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).
Car body production methods, costs, and supplier negotiations for quantity-produced bodies.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 117\2\ scan0125 | |
| Date | 28th December 1939 | |
| -2- Cont'd.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} of it. Mr. Ward has got some figures but we feel they will have to be presented in a orderly fashion before we shall be able to understand them and that the efficiency people will be able to help us in this respect. We also consider that when the car division has a definite location Mr. Green will have to arrange to spend at least 3 days a week at Derby to keep us in touch with what he is doing and to get his figures straight. Before we abandon the Park Ward construction we want to get a basic difference in cost between this method of fabrication and the fully pressed steel type of constructions when in both cases the same amount of money is allotted to tools. We notice that in certain cases Americans are moving away from the stressed panel and towards the panelled framework which is basically Ward's principle. We feel that until our planning dept. for quantity produced bodies is established at Derby we shall not make the necessary progress. Also that ultimately both Mr. Green and Mr. Giles should function from Derby. The pressed Steel Co. may want us to guarantee them a consultants fee should we not be able to place an order with them for the necessary dies after they have spent a lot of time on estimating for tools etc. We think it is essential that we should be prepared to guarantee such a sum of money in order to get the necessary information. We propose to give a good deal of time to the body project until it has reached a stage where we can give you a sliding scale for the cost of bodies of the desired quality in numbers from 500 to 5,000 at various weekly rates. Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||