Manufacturing Industry

A factory in the mid 1960s

This document describes a real factory, and the historical changes that occurred to it. As I do not have the companies permission to write this exact details of the company are obscured. In the mid sixties the factory was doing well. The order book was full and two shifts worked around the clock to make good use of the facilities. The night shift work 4 nights of 10 hours each whilst the day shift worked five eight hour days. Both shifts often worked six to ten hours of overtime. When pressure was on the day shift worked 9 or ten hours a day and Saturday morning whilst the night shift did an extra night. in this way the equipment worked twenty hours of the twenty four

This is a simplification of the works. There were four foundries all working with different types of metal. Each foundry had a Core shop and a part cleaning plant one also had a galvanising plant. Numbers are subsumed. One of these foundries - making radiators closed.

Many employees in the office section were dedicated to working in another section. But I have considered them to be support staff, largely because they collected samples and took them else where to analyse them.

It should be noticable that the structure of factory is hierarcial and highly tiered. A labourer working in the foundry reports to a semiskilled worker or a leading-hand who reports to a charge hand. The charge had reports to a supervisor (not long before this there were 3 grades of supervisor). There are then 3 grades of manager above the supervisors. Eight tiers in all, this compared to 11 tiers in the office section.

© LEV