British Engineering Industry Research Articles

The advent of double-entry-based costing practices in the British engineering industry: Ransomes of Ipswich, 1856–1863

ABSTRACTThe history of accounting in all countries is punctuated by significant gaps in our knowledge. For Britain, where topics such as cost accounting have been the subject of a substantive research effort, there is still much we do not know. It has been suggested that engineers played an important role in the development of costing during the nineteenth century but that such activity occurred outside the double-entry bookkeeping system. The lack of relevant contemporary literature and surviving business records has made it difficult to examine the validity of such claims. This study reviews the surviving evidence from the agricultural implement manufacturer, Ransomes of Ipswich, in an attempt to provide a better understanding of the emergence of costing within the engineering sector during the 1850s and 1860s.

A Good Time to Stay Out? Strikes and the Business Cycle

AbstractIn this article, we compile a unique historical dataset that records strike activity in the British engineering industry from 1920 to 1970. These data have the advantage of containing a fairly homogeneous set of companies and blue‐collar workers. They cover a long period with varying labour market conditions, include information that enables the addition of union and company fixed effects, and provide geographical detail that allows a district‐level analysis that controls for year and seasonal effects. We study the cyclicality of strike durations, strike incidence and strike outcomes, and distinguish between pay and non‐pay strikes. We find evidence that strikes over pay have countercyclical durations. However, in the post‐war period, the magnitude of this effect for pay‐related strikes is much reduced when union and firm fixed effects are included. These findings suggest that it is important when studying strike durations to take account of differences in the types of companies and unions that are involved in strikes at different points of the business cycle. We also find that strike outcomes tend to be more favourable to unions when the national unemployment rate is lower.

The Origins of Disorderly Wage-Bargaining in the British Engineering Industry

The Origins of Disorderly Wage-Bargaining in the British Engineering Industry

Viewpoint: Lessons from the past

British engineering industry needs to overcome its aversion to statistics, writes the author.

T. Onozuka, Origins of the Craft Regulations : British Engineering Industry in the Nineteenth Century

T. Onozuka, Origins of the Craft Regulations : British Engineering Industry in the Nineteenth Century

Overtime Working, The Phillips Curve And The Wage Curve: British Engineering, 1926–66

This paper shows that wage–unemployment elasticities derived from estimated wage curves and Phillips curves may be critically dependent on the measurement of wages. Incorporating hourly wage earnings that include the influence of overtime payments can lead to seriously distorted results. Meaningful elasticities are obtained only if hourly standard wages form the basis of analysis. Work is based on a unique data set describing two homogeneous blue–collar occupational groups—skilled fitters and unskilled labourers—in the British engineering industry. Each group is also divided into timeworkers and piece–rate workers. Data are aggregated into a panel of 28 local labour markets and cover the highly contrasting periods 1928–38 and 1954–66.

Hours and Wages in the Depression: British Engineering, 1926–1938

On their intensive margins, firms in the British engineering industry adjusted to the severe falls in demand during the 1930s Depression by cutting hours of work. This provided an important means of reducing labor input and marginal labor costs through movements from overtime to short-time schedules. Nominal basic wage rates dropped relatively modestly while their real wage equivalents continued to rise throughout the trough years of the recession. This paper provides detailed labor market and empirical analysis of the hours and wage adjustment processes. Quantitative work is based on cell data from a panel of 28 local labor markets for the period 1926–38.

Tomoji Onozuka, Origins of the Craft Regulations : British Engineering Industry in 19th Century

Tomoji Onozuka, Origins of the Craft Regulations : British Engineering Industry in 19th Century

Hours and Wages in the Depression: British Engineering, 1926-1938

On their intensive margins, firms in the British engineering industry adjusted to the severe falls in demand during the 1930s Depression by cutting hours of work. This provided an important means of reducing labour input and marginal labour costs, through movements from overtime to short-time schedules. Nominal wages dropped relatively modestly while real wages continued to rise throughout the trough years of the recession. Empirical work is based on cell data from a panel of 28 local labour markets for the period 1926-38. The data dichotomise between skilled fitters and unskilled labourers and between time-rate and piece-rate workers. The findings have interesting implications for Phillips curve and wage curve studies.

