British Manufacturing!
Discussion
CommanderJameson said:
DonkeyApple said:
Germany's key an also the key to the manufacturers building over a million cars a year in the UK is that they have cut out the lazy, entitled and incompetent British workmanmanagement.
EFAHad a meeting with a guy who used to head up the powertrain division of Rover, prior to it's demise and as a long termer at Longbridge, he felt the management had evaded their fair share of the blame for the problems in the 1970's.
CommanderJameson said:
DonkeyApple said:
Germany's key an also the key to the manufacturers building over a million cars a year in the UK is that they have cut out the lazy, entitled and incompetent British workmanmanagement.
EFADonkeyApple said:
CommanderJameson said:
DonkeyApple said:
Germany's key an also the key to the manufacturers building over a million cars a year in the UK is that they have cut out the lazy, entitled and incompetent British workmanmanagement.
EFAThe reason the management gets paid more than the workforce is that it's their problem if things don't go according to plan.
Workers a pack of feckless b
ds? Management failure; it's not like it's a massive revelation that people can be lazy s, is it?Workers making s
t products? Management failure; setting up QA systems is management's job. And so on.The UK's management in the 70s failed to deal with the problems set before it. Blaming the workforce for for being lazy/unionised/etc is like blaming a fart for smelling bad.
CommanderJameson said:
The UK's management in the 70s failed to deal with the problems set before it. Blaming the workforce for for being lazy/unionised/etc is like blaming a fart for smelling bad.
They created a lot of problems. The lazy way of regulating costs - giving workers no fixed hours or security of pay - created a large amount of quality issues through lack of continuity and also fuelled at lot of the dysfunctional labour realtions. Apparently.CommanderJameson said:
DonkeyApple said:
CommanderJameson said:
DonkeyApple said:
Germany's key an also the key to the manufacturers building over a million cars a year in the UK is that they have cut out the lazy, entitled and incompetent British workmanmanagement.
EFAThe reason the management gets paid more than the workforce is that it's their problem if things don't go according to plan.
Workers a pack of feckless b
ds? Management failure; it's not like it's a massive revelation that people can be lazy s, is it?Workers making s
t products? Management failure; setting up QA systems is management's job. And so on.The UK's management in the 70s failed to deal with the problems set before it. Blaming the workforce for for being lazy/unionised/etc is like blaming a fart for smelling bad.
I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make though.
DonkeyApple said:
Let's not forget that management authity can be completely undermined by a union as we saw in the industry before. While the management clearly had problems they also had next to no authority so were toothless.
I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make though.
...that I think there's no point whatsoever going "it was the workforce", because I reckon if you managed the people who are currently on the Nissan line in a 70s manner, you'd get the same outcome; sI'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make though.
t cars and endless aggro.If the management had no authority, that was also their problem. They made their bed. Management is where the buck stops, for good or ill. If they're not happy with that, they can f
k off, as far as I'm concerned.I worked for Leyland in the early eighties...
There were a number of problems and, at least in the part I was in, workforce and unions were the least of it. A problem was that decisions were not always made for commercial reasons so, for example, they built bus chassis in Workington and put the bodies on them in Lowestoft.
A major problem was that the factories were, in the main, old. Most of the successful vehicle plants today are new build, not attempts to make vehicles in old, knackered buildings.
Parts supply was a major issue, an amazing proportion of vehicles got to the end of the line with bits missing, MRP/ERP was in it's infancy and the growth of options on cars made it complex. If you know you are going to make NN vehicles a week and each has a steering wheel then clearly you ask your supplier to supply NN steering wheels every week. But add a few options such that there are three variants of steering wheel and you have to have much better knowledge of what you are going to be building to make sure you have the right parts. A result was an awful lot of vehicles had bits fitted after they had come off the end of the line.
Where people did come into it was a genuine inability to understand why, if the Government owned the company, it matter wether the company made money.
There were a number of problems and, at least in the part I was in, workforce and unions were the least of it. A problem was that decisions were not always made for commercial reasons so, for example, they built bus chassis in Workington and put the bodies on them in Lowestoft.
A major problem was that the factories were, in the main, old. Most of the successful vehicle plants today are new build, not attempts to make vehicles in old, knackered buildings.
Parts supply was a major issue, an amazing proportion of vehicles got to the end of the line with bits missing, MRP/ERP was in it's infancy and the growth of options on cars made it complex. If you know you are going to make NN vehicles a week and each has a steering wheel then clearly you ask your supplier to supply NN steering wheels every week. But add a few options such that there are three variants of steering wheel and you have to have much better knowledge of what you are going to be building to make sure you have the right parts. A result was an awful lot of vehicles had bits fitted after they had come off the end of the line.
Where people did come into it was a genuine inability to understand why, if the Government owned the company, it matter wether the company made money.
CommanderJameson said:
DonkeyApple said:
Let's not forget that management authity can be completely undermined by a union as we saw in the industry before. While the management clearly had problems they also had next to no authority so were toothless.
I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make though.
...that I think there's no point whatsoever going "it was the workforce", because I reckon if you managed the people who are currently on the Nissan line in a 70s manner, you'd get the same outcome; sI'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make though.
t cars and endless aggro.If the management had no authority, that was also their problem. They made their bed. Management is where the buck stops, for good or ill. If they're not happy with that, they can f
k off, as far as I'm concerned.
