Hello to all,
my first post.
I must say since discovering this site I have been absolutely blown away by the stories, explanations, theories, etc. you have provided on many topics. Thank you so very much for your contributions to enhancing my knowledge but also for showing me how little I really do know.
Now, on the topic of the British aircraft industry, the American aircraft industry has been through similar problems in the past as well. This from an article on Eastern Aircraft found in a US Navy magazine:
General Motors was contracted to assume production of Wildcats and Avengers so that Grumman could focus on designing and manufacturing newer types of aircraft.
To get started, Eastern Aircraft, as the new division was known, had to first tear down some highly productive automotive assembly and parts lines - ironically, the types of facilities that had attracted the US Navy in the first place.
All the plants had to undergo procedural and work-force transformations as well as physical ones. Eastern needed to form a new supplier network of more than 3,000 sub-contractors to obtain aircraft materials and parts.
The division's 9,000 employees required re-training by plane manufacturers, colleges and vocational schools. And because plane manufacturing was still a more manual process than auto-making, the work force had to be more than doubled and staffed mainly with unskilled people who required basic tools instruction.
The General Manager of Eastern said, "Let me confess at the outset that I am a 'Johnny-come-lately' to aircraft production. My entire career has been devoted to problems of automotive manufacture . . .in the field of aircraft manufacture, I don't pretend to know all the answers."
GM staff had come to their new business steeped in the principles of standardised mass production.....their re-orientation began soon after Eastern Aircraft was formed when they asked Grumman for complete parts lists and engineering data.....in the automotive process, designers had normally directed suppliers and manufacturers through fully detailed requisitions and drawings. At aircraft firms, as Eastern discovered, extensive use was made of hand tailoring by highly skilled mechanics guided by discussions with engineers and sketches.
Eastern unhappily learned, many of the specifications it needed were in the worker's heads....
Grumman itself, became Eastern's first supplier. Because the US Navy insisted that the two manufacturers produce planes with interchangeable parts, it was decided that one more step should be taken to guide Eastern. Grumman shipped finished Wildcats and Avengers for study and copying. Unfortunately the reverse-engineering tactic only proved how undefined aircraft standards were. Many of the components did not conform to the specifications of the drawings provided.
The engineers then adopted ship-builders techniques. They laid out full-scale outlines of aircraft and over a period of months (while hand-building aircraft in the meantime) produced drawings of the exact dimensions required of the thousands of parts needed. Thus, purchasing and tooling standards were finally set and documented.
Regards
Pete A.