World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization

Part I. The Modernity of Tradition: 1. Fashion as flexible production: the strategies of the Lyon silk merchants in the eighteenth century Carlo Poni 2. The fate of fabriques collectives in the industrial world: the silk industries of Lyon and London, 1800-1850 Alain Cottereau 3. The rise and decline of flexible production: the cutlery industry of Solingen since the eighteenth century Rudolf Boch 4. Manufacturing flexibility in nineteenth-century Switzerland: social and institutional foundations of decline and revival in calico printing and watchmaking Beatrice Veyrassat Part II. The Battle of the Systems: 5. Between flexibility and mass production: strategic ambiguity and selective adaptation in the British engineering industry, 1840-1914 Jonathan Zeitlin 6. The lost paradigm: an Italian metalworking empire between competing models of production, 1900-1920 Alain Dewerpe 7. 'Have a heart for the manufacturers!': production, distribution and the decline of American textile manufacturing Philip Scranton 8. The small-holder economy in Denmark: the exception as variation Peer Hull Kristensen and Charles Sabel Part III. The Resurgence of Flexible Production: 9. In search of flexibility: the Bologna metalworking industry, 1900-1992 Vittorio Capecchi 10. Local industry and actors' strategies: from combs to plastics oyonnax Jean Saglio 11. Producing producers: shippers, shipyards and the cooperative infrastructure of the Norwegian maritime complex since 1850 Hakon With Andersen Index.

H. Koga, The History on Industrial Relations in British Engineering Industry : Vol. I & Vol. II

H. Koga, The History on Industrial Relations in British Engineering Industry : Vol. I & Vol. II

An Investment Model for the Supply of Training by Employers

This paper explores the incentives faced by employers for supplying general training of the type given to craft apprentices. An investment model is developed, in which the employer's return takes the form of reduced recruitment costs for skilled labour. An empirical model is derived, and fitted to apprentice recruitment data for the British engineering industry, 1966-88. The model succeeds in predicting the collapse of apprentice training in the 1980s; important explanatory variables are the real interest rate, and an index of skill shortages.

Changing technology and design work in the British engineering industry, 1981–1988

Technologies and management strategies change over time and interact. Longitudinal studies can shed some light on this process, and can also contribute to understanding of how relationships between technology and working conditions change over time.

Industrial decline, rationalization and equal pay: The Bedaux strike at Rover automobile company

In September 1930, Britain's Transport and General Workers' Union negotiated an extraordinary and unprecedented agreement with the Rover company, one of Coventry's major automobile firms, abolishing the gap between women's and men's wage-rates in Rover's trim shops. The agreement was never implemented, and it would be decades before any union won comparable concessions again. None the less, for a brief moment, management and labour had agreed to level all gender-based pay differentials in Rover's trim shop. For the first time in the history of the British engineering industry, women and men were to receive equal pay for equal work. How was it that Rover was prepared to set aside the entire wage and production structure of its industry, a structure built on carefully distinguishing the work and wages of men and women, skilled and unskilled, adult and child? I believe that the answer lies in Rover's effort to survive the Depression by attempting an abrupt switch in its production strategy, from customized small batches to longer, mass production runs. Equal pay was an unexpected and unintended consequence of this attempted switchover, and very probably the reason for Rover's ultimate failure to make the planned transition. Reorganizing one's factory for mass production did not generally lead employers to grant equal pay to their women workers, nor had Rover initially intended any such thing. It was only when the women resisted specific features of the mass production plan, which promised to increase the pace and intensity of work, that Rover agreed to trade equal pay for the women's assent to work under the new system. But the story does not end there, for when Rover negotiated the equal pay agreement, other automobile and engineering firms in the Coventry district rose in sudden, sharp protest. What had been an internal affair at Rover now became a matter of district-wide importance, since granting equal pay would effectively double women's rates at Rover. The presence of a high-wage employer of women threatened to draw off the local supply of cheap female labour, on which Rover's colleagues depended, and so the other firms stepped in and prevented Rover from proceeding. What had begun as an attempt to survive the post-war economic crisis by adopting an innovative production strategy ended in a pitched battle between Rover and its traditionalist colleagues. When the battle was over, Rover had lost and any notion of equal pay was abandoned.

