FORD FACTORY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 44, 15 November 1937, Page 10

FORD FACTORY

Parliamentarians' Visit EXTENSIONS COMMENCED An iiispection of the Hutt plant of the Ford Motor Company of New Zealand, Ltd., was made last week by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. m. j. Savage, ineliibers of Cabinet, and members or bdth Houses of Parliament. After a ttttif 6f the factory the visitors Were entertained at lunch by the companyv Althotigh the party, which numb&r&d aboht so, did not linger as long as most would have wished. an hour and a-half Was oecupied in the building. Aihid the noise of scores of hammei'8 and i'iveting machines the guests Wefe shown how cars are assembled from the pressed steel body parts, upholatery fabficj leather, chassis frames, bare eiigifiesij transmissions, and smaller parts into complete cars that are teated, inspefited, and driven out of the building. Between the store and the door by which the cars depart a myriad of fascinating things was being done. The greater part of the activities of the plant is in the building of bodies which come to New Zealand largely iu the form of nested sheet-steel parts, The parts are placed in jigs, or fraxdeS^ which hold them in the proper relatiohship to one another, and are welded together, mostly by the astonishingly efficieiit "spdt welding." itt using this method the wOr'kman preSseC a kind d£ caliper together ort the jjoint. a strdng eurrent of electricity passes throngh the metal ffdin one jaW of the caliper to the other and iustantly heats the metal hot ehough to fuse the parts togethef. Men worlcing apart from the main asseinbly line put together parts sUck as doors for the men on the main line to use as the growins car body pas8es slowly before the place where they work. Later the body ia sprayed with a first coat of paint and then with the fiflal colollr by a begoggled workman in a special apartment, whom visitors may peer at thro-ugh a window, befdi'6 the body has its enamel baked by paSsing slowly through an oven. Mr g. h, Jackson, managing direCtbr. pfesided at the liinch. QUoting Statistics to ShoW the extent of the company 's operations, he tsaid that the factory wag now turning out 40 vehicles a day. Work had eolntoeuced Oh an extension costing £70,000 that would make it half as large again, giving a total area of 190,000 sqtiare feet. The extension Would provide for the assembly of the g h.p. car froin parts ilnported from England instead of its being constructed from an imported "shell," so that then all the company 's model-s would be assembled in New Zealand. Since the factory commeiieed work 13 mdiiths ago it had produeed 7734 vehicles and -had spent £190,000 in wages. It employed 649 people, but with all its New Zealand activities iucluded the company 's staff numbered 1450, a contract had just been made with woollen mills in the Dominion fo/ the supply of all cloth for upholatery. The opinion that the work done by vne men in the New Zealand factory was equal to that done in any other factory the eompany owned was expressed by Mr Jackson. Mr Savage having had to leave before lunch, the Minister of Finance, the Hon. Walter Nash, replied. It was ,a

tribtita to Kew Zealanders^ he said^ that they COUld adapt themselves to such Wofk a-s Was done in the plant in the shqrt timo1 in which it had been open. Mr Nash'S congratulatipns to the comp&ny were endorsed by the Minister of Industries and Commerce, the -Hon. d. g. Stillivan. ti16 Minister of Labour, the Hon. h. t. Armstrong, who, as Mr Jackson pointed out, had visited some of the gr6at motOr works of England and the tfnited StateO of Ameriea during his recent tour abroad, said that he believed that the plant of the Ford Company of New Zealand was the most modern that he had seen.