GeraldSmith said:
King Herald said:
And most of the people who worked in our motor industry were actually driving a Toyota or Datsun.
Is this the defunct motor industry that made 1.2 million cars in the UK last year and exported over 900,000 of them....GeraldSmith said:
I worked for Leyland in the early eighties...
There were a number of problems and, at least in the part I was in, workforce and unions were the least of it.
I remember how monotonous it became reading in the papers that some department or other of BL, or whomever, was on strike that week, thus forcing the other departments to shut down, because you can't put cars together with no bumpers/doors/motor etc.There were a number of problems and, at least in the part I was in, workforce and unions were the least of it.
And it always seemed to be for the most pathetic reasons that they shut down too.
All those union leaders were banished to Australia, are were soon leading up the unions over there. The Ozzie seaman's union was one of the most militant and aggressive I've ever seen, when I worked down there 10-15 years ago, and all the main noises were/are ex-Poms.
Digga said:
CommanderJameson said:
The UK's management in the 70s failed to deal with the problems set before it. Blaming the workforce for for being lazy/unionised/etc is like blaming a fart for smelling bad.
They created a lot of problems. The lazy way of regulating costs - giving workers no fixed hours or security of pay - created a large amount of quality issues through lack of continuity and also fuelled at lot of the dysfunctional labour realtions. Apparently.1. The UK as the first country to industrialise had employment contracts derived from dark satanic mills or to craft work guilds. You had plethora of different contacts and demarcations.
Since the UK moved first it had a technical/experience/sunk capital advantage that allowed it to sustain a first rate industry despite having less advanced infrastructure than many of the second wave of industrialised nations. UK industry was becoming uncompetitive by the 1930s and WWII put off any attempt to modernise.
2. Management were by the 1960s left with a fairly difficult task in many industries to re-tool and modernise, to focus on high value manufacturing. To do this they had to affect massive change, from rationalisations to new working practices. Against this they were facing the unions who given the then regulations were excessively powerful (closed shop, secondary pickets legal, sympathy strikes legal, wildcat strikes legal).
Ultimately the UK government is responsible for not creating the playing field require to allow British industry to survive.
As I see it.
We did everything first, and reaped the rewards.
We are now in a enforced limbo situation; where by the easy and cost effictiveness of development in countrys that are still developing a cultural/physical infrastructure out weigh industry development/investment in the UK.
However, that gives us all a chance to get down the shed play with some spanners and develop a new market, and let the rest of the world go through the teathing problems of a new era of mechanisation. Which when it becomes reliable, cheap and cost effective we can use advantageously.
Our time will come again i am sure, but not for 20 + years i fear...
We did everything first, and reaped the rewards.
We are now in a enforced limbo situation; where by the easy and cost effictiveness of development in countrys that are still developing a cultural/physical infrastructure out weigh industry development/investment in the UK.
However, that gives us all a chance to get down the shed play with some spanners and develop a new market, and let the rest of the world go through the teathing problems of a new era of mechanisation. Which when it becomes reliable, cheap and cost effective we can use advantageously.
Our time will come again i am sure, but not for 20 + years i fear...
King Herald said:
Well it allowed foreign owned companies to build them, using our people as cheap labour. There is a reason Japan builds cars in the UK.
People appear not to know that the wages are not that bad in the car industry,my daughter works for Honda and I think her wage is OK,
also it is not just a bolt together imported parts factory, there is an engine plant R&D also a factory that builds the robots that build the cars.
Another point about Nissan is that they set up in the north east, far away from the baggage attached to the old ways of building cars, they took people that worked down the pits or from the ship yards with a strong work ethic, imagine working in a 4 foot seam of coal underground with a pick, then ending up in a bright warm clean factory, you would work hard to keep the job.
Talksteer said:
2. Management were by the 1960s left with a fairly difficult task in many industries to re-tool and modernise, to focus on high value manufacturing. To do this they had to affect massive change, from rationalisations to new working practices. Against this they were facing the unions who given the then regulations were excessively powerful (closed shop, secondary pickets legal, sympathy strikes legal, wildcat strikes legal).
Ultimately the UK government is responsible for not creating the playing field require to allow British industry to survive.
I think you can also - with the benefit of hindsight regarding Ford and GM as just two, salient examples - include the USA in this part. In the early part of the 20c they did a creditable job of catching up to and, in many respects, passing the UK in terms of manufacturing but also became mired in the reform process and unionised largesse.Ultimately the UK government is responsible for not creating the playing field require to allow British industry to survive.
Just like to throw one thought into the pot, that manufacturing in general, and not just British either, has one enormous problem. The elephant in the room is that there is a huge and very wealthy nation who have absolutely no regard for intellectual property and reverse engineer, copy and sometimes counterfeit and obfuscate regarding trade names at will.
Until that nation is brought to heel, and we all know which lot I'm talking about, no matter how innovative you are, the sands are continually shifting.
Until that nation is brought to heel, and we all know which lot I'm talking about, no matter how innovative you are, the sands are continually shifting.
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