Ford Production Line (with a difference)

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

(Health and safety nightmare!)

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

I remember as a young Vauxhall Motors apprentice in the 1970's, Pans People did a dance routine on the car production line. High excitement amongst all the teenage boys, oh those were the days!

Tony

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

How times change, I doubt that film could be made today, it breaks nearly every rule in the book these days. Great song. I think Heatwave is my favourite though, Linda Ronstadt does a great cover but with her voice she could sing anything well.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 20/01/2023 15:46:09

[David AmbroseParticipant @davidambrose86182]

Great song, and great video (film?). But surely Mustang Sally would be more appropriate, even if it wasn’t Motown.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

[ withdrawn ]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 20/01/2023 17:09:16

[colin branniganParticipant @colinbrannigan54160]

Linda Ronstadt ………..my all time favourite female singer, she has it all.

Colin

[David Davies 8Participant @daviddavies8]

I remember Maggie Philbin of Tomorrow’s World coming to Dagenham Engine plant in 1982 to see the. OHC Pinto engine hot test area. I never knew we had so many people in the maintenance dept whose duties included covering the hot test area.

Dave

[john halfpennyParticipant @johnhalfpenny52803]

As a motor industry apprentice in 1972 I remember a visit to Vauxhall, where we were shown a 3 door Viva – allegedly a production line mistake where mismatched body sides were delivered to the welding line. Was it true I wonder?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by john halfpenny on 20/01/2023 20:26:40:

As a motor industry apprentice in 1972 I remember a visit to Vauxhall, where we were shown a 3 door Viva – allegedly a production line mistake where mismatched body sides were delivered to the welding line. Was it true I wonder?

.

Quite plausible, considering the way these lines work[ed]

I heard of a Marina which was built with front brakes of disk one side and drum t’other.

[ again, maybe/maybe-not ]

MichaelG.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

As an under ten year old, remember being taken round Gardners at Patricroft.

Carefully stepping over uninsulated exhaust pipes in the test shop, and certainly no ear defender.

Later at Rolls Royce at Shrewsbury, you were a bit of a cissy to wear plugs

Which explains my need for hearing aids!

Howard

[PatJParticipant @patj87806]

My mom and her two sisters went to high school with Elvis.

Elvis was just a country boy who made the big time.

My aunt has a signed yearbook from Elvis.

I have often asked my mom and aunts what Elvis was like in high school.

They said he was a very nice, kind, and shy person who always carried a guitar strapped on his back, and played in all the high school talent shows.

If you look in Elvis's high school yearbook, there is his photo, and also a photo of my aunt.

And Elvis lived in East Memphis right before he got really famous, a few blocks from my mother.

There are many Elvis stories in this city.

The man who lives next door had a band in the 1950's, and he was asked to open for Elvis.

He declined the job because he said "nobody knows who Elvis it; we don't open for nobodies".

Rags to riches story.

Too many riches ruined a nice fellow.

.

 

Edited By PatJ on 20/01/2023 23:24:30

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

We once had Harry Seacombe filming something (I think it was Songs of Praise) in our department at work and some years later someone else but I can't remember who or what for. What we did is separate off the work area with suitable barriers, made it a non-working area for the period required. We wrote short term risk assessments for what was being done. It meant things like safety footwear or safety glasses which were normally mandatory were not required in the area but equipment brought in still had to be PAT certified where applicable or COSHH assessed if required.

Martin C

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 20/01/2023 21:33:43:

Posted by john halfpenny on 20/01/2023 20:26:40:

As a motor industry apprentice in 1972 I remember a visit to Vauxhall, where we were shown a 3 door Viva – allegedly a production line mistake where mismatched body sides were delivered to the welding line. Was it true I wonder?

.

Quite plausible, considering the way these lines work[ed]

I heard of a Marina which was built with front brakes of disk one side and drum t’other.

[ again, maybe/maybe-not ]

MichaelG.

Definitely a Monday morning/ Friday afternoon machine.

That term~Monday morning bit i never quite got, Friday afternoon I well believe.

Old enough to remember when it was socially acceptable to have two pints on a friday (pay day) lunch time then return to the factory to muddle through till clocking off time.

