The N.Z. Ford Factory

Northland Age, Volume 6, Issue 33, 7 May 1937, Page 10

The N.Z. Ford Factory

The new Ford factory at Welling- ; ton has -now been operating for about | three months and is running at full j capacity. The work is highly specialised, but an outstanding point is thdt it is a New Zealand factory which employs New Zealand draftsmen and workmen throughout. There are only two exceptions, Mr. R. J. Hooper, factory, superintendent, and j Mr. W. Wilson, assistant superintendent, are Canadians. Mr. Jackson, the managing director of the Ford company inJNew Zealand, is also a Canadian, but all others in the factory are New Zealanders, though the same high and exacting standards of quality and workmanship are put into the vehicles assembled at the Wellington t factory as are observed in the factories of Canada and England, and the same elaborate machines, equipment, and assembly jigs are used. 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. Great as the floor area is, it is all required as working room or for the transport of materials or partiallybuilt chassis or bodies by one or other of the systems of overhead, travelling slat, or light truck conveyers. The building is of modern earth-quake-resisting design, with many details of construction new to New Zealand, though it is all of a pattern with other modern Ford factories. The roof design takes unexpected slopes and angles to give maximum light and evenness of lighting. The glass area is equivalent to more than half the floor area ; there are almost two acres of skylight and glazed wall panels. Walls and pillars are of steel frame construction with bricked panels and lower walls, and the great floor area clear of pillar and division obstructions apart from the natural divisions between administrative section and factory proper, is a huge reinforced concrete slab, 305 by 400 feet, the laying of which presented real problems of its own, for this was no tennis court to be laid level and true, but over three acres of flooring, the specifications for which were l'igid and exacting. There are many side departments under these three and a half acres of glass and asbestos roofing. There is

a moving picture theatre for fine demonstration and instruction, a testing room with laboratory equipment which looks into the 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 afternoon work commences, for it is hauled up to the rooT for safety of belongings and cleanliness. The office has neither a winter nor a summer, and for all its expanse of

plate glass no pane will open, for every foot of air is filtered, warmed or cooled to the arrow mark on the thermostatic control.