A ROD FOR THE MAKER'S BACK.
Page 18
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The Tendency for Manufacturers to Accept Orders for Vehicles that Do Not. Conform with Standard Design or Specification is, "The Inspector" Writes, Inimical to the Aims of Standardization.
IN ONE of my recent outpourings I ventured to challenge the contentions of those -writers, and public speakers who are prone to charge modern designers -with lack of enterprise with a tendency to • stagnate. I suggested that design was progressing .steadily all the time, although it had to be admitted that present ni,odels probably represented fairly advanced practice that had been proved in the great war test and that had, moreover, been current now in essentials for si) or eight years past. Whilst there are not lacking such critics who find it a relatively easy task to dirge the necessity for change and development, they are, it_is curious to note, not infrequently the same people‘who, for want• of some other topic, frantically urge the British need for standardization as the one thing needful to place the motor industry on its feet again, to allow production costs to be drastically reduced, and to enable foreign and particularly American competition to be successfully encountered—the people who shouted for standardization and quantity production, and who again shouted when the makers were caught trying to do it. Well, you cannot have your,cake and eat it at one and the same time! If, Ford-like, we are to be content with and confident about the "good-enoughness" of our models, at any rate for the time being, then we can begin to talk standardization and multiple production in tens of thousands of chassis per week. If, on the other hand, we are, with British characteristic, desirous to produce only the world's best, then -we Moat remain content with short production programmes and with constant encouragement to our experimental and design staffs te improve upon existing practice.' The Ford, to quote the ever-present and unique example, is obviously considered by its godfathers and its godmothers as Joeing good enough.' It is quite obvious that it is in no sense of the word the best for whatever purpose it is intended, unless it be as value for money, and that last and admitted characteristic has only been attained by rigorous suppression of the temptation to improve, and by determination to be satisfied for quite a long period with what is after all good enough—in hundreds of thousands of .sales cases. If this were not so, we should not be favoured with the spectacle of very nurneaous and prosperous concerns that have devoted mucH snoney and energy to improving the Ford out of all recognition. They make a living by offering to improve what Ford consistently refuses to impaove. Meanwhile, Ford goes on producing by the hundred thousand what is by no means the last word in. automobiles technics—and no doubt quietly and steadily improving his practice entirely in his experimental departments for use on some future occasion —When at last the standard Ford can no longer be sold as "good enough" for innumerable uses.
A curious sidelight on this somewhat confused thinking on the part of many writers and thinkers, about matters of automobile interest, is the fact that most manufacturers have for some time past been experiencing a growing tendency on the part of the purchaser to insist upon this that arid the other modia fication to standard specifications ; and it is a matter for serious debate as to how far it would be possible to disregard this increasing demand for variation without -inducing adverse effect upon brder books.' You cannot purchase a Ford, or an Overland. or a Buick, or perhaps a Packard, or Peerless or PierceArrow " truck ' withawheelbase lengthened, or track widened, or engine-power increased or cylinder bore -00 decreased. Yet any very definite request from a customer for, shall we say, a higher-geared back axle, or longer springs, or lengthened frame, will not for long be held up for want of a British manufacturer -who will readily wander from the straight and narrow paths of standardization and will forego the programme destined to produce 10,000 "good enoughs," tor the pleasure and profit of turning out two or three dozen chassis that will embody every latest whim indicated as desirable and even necessary on the standard article. This is the manufacture' who is nowadays charged with "stagnation of de
sign," tee the same manufacturer who in the' paat flas been charged with obstinacy in the matter al Overseas " adaptations."
The customer not only knows all that quite well, but, in a way, he has become an expert, and he very cheerfully asks for a larger or smaller motor in his next chassis, or he asks for Timken rollers instead of plain bearings, or the wheels must be larger, the frame stronger, a plate clutch instead of a lined cone one' and so on. More frequently than not the engine is either too large or too small, too fast or too slow ; and the customer insists on these alterations.
now far is the manufacturer justified in sticking to his guns? How far will his competitors aid him to press the known standard article on the would-be customer ? How far is this informed purchaser to be permitted to vary standard practice? It may be urged that there is demand of very, widely divergent nature in the commercial-vehicle industry, but m the writer's opinion there is no correlation in the arguments brought forward by those who, for instance, want larger engines and higher speeds with little regard for "miles per gallon "and those who. want a smaller engine and a governed one and a sensational petrol and oil performance. Many of these stipulations are unnecessary, and the manufacturer is making a rod for his own bhok if he listens too sympathetically to everyone's counsel. So, too, is he doing his business an ill turn when he allows himself to be driven farther and farther from the standardize, tion idea—even in these days when orders, of some kind or another, are all important. What would it cost to procure a Singer's sewing machine with oneand-a-half, times the standard speed capacity or a driving shaft 5 millimetres thicker than the normal article? Why should one man insist successfully on aluminium pistons and another on cast-iron brakes I The manufacturer must, if British trade is to compete on maximum output lines, more steadfastly refuse to vary standard specifications, unless on very definite proof of inefficiency of existing methods. A little learning is a dangerous thing—as one seea so frequently when a watch committee in greatanumhers comes to a works to discuss technical variations, with a designer. What happens, .I wonder, when anurban district council or a. fire brigade committee, or a well-informed buyer of private standing pays za buying visit to the works of the Valet Autostrop people or of the makers of Osram lamps?Do they buy the standard article, or do they insn't on lengthening the wheelbase or lowering the bonnet? If he is to standardize the maker must take a firmer stand. 'with the people who want half an inch off here and half an inch on there, for no particular reason than a. desire to be different, and must refuse with regret any but standard orders—only in that way are lowerproduction costs to be achieved.