We can never stand still

Citation

(2006), "We can never stand still", Assembly Automation, Vol. 26 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2006.03326baa.002

We can never stand still

In the 1960s I bought a small terraced house for about £1,000. I installed a new, portable, black and white television for £100 and I was tempted to buy a Mini car but with a mortgage to pay I could not afford the £600 required. Jumping to the present day, that self same house, now 40 years older, would go on the market at about £100,000, a similar new house would cost about twice as much. A new portable, colour television would cost less than £100, perhaps even half that price, and a small, basic car would cost about £6,000. I am not an economist but I have often pondered on how the prices of these everyday products have changed and diverged over time.

If inflation over the period is taken into account then the hundred fold increase in the cost of a house is not unreasonable. In these terms a new car seems a bargain, at only ten times the 1960s cost. For spectacular improvements in value for money look to televisions at half the actual 1960 cost or over a shorter timescale, microwave ovens and DVD Players at about one tenth of their cost when their technology was first introduced to the market.

The house builders will tell you of improvements in materials, methods, quality, and organisation in their industry. Unfortunately, experiments in system building, involving mechanisation, mainly for public housing, have, in the main, been failures. In contrast, although the design of modern cars has evolved over the period, it is the way cars are made that has led to substantial improvement in choice, quality and value for money. The present day automotive industry is able to provide more people with better cars, that are cheaper to run, an offer that many of us are not able to refuse.

So, how did the automotive industry achieve this? We all recognise the massive contribution of Japanese engineers. They taught us how to organise and improve manufacturing on an evolutionary basis, through what is now known as lean manufacture. In that period, just as in the building industry, there were some brave and bold experiments carried out by Fiat, VW, Volvo and GM. I think it is generally recognised that revolution has lost out to evolution with most of these “big” experiments being consigned to manufacturing history. In contrast, the evolution of automotive manufacture, including automatic assembly, has progressed quietly but strongly, particularly in the manufacture of components and sub-assemblies. In terms of the challenge of further improvement, I suggest that that the automotive industry should not be complacent and look to electronic manufacture for its way ahead. Electronic manufacture has achieved unbelievable cost reductions by improvements in both design and manufacturing, including the very substantial impact of automatic assembly technology. I commend this special issue and look forward to the freedom given by a future, environmentally friendly, “solid-state” car, which offers “Plug and play” at a price that makes it affordable to the majority. I even look forward to a house building industry that can offer an affordable home for all.

Professor E. AppletonUniversity of Durham, UK