Today most firms would sack you I think.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Looks very much like the Chrysler factory where i served my time, only way more fun.

Surprising to see them drop the Mustang's engine and trans in from the top.Chyrsler, and most others, way was to have the complete engine, trans, driveshaft, diff, suspension, wheels and exhaust system coming along on the line all assembled and then drop the completed body down on top of it. Seems a lot less faff.

Those old Mustangs were nice though. If you could forget that under that sexy body work lay ordinary Ford Falcon running gear!

Yes we had groups of school kids come through daily on tours, wandering around in the midst of it all, spot welders, presses, fork lifts, production lines etc all going full bore. That was before the insurance companies ruled the world.

 

Edited By Hopper on 21/01/2023 04:23:57

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, when I went to Nissan in Sunderland in a small group of us in the latter part of the 1990's, as part of the local improvement team inter company visits, when working in my day job at that time, I think we had to wear hard hats and safety glasses, but the all the factory floors were painted different colours for the various aspects of production and assembly, but we were only allowed to walk on the designated walkways, which I seem to remember were painted blue. We had a guide of course, but in places, forklift trucks would pass over the walkways, and these had yellow criss-cross lines and warning signs, as the forklift trucks had priority over pedestrians. They were a very efficient and safety conscious company, and the work areas were incredible clean. It was a very interesting and informative visit, but there were no singing and dancing girls (or boys) to be seen. Although we had a table reserved in the canteen for lunch with our guide, generally no one employed there could reserve any place in the queue or any of the tables, and that included all of the management, and was on a first come first serve basis and we had to queue up with our tray like everyone else.

Regards Nick.

[AStroudParticipant @astroud]

In the late 70's I remember being taken around a Perkins diesel production line as an interviewee after a graduate apprenticeship, we had been warned the workers may appear hostile. We were catcalled all the way around presumably because we looked like management. It was quite intimidating.

Edited By AStroud on 21/01/2023 09:14:16

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Nicholas Farr on 21/01/2023 09:02:15:

Hi, when I went to Nissan in Sunderland in a small group of us in the latter part of the 1990's, as part of the local improvement team inter company visits, when working in my day job at that time, I think we had to wear hard hats and safety glasses, but the all the factory floors were painted different colours for the various aspects of production and assembly, but we were only allowed to walk on the designated walkways, which I seem to remember were painted blue. We had a guide of course, but in places, forklift trucks would pass over the walkways, and these had yellow criss-cross lines and warning signs, as the forklift trucks had priority over pedestrians. They were a very efficient and safety conscious company, and the work areas were incredible clean. It was a very interesting and informative visit, but there were no singing and dancing girls (or boys) to be seen. Although we had a table reserved in the canteen for lunch with our guide, generally no one employed there could reserve any place in the queue or any of the tables, and that included all of the management, and was on a first come first serve basis and we had to queue up with our tray like everyone else.

Regards Nick.

Yes, I don't recognise the videos I see of modern car factories with their painted floors and bright lighting and organised everything. Chrysler's was one big inferno with the stamping plant, paint shop, spot weld line and assembly line all under one roof. Floors were raw concrete covered in a layer of slick panel oil used on the sheet metal going into the presses and adhering to the panels coming out and it seemed to get everywhere, mostly on the tyres of the myriad forklifts that sped about everywhere, sliding around corners and skidding to a halt and on take off for all they were worth. No hearing protection in the 100-120 decibel environment. Cissy stuff. I am another one wearing hearing aids today as a result. And today's factories are doubly amazing with the lack of humans as robots do most of that assembly work, spot welding, press operating etc etc. It's a different world now.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi AStroud, when I was at college we had a tour of Perkins Diesel in Peterborough in about 1971/2 and didn't have any problems, in fact everyone was very helpful and polite.

