Factory Life.
After my years in the fishing industry, with the new echo sounding system an almost standard part of every trawler, I began to once more seek a more challenging technical occupation. Now that the basic equipment design had been completed and proved, the work was becoming much more mundane. I began looking for a job where I could expand on my knowledge and experience of marine electronics. As a first step I accepted a position with the Marconi Company, at that time one of the leaders in maritime electronics and was placed in their Marine Division. I was hired as a Senior Circuit Designer, and I was immediately given the task of participating in the design of a new high-powered single sideband transmitter. It was a new concept being the first such system to use transistors in all except the power stages and it also employed a wideband design that eliminated all tuning except for the output stage. Below is a photograph of the transmitter mounted on a cable laying ship for world wide testing.
The
pro-to-type
of the first "broad-band"
marine transmitter.
After more than a year of design and testing the system, the new
transmitter worked extremely well. Each
morning we would talk from the lab in Chelmsford, England, to
the cable laying ship carrying the first experimental model. It worked so well that one morning the operator
in Chelmsford complained to the ship's operator that the signal appeared slightly weak. The ship's operator laughed and
explained he could understand why, because he had not yet switched on the high power output stage. The signal was
still good even though the ship was in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The ability to change frequencies without having to completely retune the transmitter was welcomed by all the users, and it was the first system to provide this facility. However the ability to change frequency quickly also caused us some embarrassment. A party of NATO naval officers came to the lab to see the pro-to-type system that was running some of the final life tests. The output power was directed into a dummy antennae load that was perched on the top of the seven-foot high rack containing the transmitter. Someone had steadied this load with a loop of insulated wire tied to the frame of the load and hooked over the thick 440 volt three phase line that ran across the lab ceiling and powered the transmitter. The loop of wire was only a temporary measure intended to prevent the load from slipping off, if the rack was accidentally moved during a demonstration.
The party of senior officers listened with interest as the sales manager explained the advantages of this new transmitter, including the ability to quickly shift frequency, and he asked one of the engineers working nearby to demonstrate this capability. The engineer did as asked, and with a flick of the wrist shifted from the 40 meter band to the 15 meter band. For a few seconds everyone stood commenting very favorably on the speed of the change. Suddenly there was a blinding flash and the entire lab was plunged into darkness. The guests were quietly ushered out to see some other equipment. An investigation showed that at 15 meters we had hit the resonant frequency of the supporting loop of wire. It had almost instantly turned red hot from the induced RF from the transmitter and had burned through the power line over which it ran, shorting out the supply.
The Marconi Company was probably the oldest electronic operation in the world. In the lobby of the head office was an exhibit of objects from the days of "Senator Marconi", including a letter dated in the late 1800's from a member of the government to the Lord of the Admiralty of those days. Written in beautiful copper plate handwriting it introduced a "Young Italian named Marconi who has some interesting ideas for communicating with the ships of the fleet". In a glass case was the original spark transmitter that sent the signal across the Atlantic and many other articles of historic interest. Each day as I walked from our house in Chelmsford to the lab I passed a large brick building that was now being used for storage. It was unremarkable except that on the gable end was a plaque stating that "In this building in 18XX (I have forgotten the exact date) Senator Marconi opened the first electronics factory in the world".
The company was also full of stories of earlier times. Some of the older employees had actually worked with "The Senator" (Marconi) as he was generally called and helped design and build the BBC transmitters that were still operating. One of these was a Dr McLarty (I hope I have spelled the name correctly), who was at that time head of engineering. Truly a gentleman, he was never heard to raise his voice, and was almost instinctively called "Sir" by everyone. He came into our lab one day when I was checking the new transmitter. I was sitting in a screened chamber surrounded by a mass of complex and very expensive test gear. He asked what I was doing and I explained that I was testing the transmitter to assure that it complied with all the standards and specifications required. He looked at the racks of test equipment. "Just remember young man", he told me, "The Senator and I designed Droitwich (Then still one of the world's most powerful transmitters) with nothing more than an oscillator and a pair of headphones".
The company at that time was directed heavily towards technical superiority. We had our own college, with the entire campus actually within the boundaries of the factory complex. It was very highly respected in the industry and throughout the world. After graduating, its students had the choice of almost any jobs available in the electronics industry. Each year there would be around 20,000 applicants for the 200 or so places available. Some of them came from as far away as India. For the first year the students studied full time in the college, then they were slowly introduced to the factory environment, until at graduation they had worked in every department from accounting and sales to manufacturing and design. Not only was there no charge for this education, but all the students were employees of the Marconi Company and received a full salary and benefits. There was no pressure to stay at Marconi's after graduation; indeed most students immediately left to work for other companies. I queried this with one of the directors of personnel, as it seemed an extremely unprofitable procedure. He laughed and explained that it was not as stupid as it appeared to be at first glance. The college encouraged their graduates to look for employment with other companies, because eventually around 80% returned to work at Marconi's, and brought with them all the information on their competitor's strengths and weaknesses.
