Canada from the raw material to the finished product. Tho workmen are British Canadians for the most part, and incidentally of a higher gnuio than the men I saw at tho main Pord plant at ftiver Rouge, Detroit, a day or so later. Factory Covers 204 Acres. My guide, an Englishman with a pronounced Oxford accent, informed me that the original Canadian factory was a brick structure 2J storios high, and contained 34,000 feet of floor space, 17 men wero employed, 117 cars wore sold tho first year, and tho ground occupied was one acre. That was less than 25 years ago. To-day, tho various plants and works occupy 204 acres, 8,800 mon are employed, and the present facilities enable 610 cars a day to be manufactured. In the plant there are over 5,000 individual machines, cvor.y one of which is driven by its own motor. In reality the Canadian Pord. plant is a group of dozens of industries, as wo know them, all brought together under one roof. In one building, I witnessed the manufacture of bodies, where mighty presses delivering o pressure ot 800 lbs. to tho square inch stamp out tho body panels from shoot metal. In anothor 1 saw the chassis frames being made. In the machine shop all the processes incidental to the manufacture of motors, generators magnetos, axles, transmissions, radiators, fenders, etc., are conducted. This shop is enormous, and in it the famous final assembly lino is located. Of this more later.

laboratory at . Dearborn, Michigan, whore every effort is being made to further the development of tlieso instruments of precision and accuracy, Summed up in a nutshell, it. is apparent to»mc that one of the chief secrets of mass production such as one soos at the Ford plant is tho ability to produce what might be . termed ‘ interchangeable manufacturing.” Oars fop the New Zealand Market. It is interesting to know that the Canadian Ford Company lias the concession to manufacture and sell lord pioducts in Canada and the whole of the British Empire with the exception p£ the British Isles, whore a separate organisation is in existence. While 1 was inspecting the plant I noticed a number of cars for tho New Zeulami market, and next in the row were some sedans for India. Having gone over the Canadian works I naturally told tho Export Manager, who, by the way, is Mr. Roy S. MilUken, well-known to many Mow Zealanders, as lie was associated with the Colonial Motor Company Ltd. of Wellington for some years, that 1 would like to be shown over the mniu Ford works at Detroit. It was my privilege, the following day, to be csoortod over the River Rouge plant. What I saw is such an amazing thing, that even the bald truth about it is apt to seem colourod and exaggerated. Just as I got there, shifts were changing. There seemed to bo an army of men moving. Imagine, for a moment, 104,000 men working under the one organisation, That is the number at present. No less than 9,300 ears were made m one day recently. That is the highwater mark in motor car production. In the time at my disposal, it was only possible to seo the high lights as it were* and besides, I had already got a good gnp of tho principles underlying tho lord system at the Canadian plant.. .1 would mention in passing that a visitor can get a better idea of tho system in operation at tho smaller plant because a greater number of machines can bo inspected. In the River Rouge .works, batteries of machines are all doing the same n^ gte Entirely Eliminated.

The blast furnaces claimed my attention, because only a handful of men are required, for the manufacture or L2OQ tons of iron a day. Nothing is wasted in the process. Evqu the slag is converted into cojnent. In the foundry conventional foundry practice, is reversed because at River Rouge the moulds are brought to the metal instead of the metal to tho moulds. All pouring and core-making is done on the move. The machining of eastings is also done in the same building. In addition to metallurgical coke, ot uniform quality, tho company requires gas in enormous quantities. I hero are 240 coke ovens producing on an average 3,300 tons of coke, 50 million feet Of gas, 40,000 gallons ot tar, 110,000 pounds of ammonium sulphate and lw,000 gallons of refined light oil every 24 hours. Yes, every 24 hours. 1 know those figures sound fantastic, but tjiey aT ThQ K ßolling Mill Building is 460 feet by 1,500 feet. All the .equipment is electrically driven. Tho mill can handle 22,000 t0'26,000 tons of stool a month, It is a wonderful sight to-seo the molten steel shoot along a trough and then be rolled. The lino of red hot metal looks like a gigantic snako gradually ecttinrr longer and longer as it is moulded out. Tho working of tke huge racks on which the bars are turned fascinated mo' to such an extant that my guide had difficulty in getting mu aW The Quintessence of Organisation.

The electrical works are on a par with the Lyall Bay power plant for Wellington City. Pulverised coal is used, and this is mined, shipped and handled by tho company from ito own mines in its own barges at its own wharf and by its own crane. A stock of 40,000 tons of coal is kept on hand to fide over tho winter, when the riveV is frozen, and the consumption is ,from 200 to 400 'tons a day. The power plant generates all the electric power required, produces its own gas, steam and light,

Absence of Hustle.