President's Inaugural Address: Distribution and utilisation of electrical power: a renaissance for the 21st Century

The history of the electricity supply industry (ESI) of England and Wales is one of service to society. The supply engineers have ensured continuity of supply while improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the fields of distribution and utilisation. International growth in demand for energy is depleting the fossil-fuel reserves and damaging the environment. This paper argues that the greater use of electricity to meet energy needs will result in better control of the environment and more efficient use of fuel. It is suggested that a co-ordinated drive is required from all sectors of power engineering to achieve this aim. Success will depend on the ready availability of electrical equipment and processes to enable society to use energy in an efficient and environmentally safe manner. The newly formed Public Electricity Supply Companies seem well placed to induce the co-ordination of all sectors of power engineering. The result could be a renaissance in the British power engineering industry with subsequent benefit to our economy.

Advisors and decision-makers in product eliminations

This article reports on the product elimination decision within selected sectors of the British engineering industry. The study identified and examined the key organizational participants in product elimination activities. The marketing function and a top management committee generally assumed a significant portion of the product elimination decision making. The results of the study suggested that the people responsible for product elimination varies considerably among companies, depending on such factors as size, product diversity, operations technology, and market competition.

Implications of CAD/CAM for management

For many firms, investment in computer-aided design is an important first step towards integrated systems of design and manufacture (Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacture—CAD/CAM). A recent study of CAD in the British engineering industry has indicated that few firms have yet fully recognised its strategic significance. Successful selection and implementation of CAD/CAM requires changes in investment appraisal procedures and demands higher levels of technical skills at senior levels than are normally found in British engineering firms.

Problems, possible solutions and lessons from British manufacturing engineering — An outsider's analysis

The declining state of the British engineering industry, especially in manufacturing, is described and quantified. The major causes are seen to be a slipping down-market and a lack of market orientation in current products. After noting that a hybrid undergraduate programme in engineering management was relatively inappropriate, several of the new enhanced Special Engineering Programmes are described. Their reception is noted to have been mixed. Limitations to teaching company schemes indicate that they can only benefit a limited number of engineers. Finally, Finniston's failure to distinguish between technical excellence and management potential is shown to lead to confusion of purpose in course design proposals. The lessons for other countries in a similar situation are to move up-market with their products and to train engineers for engineering management via post-experience master's degrees.

Alternative models of apprentice recruitment: with special reference to the British engineering industry

(1983). Alternative models of apprentice recruitment: with special reference to the British engineering industry. Applied Economics: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 1-21.

Advertising Budgeting — How Industrial Goods Companies Decide

A number of studies have attempted to determine the methods used in setting advertising budgets of industrial goods firms. In 1965, a survey the British engineering industry revealed that 29 per cent of firms had no known basis for the calculation, 39 per cent used a fixed sum unrelated to sales, 28 per cent related their expenditure to the previous year's sales or the following year's anticipated sales, while 4 per cent used other methods. Three years later, research based upon 250 subscribers to the Industrial Advertising and Marketing Journal discovered that 71 per cent of respondents based their decision upon the percentage of sales techniques and a further 15 per cent used the affordable method. In 1975, a survey which covered essentially medium sized consumer and non‐consumer companies confirmed that the percentage of sales techniques were the main methods used, accounting for 46 per cent of these non‐consumer firms replying. Subsequently, however, a survey conducted into promotional activity in Britain revealed that the objective‐task method had gained ground and was the main method used in 38 per cent of firms selling industrial products in their sample.