Television was then growing rapidly and the Marconi Company had set up a factory on the outskirts of Chelmsford to make the tubes for the TV cameras. With all of its technical experience and expertise, in a very short time the company was making most of the cameras used in both the UK and the USA. There were several Marconi facilities in and around Chelmsford. The company operated it's own bus service that continuously circled most of them. A few of these facilities were never talked about indeed officially they did not even exist. The company was involved in several classified operations, many kept over from WW2, some of which are only now being made public. As the years passed, and the world changed, the character of the company inevitably also changed, from the total emphasis on technical skill and advancement, to a much greater concern for profitability.
When the new transmitter was finished it was handed over to the Manufacturing Engineering team to prepare it for the manufacturing shop floor. I was fascinated by the changes that were made to enable the manufacturing to proceed smoothly and efficiently. I quickly became convinced that manufacturing was a much more demanding procedure than electrical design, and after more than 60 years experience I still believe this to be the case. That is not to belittle any circuit designers who may read these memories, each to his/her interest. I began to consider changing my career, but found that industry did not look too favorably at designers who wanted to move into manufacturing. However I persisted and eventually from a Senior Designer I became a very junior Manufacturing Engineer at a fast growing, but much smaller company. As I moved onto the shop floor I found that my design experience was in fact an advantage and gave me the ability to consider all aspects of the operation. (See "Making it Right")
My introduction to manufacturing began when I joined a company that I will call Eltron. The company is well known, still operating, and I do not wish to embarrass anyone. When I joined, it was a very new, fast growing operation, having been started only a few years earlier by two ex WW2 soldiers in their garage. From practical field experience they had recognized the growing need for better test equipment and had designed and built, among other test equipment, a vastly improved oscilloscope. They won a government contract, and suddenly they were in business. Later when I moved to Corporate HQ, the model shop became one of my responsibilities, and one of their original employees, a very pleasant middle aged lady worked for me there as an assembler. The President of the company would come around from time to time and sit at the bench to reminisce with her on the "good old days". In fact the company growth had been so fast, it was over 2,000 employees when I joined, that financial problems had caused the original owners to sell to a very large American corporation. They stayed on as President and VP of Engineering.
My first job was as a Manufacturing Engineer (ME), at one of their manufacturing plants located on the outskirts of London, about 25 miles from the head office. It employed a total of around 600 people, including cafeteria and medical staff. The primary products were digital voltmeters, power supplies, oscilloscopes and oscillators of various types. Each product had it's own "Product Manager" (PM) who was responsible for the manufacturing line for that item. Of course this was before the general use of the printed wiring board (PWB) and transistors, and the products were still using tubes and chassis. Here I came to experience the job of the Industrial Engineer (IE), measuring the times of operations and balancing the various parts of the lines. Automation did not exist, everything was assembled manually, and training and retraining the operators was a major part of my duties.
My first management responsibility
An early wave soldering machine
After a few months as an ME, everything changed quite unexpectedly. I was driving up to Scotland with my wife for our New Year vacation, when we were stopped by the police somewhere in the North of England. They had identified us from the car number plate and I was asked to call my head office immediately. My boss's secretary replied and told me to return to the factory as quickly as possible. As I walked in the following morning my boss was putting on his coat. "Here are the keys to the safe," he said handing me a bunch of keys, "I've been appointed VP of Manufacturing at HQ and you are now in charge of this plant. Call me if you need anything". With that he walked out. Sitting in my large office with my own secretary at her desk outside the door, at first I felt very excited with my sudden promotion, but then I began to consider the problems that I knew existed. Now it was my responsibility to find a speedy solution, and my elation quickly turned into a cold sweat.
The company's management philosophy was very simple. I had a schedule of production that had to be met, and was reported to the head office each evening by telex in the form of "value shipped for that day". The second requirement was to stay within the agreed general manufacturing budget that was checked at the end of each month. Provided both the shipments and budget requirements were met, the plant manager was left almost completely alone to operate the facility according to his/her wishes. I had no problem meeting the daily schedule, but I found the manufacturing budget was in serious trouble. A quick investigation showed that the money was being spent in two areas. First to pay for a large number of inspectors on the shop floor and second to pay our agents in the field to repair new products that failed to perform according to specification when they received them. The cost of poor quality was now very obvious and a very practical matter of great personal concern.
Although I had never agreed with his decision, I now understood why my old boss had increased the degree of inspection in an effort to improve product quality. Inspectors, who were paid out of the general manufacturing budget, occupied every fourth position on the production lines. I had no idea what to do, but went out onto the shop floor to watch the operation and perhaps gain some inspiration. Luck or chance was with me. As I walked down one line I saw a resistor that had accidentally fallen from one of the assembly stations. I picked it up and gave it to the nearest operator, saying, "You dropped this, you'll be a part short on one of your assemblies". The operator merely pointed over her shoulder to the next inspector and said, "That's her problem, not mine".
