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by the Technical Editor
Page 99
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No lorry ever starts off from a clean sheet of paper — there are always production and financial constraints when trying to come up with the best solution and here the Irvine co-operation has been invaluable.
The biggest influence, perhaps, has been in brakes. The new F7 range has 203mm (Bin) wide rear brakes following on from the success of the Irvine-built F86s for the UK market which have had them for the past year.
The inter-factory co-operation goes much further than just on the design side. Irvine also does a lot of investigation into
service problems, the results of which are passed to Sweden who then release the "cure.
Prototype testing is carried out in Scotland both of new designs (prototype gearbox, axle, etc) as well as those merely from different sources, This has evolved again because the UK use of the F86 has been much harder than that in Sweden where there is less traffic and fewer short, sharp gradients.
Prototype workshop As Irvine has its own prototype workshop, the factory can do a complete full-size "in the metal" package rather than just a drawing-board exercise. Nowhere in the world does as much of this sort of work for Volvo as Irvine — in this situation, they are unique.
In John Bryant's words: "As a design team, we are quite proud of the respect they give us. We really feel part of Gothenburg's engineering division where we can have completely open discussions and not feel as though we are from 'a foreign plant".
Quality control On the production side, Irvine has a modern plant, lots of space and a cooperative work force. As with the design team there is an interchange of personnel including foremen and production engineers. The very fact that Irvine has been left alone to produce three models is an indication of the faith that Gothenburg has in its UK offshoot.
On the quality control side, Irvine has been achieving better results than Sweden, but this must be tempered with the knowledge that Gothenburg produces far more vehicles. Every so often a Swedish inspector comes over and carries out a vehicle "audit".
Summing up Irvine has no idea which vehicles he'is going to select as a batch sample — at any one time he will have a choice of around 20 chassis. This is an identical exercise to that carried out at Gothenburg. The inspector then gives "demerits," the exact severity of which will depend on whether the fault is functional or cosmetic.
Summing up the interfacing liaison between Irvine and Gothenburg is quite simple. As John Bryant put it "We think we are Volvo."