15-11-2017, 08:27 AM
3
Re: The New Austin Brexit
HiBritish engineers are some of the best in the World, that is why so many F1 Teams are based here in the UK.
Unfortunately we are not very good at manufacturing, therein lies the problem.
We rely on other countries, like the Japanese with the Toyota factory, to show us how to do it.
We have an us and them attitude to Industrial Relations, the dinosaur age, the Germans, Japanese do not have that attitude.
15-11-2017, 10:07 AM
4
Re: The New Austin Brexit
I loved my Austin, it was my first car and ran like a dream. Until it turned into a rust bucket that is...We have some of the most innovative people here and some of the best engineering skills but we have never been able to deal well with investing in that talent or dealing with expansion when business goes global. Joining up the dots is not a great talent when things get complex. Charisma is not king, the customer is.
In Germany they have many medium sized or smaller businesses that are privately owned. It works well for them. They tend to focus on their own specialty rather than try to be the whole orchestra. It's not the best model but it works for them because of their culture of cooperation. They do value education, expertise and engineering far more than we do. It's a national treasure there. What's our national treasure? The Queen?
We can't afford to manufacture at the rates the workforce wants here, when the rest of the world is using cheap countries in the far east.
We are very good at retail. This requires having great trading relationships and open channels of reliable supplies. But again many are being complacent about the internet revolution. I observed BHS for years. I'm surprised it didn't fold sooner. It was in the worst position strategically.
Various companies just don't know when it's time to change. Ostrich mentality? Or hobbit mentality?
15-11-2017, 02:01 PM
6
Re: The New Austin Brexit
Coming from having been in manufacturing in late 70s early 80s I'd say we are good at manufacturing our attention to safety and quality is second to none. But we had terrible management in many areas who didn't value the staff as they should have done and in many cases cut corners with quality of materials.It killed us to see some of the things we had to work with, we knew it wouldn't last long and begged for better materials but money was the top line. Practices like 3 minutes to go to the loo, 5 to drink a coffee and losing an hour of wages if we were 10 minutes late really didn't make us want to do our best for the managers.
If we get all that right I think we could be a good place to do high end manufacturing, the quality can be achieved here but it needs quality materials and a willingness to pay for the products.
16-11-2017, 05:09 AM
10
Re: The New Austin Brexit
Originally Posted by Barry
->
Not sure why Brexit bothers you so much Bruce, we just want to be an independent country, a bit like Australia in fact.....
From afar I am merely an observer of the slow train wreck that is Brexit. However if there was a more chaotic way of leaving the EU (or indeed any organisation) managed by a more incompetent government with apparently absolutely no idea what they are doing I would be interested to hear about it.
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