This comment hit me like a punch between the eyes and I went back to my office and sat for a while pondering what to do. Quality had always been a problem, together with poor morale on the production lines. There had been constant squabbling as to who was responsible for the quality of the product and generally this was seen totally as an inspection problem. After some concern as to the consequences I called in the five Product Managers (PMs) and told them that I was immediately pulling all the inspectors off the shop floor. If they felt they needed inspectors they would have to pay for them out of their own product labor budget. I called in the QC manager and told him to pick six of his best inspectors to man a final QC inspection operation that would be sited in a segregated area of the stores. The rest of the inspectors and QC people were to be immediately transferred to manufacturing functions.
Once this was set up, I explained to the PMs the way I intended to operate in the future. The racks of completed and tested product from their test and inspection area would be wheeled into the new QC area for a final check once they were confident of the quality. If any defect of any kind was found, no matter how small, the entire lot would be returned to the line where the PM would be responsible for all of the re-inspection, rework or repairs required. Only when the QC people signed off that all complied with the specifications, could that particular lot be shipped. This was a total change, as in the past the QC people were not only responsible for inspection, but also for trouble shooting and repairs to the product. I explained to the operators that they were now totally responsible for the quality of their own work, and that the QC people were there only to monitor the manufacturing process.
My changes were extremely unpopular. The next few weeks were chaotic and I was careful to keep my back to the wall at all times. Shipments fell off and I wondered if I had been too impetuous in making the changes. But slowly quality improved, and in a couple of months we were back on schedule. The budget was no longer a problem, and the field failure rate soon fell from around 4% to less than 0.1%. Here I learned the truth of the old saying "You cannot inspect quality into the product".
The company's new owners had by now pumped in more capital funding and it was decided to build a new factory at the HQ site and eventually close down the labs and manufacturing plants that were dotted around the countryside, some twenty or thirty miles from HQ. After a year or so running the manufacturing plant I was instructed to close it down and I was moved to HQ as Corporate Manager of Manufacturing Engineering. One of my first tasks was laying out the new factory, and this proved more difficult than at first perceived. After considerable discussion and review we felt that an open facility would dramatically improve communications, and planned to eliminate the many closed offices in favor of open cubicles for individuals and groups of employees who were working together on the same tasks. We took groups of our people through other plants that had been laid out in this way, and the change was generally agreed upon, except for a few of the older managers who were violently opposed to the elimination of their private offices.
Our new central factory
Getting ready for production.
We had been reviewing our management staff and their techniques and we soon realized these were the very people we had considered ineffective managers and had listed them for retraining. In the end most of them resigned, and we went ahead with our "open floor" factory. Once the necessary layout, lighting and soundproofing was installed we all agreed that it was a vast improvement on the many small individual offices. Indeed the people working in the older part of the building asked that they also be housed in a similar way and eventually the separate offices were all removed and only the accounting department was separated from the main production floors. At the same time we set up a two-year program of training in participative management for all employees and this proved to be a tremendous success in every way. The local union attempted to bring our employees into their fold, and we invited their representatives into the plant to meet with our people. At the meeting they were quickly told by our workers to go away. Everyone was empowered to make improvements to the organization, and it soon became a very exciting and satisfying place to work.
The manufacturing was split up into small groups of four or five people, who selected their own leader, and determined how they would operate. The only rules were that the quality levels must be met and the output maintained. We eventually found that the groups were much more strict with their people then the normal manager would have been, and manufacturing reached the highest levels of efficiency. They interviewed any new employees and assisted in the overall management of the shop floor.
Of course we were now beginning to feel the needs for automation and developed one of the first semi automatic cable harness assembly systems, and later a similar wire wrapping machine. We were developing our Printed Wiring Board manufacturing capability, and after a few months we even had the ability to fabricate plated through hole (PTH) boards. We installed our first wave-soldering machine, and after some false starts a solvent flux removal system. We started a very formal training program, putting all our operators through a two-week schooling in the technologies involved and a week of hand soldering training. All of this effort began to pay off and the quality and profitability of the company dramatically improved.
This was the period where I learned the skills of management, both in practice on the shop floor and from the various courses that the company provided for me. One, which stays firmly in my memory was the program given by Drs: Robert Blake and Jane Mouton on "The Managerial Grid". This taught me very clearly that managing is primarily concerned with people, and to manage effectively the manager must listen very carefully to his people and understand their desires, hopes, fears and wishes. Managing is truly a very demanding and in many ways a humbling experience. If the manager is to be successful and use his people efficiently, he truly has to get to know them personally and earn their trust through honesty in everything that he does. He does not need to be liked, but he has to earn the respect of his people.
At that time Great Britain had moved politically far to the left. Taxation was crippling and although I had a sound job, and a wage that was comparable with similar positions in the industry, our future looked uncertain. My wife and I had just bought a new house and one evening we calculated that with the current rate of interest we could never pay off the capital, even if I lived to be 100 years old. I happened to see an advertisement in the Sunday paper for electronic engineers with advanced engineering degrees to work in the USA. I was writing to an overseas friend, using the "air letters" that were popular in those days. For a joke I wrote on one a rather funny response to the advertisement, wondering if they might be interested in an engineer without a degree but a lot of "shop floor" experience. I showed it to my wife with the comment that "Perhaps we should emigrate". We laughed at the idea but my wife mailed it and then we completely forgot all about it.