Re: Hugh Ferry: Packard's most underrated president?

Posted by BH On 2010/1/16 15:47:06

Yes, one-story plants were the next great thing in manufacturing.

The GM assembly plant built in rural Lordstown, OH and opened in 1966 was primarily one-story - paint dept. was rightfully isolated on a second floor. I also toured Chrysler's Pillette Road Truck Plant in Windsor, Ontario about 20 years ago (built in 1974, IIRC), when they assembled the old B-body vans -again, primarily one-story, but for the paint dept. on a second floor.

I also had the privilege of touring a Chrysler stamping plant in Twinsburg, OH. The presses were huge and deafening - the kind of equipment that could only be on the first floor (and it better be a strong one). Also, undertand that a single panel is produced through a series of dies over the course of several presses.

I can't say about the size/weight of the metal forming and trimming dies, but when I worked at Avanti in Youngstown, OH we received the original fiberglass panel tooling from MFG in Ashtabula - later sold to a collector in MI. Those panels were formed by laying glass mat between one set of two mated dies, then injecting the resin through the sandwiched mat; know that cranes had to be rented to load/unload all but the smallest of dies.

Imagine what it would take to relocate all the tooling and equipment for sheetmetal stamping and fabrication.

In contrast, it takes a lot less 3-D space for vehicle assembly, and I wonder if some problems were beginning to crop up with the East Grand infrastructure. Leasing was probably a lot cheaper than buying any existing facility. Seems like Chrysler forced Packard's hand on leasing the Briggs plant.

I can see how one year's loss equalling the cost of the move might cast a shadow on the Conner decision, but we have to be careful not to confuse correlation with cause-and-effect.

I think there's more to decision behind the Conner move than what may have been written.