Most people have erroneous ideas about mass production. I must confess that my preconceived notions on the subject'were dispelled after my visit to the Canadian Pord plant. It is u fallacy to think that workmen employed in quantity production are always under pressure to keep paeo with the work which is feeding to them on the travelling conveyors. . The one factor that impressed me more than anything else at tho Pord works was the absonce of bustle and hurry. The position, is ,i the reverse, and the explanation lies to a great extent in the marvellous worlc-saving conveyor systems. Overhead chain carriers and roller slip ivays reduce the manual work to a minimum. In. mass production, care and accuracy are prime essentials, and the nped for precision is imperative. Under the old methods, parts were fitted by hand, after manufacture, and very often compromises had to be made to make the parts fit. Under tho quantity production system, arrangements are made so that the parts will be manufactured with complete accuracy—precise to the thousandthwpgrt of an inch. In consequence of this, they fit as soon, as manufacture is ' completed. Expensive, and at best only moderately satisfactory, methods of hand fitting are eliminated. During the process of manufacture, too, material is passed from machine to machine«,and any inaccuracy must bo detected before a part is passed to a succeeding machine, hence, dfter each operation the material is automatically tested and examined. Manual Labour Reduced to Minimum. I venture to state that with the conveyor system and the organised method of working, less actual manual labour is called for than would be the case in any other, similar .;ob. Ine workmen are not subjected to strain as electric power, compressed air, and other moans of saving labour are harnessed to produce the actual energy reouired. The slowly moving conveyor to which all supplies gravitate moves along and as it moves motors are installed, axles, radiators, wheels and bodies are fitted, and so the work progresses until, at the end of the line, the car is driven off under its own power to undergo a final test. P Every visitor is fascinated by thefinal assembly line. Although the actual time occupied in assembling the ear is but a few minutes, it must rc-mombered that the articles that are being assembled have been in Process of- manufacture for some tours and it ig the organisation and the bringing together of all of the materials to the conveyor line that makes it appeal magical in the final result. As with the chassis so with the bodies. The conveyor system is called into play. As each body w delivered from *the body assembly to the travelling mono-rail and from the first operation of metal P°l ls hing until the spray painting and oven baking have been completed the body does not stop moving. Then the bodies are transferred to the upholstery line where they continue to move forwaid by degrees as the staff of upholsterers completes its tasks and Anally it, reaches the final assembly line. The feeling I had after watching the assembly and the various automatic machines at work was that it was not _ ouestion of men becoming automatic machines but rather that the machines had become men.

The pressed steel building covers nine acres. 1,600 tons of steel plate is used every day. There are nine 10ton cranes to handle this mass o£ material. Railroad cars actually run through the building. Of the steel trimmings which ordinarily would lie scrap, but which are all melted down again at the Ford works, there are 200 tons a day. There are 1,300 presses at work and some of the dies woigli- as much as 30 tons each, and yet those monsters are handled with a, finger touch. Over ten thousand men are employed in this one building, which moons more than 1,000 men per acie, A beehive has nothing on this Tord shop, and the impression I got was that tho men just went on with tho job without hurry and without apparent exertion. Tho whole thing to my mind represented the quintessence or organisation, and tho skilful handling of machinery. Here, again, I could not but admire the marvellous conveyosystem. It carries the from place to place, enabling the men. to stand still at then- work. Oonsecutive otierutions arc placed, adjacent to one another, and the machines being se in sequence makes it possible succeeding operation to be passed on to the next with a minimum of hand“’fUttlS: I tlu._K.rd method of casting plate glass in an endless unbroken sirip. something th'. experts of the glass industry declared impossible. Grinding and polishing are also done by a .continuous processwith Pord designed and Ford bull, machinery. I literally saw the raw materials! sand, salt, arsenic, etc., being put in the furnaces at one end and coming out tho other end in the form of plate giass for tho. windshields and windows. I also witnessed th. manufacture of the shatterproof glass. Over ten million square iect of glass ‘Henry Will, ttc FMidejt of tta Cjn.. dian Pord Company, that I maiveiien how the ears could ho produced tor the money. “They weren’t, old man, he renfiod. “Until the parent comr® V Bold over II million cars each unit was produced at a loss. Jt flint we OTb snowing. * prunr.. Fully 100 million dollars, or twenty million pounds, was sunk in machinery and plant before a single Mt was produced ” I oame away with, a teoiing and profound admiration for genius to plan all this. .

“Interchangeable Manufacturing. I nuestioned one of the engineers as to the means employed to have all the parts made with sueh scrupulous accur- ?! Z in lt SA e e“£ m tu Me !? •%sss% blocks whicli are the world s standard nr measurement. These gauges are actn less than four-millionths pait of aninch For ihe benefit of the uninitiated, 1 may mention that the one millionth part of an » nc^A?' 6o ° finer than the size of the a\ erago hU Clo23 l tiie Ford Company purchased the patents, secret processes, manufacturing sales rights in North and foouth America of these guagos. Since then, Mr. Carl E. Johansson has noined tin Ford organisation and now has hi*