F. Grant Robertson wrote:
If I had a dime for every unconnected wire on my spitfire, who's
purpose I
lay awake at night wondering about, I'd have taken the proceeds and
bought a
better example by now :)
Don't worry, Grant - you're not the only one! But isn't it strange how
a post by one person and a plausible answer to a similar question from
another AND 3000 miles apart can happen on the same day?
Only yesterday, I was talking to the former Production Director of the
UK's leading supplier of wiring looms for the whole UK auto industry.
He answered my similar question and it's debatably along the lines of
Mark Hooper's Sword Waving women.
The assembly process of looms differed mainly on whether they were for
left or right hand steer cars. Each loom contains/ed additional wires
and terminals for optional or territory specific equipment - so loose
terminals were common depending on where the car was destined.
Basically, the looms were laid out in special jigs in a straight line
until all the wires were in position and then a territory/equipment
type batch would be made. Part of the batching process was to identify
the wire extremities not required and clip them backwards into the
loom itself. When that was done, the band wrapping machine galloped
down the loom and sealed in everthing that wasn't required for the
batch. Over time, car electrical needs became ever more sophisticated
requiring yet more oddball wires.
As is the way with human nature, some operators clipped in one end of
the wire but omitted to do the same at the other end with the result
that a loom appeared with several terminals that "had nowhere to go."
Sometimes there was an in-feed but no out-supply and vice versa. This
started to cost serious money on car assembly rectification in
re-wiring cars after manufacture which cost was contractually passed
to the harness supplier.
Eventually Ripaults identified how frequently this occurred and traced
it to operators who were consistently reliable and accurate in their
work, apart from a few days 'once a month.' Once this was determined,
rectification costs rocketed downwards as it was cheaper for Ripaults
to keep a woman at home on full pay than keep her at work screwing
things up.
Wow, could you do that today?
Then someone had the bright idea *about twenty years ago* of making a
fully wrapped as required subordinate loom that was put in place on
the main loom before it all got wrapped up. This meant ladies
afflicted by the effects of Mother Nature's demands, no longer needed
to stay at home and could stay at work. That in turn brought about
major industrial relations problems as some women were denied their
days off that had become part of Holy Writ. My informer said he didn't
know how it was resolved as he was fortunately and very willingly able
to retire.
Perhaps this has something to do with Mark Hooper's conclusion that
"stylish women will claw the shirt right off your
back if you even think of wronging them"?
Jonmac
MG 4305 DLO 1970 2.5PI
"Loving thy neighbour" is fine - until you get caught
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
/// with nothing in it but
///
/// unsubscribe triumphs
///
|