From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Proposal outlining a new system for costing and managing experimental development work.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 148\5\ scan0171 | |
| Date | 5th July 1937 guessed | |
| C O P Y. COST OF EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT. We wish to introduce a system for costing development work which will at the same time:- (1) Give an account of the expenditure in a more useful form than at present, and (2) Ensure that major projects have the agreement of all concerned before they are started upon. Under the present system of Order Numbers, separate expenditure accounts are kept for testing, shop work, tools and patterns, and, in the case of aero work, for test tackle also. The accounts are sub-divided to cover the cost of each chassis or engine type. Including special jobs, there are about 130 order numbers in the Experimental Dept., and one of the objects of the present system is to introduce the minimum of extra numbers consistent with obtaining the required information. Sub-division of Expenditure. We propose in the first place to separate development expenditure from the initial cost of manufacturing the test unit. A new unit will be built under one set of order numbers, but once it has been passed out of the shop as a complete unit, further development will be booked to a new set of numbers. If the unit is intended for general development work, its development order numbers will be those common for the respective chassis or engine. If, however, the unit is intended for tests of a special nature for which a separate expenditure account is desirable, special development order numbers will be given to it. This latter will only be done if requested by the General Manager or a Departmental Head on the application form, as described later. Instructions to Experimental Shop. As a step toward checking the waste which undoubtedly occurs in the Experimental Shop, every instruction which comes from the Design Department must first have the approval of either Lr.{Mr Ellor} or Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}, or, in cases of disagreement, of Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} In this way responsibility for expenditure will be centralised. At the moment extraordinarily costly experiments are often instructed light-heartedly just because the originator of the idea did not appreciate the expense involved. The procedure will be for Lr.{Mr Ellor}, Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}, or their deputies to sign instructions from the D.O. or Ey's Dept. before HPS.{Horace Percy Smith - Experimental Factory Mgr} starts the job. | ||