The production process was conventionally ‘metal-basher British’, both in terms of equipment and layout/process flow. Similar processes were all grouped together for example; press shop, welding shop and machine shop.
Very little automation; most operations consisted of a production operator taking raw material or a part-processed component from a large metal stillage, to an added value operation in a machine, to be replaced in another large stillage for transportation to the next operation - which could be in the same section, or indeed across Gaddesby Lane or perhaps to a sub-contractor somewhere in the West Midlands and back to Rearsby.
In short lots of work ‘not in progress’ most of the time.
The Rearsby site was split in two, by Gaddesby Lane, linking Rearsby village to Gaddesby village:
North site1. Main Steel Stores
2. No. 5 Works - Blanking, Presswork, Welding, Machining
3. Main General Office - Production Management, Sales, Production and Material Control, Buying, Personnel and Training, Accounts and my own office
South Site4. No. 6 Works - Assembly, Machining, Paint Plant, Axle Tube
5. No. 4 Works - Clutch plate
6. Engineering Dept (Production Engineering/Planning, Jig and Tool Design)
7. Goods Receiving
8. Inspection Department
9. Tool Room (New Tooling and Repair/Refurbishment)
10. Inflammable Liquid Store
11. Final Dispatch Stores
12. No.7 Works – a satellite factory in nearby Syston, one of the earlier Auster factories. This was mainly a machining shop with heat treatment plant.
The absence of automation was a reflection of three pressures.
1. Years of a frugal post-war attitude of money for investment was tight - it certainly was in Auster Aircraft from 1945 onwards. Struggling for sales. A make do and mend outlook.
2. Years of lack of capital investment (before and during the BL years.)
3. The relative low wage cost. Agricultural wages + 30%. It was relatively easy and economic to recruit/employ more operators. Automation was therefore difficult to justify in payback terms.