Oops - sorry my arithmetic is a bit out - 120,000/6,000=20 cars per worker
per year! So perhaps the 16 was what I heard but can we really believe
such a disparity in a totally automated factory? Something seems very
wrong somewhere.
John
John Logsdon "Try to make things as simple
Quantex Research Ltd, Manchester UK as possible but not simpler"
[log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
+44(0)161 445 4951/G:+44(0)7717758675 www.quantex-research.com
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005, John Logsdon wrote:
> This list seems to be largely populated by government, academic and
> medical/bioscience folk so maybe the sad events at Longbridge have passed
> you all by. However there are two issues as far as the statistics are
> concerned so I don't feel this is out of line.
>
> Firstly, as usual the reporting seems to be rather sensationalised. I
> heard this morning for example that Nissan in Sunderland makes some 320
> cars per person per year whereas MGR made about 16. Now I thought the
> total sales were about 120,000 and if there are 6000 workers at Longbridge
> that makes 60 not 16. I don't think I misheard in my slumbers - it was
> Saturday morning after all - but this raises the question of what does
> 'made' mean.
>
> The value added for a typical Japanese assembly plant is actually very
> small - I have heard it said that about 87% of the car value is actually
> bought in which leaves only 13% added by the workers. If this is not
> comparable at Longbridge - for whatever reason - then it was an insult to
> the workers there who have just lost their jobs. eg If in fact only 60%
> was bought in, then the effective productivity was 180 cars per person per
> year. The media should get used to presenting the full facts and not to
> doing some simple sums to prove the case that they have already decided by
> prejudice.
>
> Of course even 180<320 so there are questions to be asked. It would seem
> that there may be quite a lot of money missing from the assets that MGR
> enjoyed when it was sold by BMW. Has there been corporate fraud going on
> - on a massive scale? Why were - and for how much - the intellectual
> properties of some of the cars and engines sold to SAIC before the deal
> was finalised? Was that in fact all they wanted so SAIC screwed MGR
> deliberately? Who owns the MG brand now? Are the Phoenix 4 villains or
> failed heroes?
>
> Hopefully an inquiry will get to the bottom of this.
>
> But the whole sorry saga raises another issue that, as some will know, is
> quite close to my heart. That of the use of statistics in industry - or
> rather the lack of use of statistics. For there is no doubt that the lack
> of direction from the top to making a quality product has bedevilled much
> of British manufacturing industry. And quality means optimising the
> design, reducing the variability, controlling the assembly process, etc
> etc. In other words, the fluent use of statistics.
>
> Two examples spring to mind - that of the more recent Ford small cars that
> now have exemplary standards brought about by driving design of
> experiments and other statistical approaches into the model. The other is
> the SEMATECH programme in the US where imposition of statistical
> approaches in the semiconductor industry since the mid 80's has
> essentially rescued that industry from domination by the (then top dogs)
> Japanese. In fact this latter programme was run jointly by the industry
> and the US government who were worried for both commercial and military
> reasons about losing the lead.
>
> There is no doubt that in the UK, mechanical engineering type of
> manufacturing has all but disappeared. We have some advanced engineering
> but with a reduced base of general engineering, the support infrastructure
> from supplier of bits to educators will dry up. In the bioscience area
> things are rather different with major pharmaceuticals, genetics and other
> companies being fairly prosperous and able to invest.
>
> I don't think it is the banks at fault - too much anyway - but that of
> total industrial cowardice on the part of our managers particularly in
> those 'never had it so good' SuperMac days. The ex-workers of Longbridge
> are paying the price of historical bad practices, low investment and a
> perception that their goods were poor quality which now they probably were
> not.
>
> With the nuclear industry more or less closed down - at least for the
> present until it is realised that we can't meet Kyoto on windmills alone -
> the only major customer for large mechanical engineering is the military.
> Perhaps we need a few more wars to help our engineers - or will that just
> mean us buying American?
>
> Any thoughts? What should we as statisticians do? Do we have a role in
> industry? Should engineers give up here and go overseas.
>
> Best wishes
>
> John
>
> John Logsdon "Try to make things as simple
> Quantex Research Ltd, Manchester UK as possible but not simpler"
> [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
> +44(0)161 445 4951/G:+44(0)7717758675 www.quantex-research.com
>
> ******************************************************
> Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your
> message will go only to the sender of this message.
> If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's
> 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically
> to [log in to unmask]
> *******************************************************
>
******************************************************
Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your
message will go only to the sender of this message.
If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's
'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically
to [log in to unmask]
*******************************************************
|