TWO-MILLION POUND PLANT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1938, Page 4

TWO-MILLION POUND PLANT

PRODUCTION OF MOTOR-CAR ENGINES. It may cost a manufacturer £lO,OOO or more to produce one perfect motor of a new design, yet were he to ask that much for it, he would be out of business in no time . The art of modern production is to design one perfect model by research, experiment and testing, and then to reproduce ad infinitum a series of replicas which are not less but mor'e perfect than the original. The process of reproduction is done largely by machinery, machinery so elaborate and costly that the efficient manufacturer must invest a staggering sum of money before he begins to offer cars for sale. It is not surprising to learn that the setting up and installing of machinery in the new Morris Engines Branch in England cost over two million pounds. The site extends over 45 acres and practically all of this “town” is covered with a maze of engineering equipment, all, however, laid out scientifically according to a pre-determined plan. This plant has a capacity of 4000 engines a week.

Close to the offices are the research buildings with an equipment to gladden the heart of a keen research engineer. Amongst other things, Research has ten engine test beds entirely for its own use, and some of these beds are in sound-proof rooms for silence tests. There is also a refrigerating chamber of 150 cubic feet capacity in which an engine can be

placed, suitably frozen, and then tested for starting from cold. Next comes the foundry, which has a capacity for melting 200 tons of iron weekly. Automatic conveyors carry the castings through a cooling chamber and onwards to the heavy macnine shop where the castings are automatically distributed to the correct machining lines. In the heavy machining shop eight separate lines deal with the general machining of engine blocks, cylinder heads, manifolds, etc. In the general machine shops of Morris Engines branch there is a large proportion of special machinery for gear production. There is also a gearcutting shop, with automatic machines for turning out gears, and special gear-tooth finishing machines. A complementary installation is a battery of gear-testing machines which, test the accuracy, of gear-teeth to one tenthousandth part of an inch. A vast amount of other equipment is provided for other tests and experiments and for the production of engines which leave the factory at the rate of one per minute during the working day.

A visitor to the works realises that something extraordinarily big is going on with uncanny efficiency, and that the army of engineers, chemists and other technicians there are producing motor-car engines under conditions which are ideal both from their point of view and from that of the motorist. Precision manufacture with the help of machinery costing millions of pounds, checked at every stage by scientific tests, is the process whereby the superlative modern car is brought within the reach of the motorist of moderate means,