alcolm Nixon wrote ... > > The > >bean counters and quick buck merchants wrecked most of the > rest of GEC > >too for that matter. > > Tell me about it - I was a Marconi apprentice - and they > destroyed that company too - the older Radio factory in the > world :-( Mind you Lord Wienstock wasn't too well liked in EE > / Marconi either.
Don't think Weinstock was much liked by anyone! But he did insist that GEC was run on sustainable lines ie; a reasonable profit on turnover and always in the black rather than relying on the bl**dy merchant *ankers for liquidity and insisting on ludicrous growth targets Back in the day, Express were struggling badly to compete with Mitsubishi (competing with Otis wasn;t a problem - firstly 'cos there was a reciprocal arrgangement between Express and Otis about who operated where in the world and secondly 'cos Otis were miles behind technologically). Profits were well down for several years and the future wasn't looking too bright. Weinstock spent three days at the factory talking to everybody from the top to the bottom (including a certain long haired apprentice - he told me to get my hair cut!). At the end of the visit he turned to the senior management and said "What do you need" to which they replied "a decent testing facility and machine tools that were made in this century rather than the last one*" Old Arnold sez "how much?". T'management sez "xx million" and Arnie reaches into his back pocket and hands over the dosh. OK, actually he allocated about 10 million from the GEC Contingency Budget (aka 'the slush fund'). One man, one decision, no messing. Mind you, if he'd reckoned the firm wasn't viable in the long term he'd have been equally as quick to close it down but there you go * I ain't kidding. During my stint in the machine shop, I had to turn up some complicated little widgets to tolerances of less than 10 thou on a capstan lathe which had been made in 1892! It had about 50 thou of lash on all the motions and getting a good component of it was more a matter of luck than judgement. It wasn't exceptional, most of the machinery in the factory was well over 50 years old, some of it (like that lathe) had probably been second hand when first installed in the factory. It's a slightly creepy feeling to consider that I was operating a machine tool in *my* youth which had almost certainly been used in the manufacture of munitions in *two* world wars before I was born (Abbey Works being used as a munitions factory in both wars - indeed much of the works was constructed in wartime which rather showed!) Bru
