My time at EKCO Malmesbury

by Ray Moxon – January 2005

Part 2 Cowbridge House

The ten minutes did tend to overrun leading to comment at intervals, but I would argue that the value of this extra time was beneficial in providing an almost enforced few minutes of communication and free discussion, which was most valuable for the technical staff in particular despite a few individuals who understandably frowned upon the mention of "shop" during these breaks.

Unfortunately I found the quality of the food produced by the canteen was not always as high as I would have been liked and meals were sometimes rather unpalatable, particularly after the retirement of the in-house chef, and his replacement by an outside contractor.

A few groups, including several engineers, who were fortunate enough to have access to cars, therefore chose to make a daily trip to the Malmesbury cafes and pubs (such as the Railway Inn) for their lunches. These trips are remembered however, not just because the food was more enjoyable, but largely because the change of atmosphere generally was relaxing, and enabled a restart of work in the afternoon feeling comparatively refreshed. Incidentally, the cafes were not licensed and so the feeling was not alcohol induced!

How we were organised!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the there were two distinct areas of work where the roles, while separate, did work closely together when needed.

Simply put, there was a development Section whose role was to design a piece of equipment suitable for production, and capable of meeting all its specification requirements together with all the drawings and instructions necessary in order to achieve this.

Additionally, there was a development pre-production area where experimental/pre-production models were manufactured and assembled then returned to the labs for scrutiny and test, drawings modified as requested and test specifications written for acceptance by the customer.

Once this has been achieved drawings and all the required information was passed to the Production department where that department was fully equipped to manufacture the equipment.

I don't know whether the decision to so distinctly separate Development and Production, was originally based 'as I supposed' on a contractual Ministry of Defence requirement but I believe that this strategy was largely associated with a government requirement that any suitably qualified manufacturer should be able to make equipment designed elsewhere?

The Development Section consisted of three basic areas,

1. The Engineering Laboratories
2. The Drawing Office
3. The Development Services and Pre-Production Unit

The last of these represented a fairly large group, made up of the Model Shop, the Wiring & Assembly Shop, Planning, Paint Spray and Plating Shops (under the control of the production department), Inspection Department, Buying Department Goods Inward and Despatch, all of who were of course vital to the overall progress of work of the section. In many ways, the efficient and smooth co-ordination of the work carried out by the people in Development Services, had a great bearing on the efficiency of the Development Section as a whole, and the quality of the work it produced.

The group of laboratories housing the engineering design staff and its equipment, was itself split into six main subsections or departments, whose names were representative of the type of work undertaken by each of them, as follows: -

• Radar
• Microwave Laboratory
• Communications
• Nucleonics
• Post Design Services
• Mechanical Laboratory
• Transformer Laboratory (including finishing- epoxy etc.)

In addition to these, there were a number of smaller subsections, created on an ad hoc basis for dealing with specialised areas of development, often associated with new departures in technology. For example, such a department was set up to deal with problems associated with the encapsulation of components of various kinds, in epoxy resin (under the Transformer Group). Another was set up to develop satisfactory procedures for manufacture of the first printed circuits.

Each of these subsections had its own Head, whose nominal responsibilities included control of all the tasks undertaken by the engineers within his subsection and reporting progress to the Chief Engineer at monthly intervals.

I was pleased to find that a great deal of the work of the Department Heads was delegated directly to the engineers within their department and these engineers at all levels would be called upon to write progress reports each month, and even those at quite junior level could be called upon to enlarge upon their report and discuss any problems at progress meetings with the Chief Engineer.

Engineers who had the status of "Project Engineer", were usually expected to "fight their own corner" as usual routine at such meetings.

The role of Project Engineers

I quickly found that it was EKCO philosophy to appoint "Project Engineers" and there is no doubt in my mind that this was one of the best attributes of the company who quite simply defined this as the engineer who had responsibility for a project. The role of that engineer was to see a project through from its inception, to the point at which it was deemed completed and passed to Production.

To me, one of the major benefits of having project engineers was that virtually everyone in the organisation soon became aware of the particular person to whom questions on each project should ultimately be addressed.

While this could have obvious disadvantages at times for the individual concerned, there is no doubt that the most direct, efficient and authoritative action was achieved by this means, with of course little chance of "passing the buck". While this also represented a heavy responsibility for the engineer, I saw no general evidence that engineers themselves resented this.

While there existed what might be called a minimum set of procedures which provided a working framework there was also an absolute minimum of formal rules of any type. This included a lack of positive edicts about how things should be done, as well as a welcome dearth of the restrictive kind. This meant that we were more or less free to decide the approach to our work, within the confines of the Customer's specification, the facilities and funds available.

