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Production Engineering
“The Service Idea.”

(By E. T. Spidy, Superintendent of Workshops.)

Facing me in the train the other day was a really good advertisement containing words something like these: “There is nothing on earth but that someone makes it worse and sells it for less.”

It occurred to me that there was a great deal contained in that sentence. A professor of economics could construct a good lecture from such a text. Business houses have been built up or have gone into liquidation according to the way in which the general principle contained in those words has been applied. It is the daily text of every executive officer, whether he realises it or not, for it is simply the “service idea” expressed in one way.

It may be set forth in other ways: e.g., “It may cost you more than any other, but the service is worth it.”

“You must pay accordingly if you desire the best service.”

“Don't mistake initial cost for the cost per year of a service.”

“Cheap things are usually not cheap at all”—and so on. One could think of many other phrases to express the same idea.

Now the Railway Department is a Public Service Department, and in the foregoing observations I have stated one of our most difficult problems—the difficulty of selecting the right material for the right job at the right price.

This is no small task, even for our Workshops, where some three and a half thousand men use half a million pounds worth of material per year, and although the purchasing is actually carried out by the Stores and Financial Departments we are responsible for specifying what we require and the quality of every item. This we do, wherever possible, by specification, but specifications are not everything by a long, long way, as we know quite well.

It must be understood that specifications are necessary, however, as being the means of conveying our desires to all who sell the article in question. Our difficulty begins when the selection has to be made from the tenders received for the material. The lowest priced article that will give the desired service is, of course, the aim in making the selection.

In making this selection what may be defined as the technical and the non-technical staffs of the Department now come into the picture.

We, ourselves, on the engineering side, with our experience in the use of the materials themselves, and with a natural desire to obtain the best possible for service reasons, while on the non-technical side responsible officers are necessarily by considerations of price.

Speaking generally, those on the technical side do not see the seller. In most cases it would be unnecessary and the time could not be spared. On the other hand the seller deals directly with the non-technical side, and he almost invariably declares his goods right, irrespective of price. That the price side is well taken care of, however, is obvious. page 41 Speaking personally, I may say that in all my experience I have never yet suffered by being supplied with materials of too high a quality.

The complaint is always the other way. This gets back to our difficulty of defining the quality we require. For hard railway and railway shop service the best is none too good. We must use our experience, and the experience of others whom we know personally. We use analytic methods to help us in some cases. We must get costings to put against the service obtained. We must be accurate in our deductions from results obtained.

Remembering the advertisement I quoted, I put it to all of the staff using materials, and especially those concerned in ordering from the stores, that the total material expenses of the Department are, to a large extent, dependent on the judgment used every time in the reports of materials that do not do their job satisfactorily, and in the supporting data in connection with all tests.