FORTY CARS A DAY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 76, 16 April 1937, Page 11

FORTY CARS A DAY

The Ford Factory at Eastern Hutt IMPRESSIVE WORKS The ceremony of laying the conventional foundation-stone is commonly postponed until the foundations are already well and * truly in position and the wall work above ground level, and on the same prineiple factories are. not as a rule declared open until tlley have been working at full stride for weeks or months for . the removal of this hindrance or that to the smooth running of the whole machine. The new Ford factory, off Seaview road, Eaetern Hutt, has now been operating for about three months and is running at full capacity. The official opening took place last week. The erection of the Wellington factory, where the whole of the output of Ford cars for the Dominion is made, was decided upon in accordance with the desire of the Government and the publio for the development of industri.es for the employment of New Zealand labour, and .both the Canadian and the English Ford Companies have met that desire by transferring to the Dominion as much work as may economically bo done in the New Zealand factory. The number of men engaged, betwecn 600 and 700, work to the fully design- ' ed capacity of the organieation of forty vehicles, cars, and trucks, or other commercial vehicles, per day. There are over forty men and- giris in the office section. Earquake-proof -Building.. The land area is about 13 acres, and of this the building covers three and a half acres and may, as the output demands increase, be extended. The building is of modera earthquake-resiet-ing design, with many details of construction new to New Zealand, though It is all of a pattern with other modern Ford factories, following exactly the lines laid down by the company's engineers at headquarters. The exterior has' a finished appearance, very diiferent froin blank walls and blank glass windows.' The Wide frontage faces upon a concrete roadway running between layrns and greenery. The building, seen from Seaview road, has an unsymmetrical appearance, dictated not by any designers futuristic fancy, but by factory economics. On the north side a gre'at bay runs down the full depth of two storey height, though the xest of the faptpry is singiosfcoreyed, for this is the storehouse of the factory, 400 fect long, 65 feet wide and stacked to-day to a height of just over 40 feet — giving a total stacking space of 660,000 cubic feet— with cased parts received from Canada and Britain and with bales and packages from New Zealand suppliers of bulk material. An overhead crane runs the length of the bay and stacks" from the railway siding or lowers to the trucks and conveyors cases and packages, from pounds of flock for the seating to tons of nested panels or chassis members for the main assembly lines. The crane driver is an artist in his own line, with a steady and fast-moving day ahead of him eacti time the morning- whistle blows. , Converging Operations. The first impressions of the visitor are that a minor chaos hold over the wkolo great working flogr — elatter of metal, din of riveting, glare of welding, rattle of trucks, high pressure whistle from air blasts, whizz and hiss ing of the paint- spraysj but iirst impressions are yvide of the fact. The separated operations are tied one to another,- leadlng always nearer the conveyor lines, which do not xun direct from end to end, but wind and turn to pass elosely by the tributary truck lines bringing welded, riveted, or sewn details from this and that assembly section. , The chassis and body-building lines are the most spectacillar. The chassis line is manned hy craftsmen who handle rivets as plain men .deal with tin tacks and who profess to iguore (and probably really do) . the infernal racket . of high-speed riveters. • They contribute 80 per cent. of the djn and a large" part of the sturdiness of the linish'ed 30b. There are many side departments under these threb and a-half acres of glass ahd asbestos roofing. There is a moving picture theatre for fine demonstration and instruction," a testing-room v/ith laboratory equipment which looks into th'e inside of the cylinder block by electrical measurements, a first-aid section with attendants constantly on duty but not often called upon. The spare parts section has bins for every bit and piece for every Ford model built, even back to the old model T, the father of the mass-production car. The staff cloak-room disappears when the morning and af ternoon work commences, for it is hanled np to the roof for safety of belongings and cleanliness. The office has neither a winter nor a summer, and for all its expense of plate glass no pane will open, for every foot of air is filtered, warmed, ; or cooled to the arrow mark ou the ' thermostatic control. The factory cmbodies the most modern overseas prac ( tic«?, amendea to meot local conditions, and emploj-iag New Zealand craftpmen . throughuut, exccpt in purely administrative prsitions, and using New Zealand maferiala where it is economieally practicahie.