Regards Nick.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Hopper, yes I guess it's a different world in such places now, we didn't see the body workshop, but we did go into the panel pressing shop, which had three different sized giant presses that look about the size of a large two story house, the biggest one being one of only two in Europe then and cost £5,000,000 and there was just as much of it below the floor, we weren't allowed to see any thing they were pressing in that one as they were developing new complete side panels for their new Primera at the time, but they did have a very large workforce back then, probably has been reduced by now. The company that I worked for then, doesn't supply them anymore and the plant that produced what they had was demolished ten years ago. As Bob Dylan's song goes "Times they are A-changing" The title of which may have some relevance for things forever.

Regards Nick.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

The MINI plant at Oxford still conduct plant tours for anyone who wants to book a place, safety glasses and sensible foot ware are required and a company coat to identify any strays and protect clothes from any weld expulsion which will burn a hole in clothing. The paint shop is a clean area so not accessible for plant tours, the paint shop manager would have been most upset to have Martha and the Vandellas dancing through his dust free paint shop shedding hair and dust particles. The scheduling of parts is a massive operation in the car industry, the seats for the MINI are scheduled right back to the supplier who makes them and sequenced into the truck that transports them to the final assembly conveyor system. The permutations available when building a car run into many thousands so when you are building a thousand cars a day one mistake is a tiny percentage but the controls and checks mean that this is a rare occurrence. The options available to a customer does mean that they could make an order that may not ever be repeated. Some default orders with popular options are built but every customer could order their ideal car and it is built for them. The build system in the seventies was often a gate line where the body sides were built on jigs that ran on conveyor systems. The two body side conveyors are synchronised to the floor conveyor with the under frame, The conveyor’s were synchronised electronically so a fault could result in a mismatch at the marriage point or if the jigs could build options then a mistake in scheduling or operator error could result in a hybrid. A fully mapped storage system with 400 car bodies in it when the map is lost takes quite a bit of work to recover from. Every car has a type of QR code stamped into it at the point the car is created so the order database of the build control system knows what the body should be, but not where it is necessarily.

Mike

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Mike, the sequencing of parts on the assembly line were very prominent at Nissan, as the colours of the bodies and doors were different each time as well as the different variants in the same model of car, and each of the assembly personal had the buckets filled in a continuous stream for the different parts for different car variants, must have been a logistical nightmare for someone, it was amazing to see it, as the time that each part was fitted was also allocated and they had to fit each piece before their travelling station was automatically returned to the next car, they were all 20 to 25 year olds and had a rotation of the station they were on each day.

Regards Nick.

[Ron ColvinParticipant @roncolvin83430]

It does appear, from this Martha and the Vandellas promotional film, that the Ford Mustang assembly line at the River Rouge Complex in the 1960s was racially segregated by production line section.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Ron Colvin on 21/01/2023 12:44:22:

It does appear, from this Martha and the Vandellas promotional film, that the Ford Mustang assembly line at the River Rouge Complex in the 1960s was racially segregated by production line section.

Interesting observation. And in 1960s America, probably not unusual. Shipyards had whole trades segregated by race in the same era. And that was in progressive New York and California, not the Deep South.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Posted by Nicholas Farr on 21/01/2023 11:19:24:

Hi Mike, the sequencing of parts on the assembly line were very prominent at Nissan, as the colours of the bodies and doors were different each time as well as the different variants in the same model of car, and each of the assembly personal had the buckets filled in a continuous stream for the different parts for different car variants, must have been a logistical nightmare for someone, it was amazing to see it, as the time that each part was fitted was also allocated and they had to fit each piece before their travelling station was automatically returned to the next car, they were all 20 to 25 year olds and had a rotation of the station they were on each day.

Regards Nick.

The major facilities of MINI are body, paint and assembly, between these facilities are large stores to facilitate sequencing the bodies and buffer the facilities in the event of problems. The paint shop prefer to paint batches of the same colour although the equipment can paint smarties if required but paint is expensive and some is wasted with each colour change despite very clever colour changing equipment. Once painted the bodies are stored again to allow final assembly to sequence bodies for their requirements. Engines are built off site but an engine dress line builds the engine and complete front end running gear into an assembly that is stuffed up into the body above, robots with torque controlled nut runners bolt the complete assembly into the body. The running gear for the rear end is also stuffed up into the body in a similar process. I suppose a car is one of the most complex and largest things that are mass produced.

Mike

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