Thus, the project engineer took the initiative not only in technical design but also in deciding what needed to be done in order to transform that design into a reality and to ensure that the work of transformation was arranged, progressed and satisfactorily concluded. Provided this initiative was used successfully, even fairly junior engineers such as myself were permitted to continue to make a great many of our own decisions with a minimum of supervision.

Looking back, I think that guidance, rather than 'control was best' sums it up! And this general freedom quickly gave me a very firm idea of what I was doing, and a sense of importance in doing it, and, as a result of this very close identity with all aspects of a project.

A difficulty was perhaps that a few of the younger engineers quickly felt competent to carry out work of higher calibre than was available to them, and felt held back by lack of opportunity. The fact that very few such "high flyers" were prepared to leave EKCO for more appropriate work elsewhere, must be regarded as a further credit to the company.

In those days no great emphasis was placed on accurate job descriptions but a system of working had evolved by the time I started which was relatively efficient. Although on paper there were grades of engineer, ranging from "junior" to "senior" and with a title "project engineer" thrown in for good measure, these descriptions were not well defined and were more a management guide to salary levels, rather than associated with the type of work or levels of responsibility undertaken.

I think this lead to a certain amount of friction when salaries were discussed, particularly as there was no generally published salary scale at any time, which positively related to either engineer's formal grades or their actual responsibilities, with annual pay.

(The EKCO Management freely admitted by in the early 1950s, that the average pay was some 10% below the market norm, which led to some dissatisfaction, but it is perhaps surprising that in the circumstances, labour turnover was generally very small amongst engineers, which was an indication that job satisfaction was clearly not just related to pay.)

Teamwork

I was in the Development Section where the organisation below the level of my Departmental Head was in no way formally laid down and the project engineers were largely responsible for getting work done through engineering teams.

These teams were often not a defined set of people but people who were allocated to a particular project for a fixed period of time. For example individual technicians, engineering students, draughtsmen and even Model Shop skilled operatives would be allocated to the team as and when necessary. Quite often, the demands of a project would in fact mean that certain individuals could remain as members of the team for long periods, perhaps for years, while others might only have been associated with it for a matter of weeks, or even less.

I found that whatever the period of tenure a definite relationship tended to be built up between a team member and the project with which he was associated. I found this most likely to apply to personnel constituting Development Services and particularly to an individual in the Model Shop, actually about to start making a piece-part where an explanation of any special requirements, which though adequately defined on a drawing, would be much better understood following a few minutes discussion where for example the relationship of a particular part, which had to mate with another was stressed with the effect that it was desirable to consider details of both parts when manufacturing either of them, in order to ensure that they would eventually fit together.

The value of such close liaison was very often underestimated, but I believe that the rapport built up within teams was one of the key factors in EKCO's success during the 50's.

Management and the Team

As might be expected, the Management formed an important part of the overall team, although at Malmesbury that part was usually unobtrusively played since the Department Heads and the Chief Engineer in particular, gave the firm impression of acting to assist in resolving problems and improving general rapport, by considering themselves as part of a combined effort.

There was no doubt that they firmly understood the basis of the particular type of work with which they were dealing, but there also seemed to be a rather deeper added understanding of their roles, which was indicated by,

1. A readiness and ability to give sound advice and make decisions when required, but accompanied generally by a willingness to keep quiet as far as possible otherwise.
2. An understanding, that in order to be in a position to make valid decisions, information must flow up the management pyramid, and probably to a much greater extent than it flowed downward.

Editors Notes:

1. As indicated in this piece, it is generally acknowledged that EKCO Malmesbury was a very well run organisation and had a great feeling of camaraderie and teamwork. Most of the engineers who worked at the site during the 50's will tell you that this was due in 'large part' to the fact that the organisation was run by technically knowledgeable competent engineering people.
2. The low salaries referred to, whilst known and acknowledged helped in the procurement of contracts, which might have been placed with other companies.
3. The high engineering standards prevalent at the company during this time certainly helped the company be seen as a 'centre of excellence' by RRE (Royal Radar Establishment) and MoD personnel both of whom (at various times) had resident engineers. It was certainly useful that Malmesbury was not far from either Malvern (the home of RRE) or Farnborough (the home of MoD).
4. EKCO Malmesbury attracted many visiting engineers and while the hospitality was good, the ambience was seen as being conducive to many of the excellent relationships formed, which in turn was beneficial to the business as a whole.
5. Going home. In the era discussed by Ray Moxon, private ownership of cars was not the norm as it is today; in consequence EKCO provided a comprehensive coach service to all the outlying villages.

Shift end and workers catch a coach back to the villages
Photograph courtesy of Dickie Granger

Continued........