A British Factory

Here is the excerpts of an article written by Dave Wilson the  Editor, for Engineering Talk

Driving through the leafy Oxfordshire countryside, one would be
forgiven for wondering what's left of the engineering industry in
England.

While it's fairly obvious that there's a lot of farming going on, any
evidence of Big Industry is lacking. There are no dark satanic mills,
no smokestacks and no lines of workers waiting in line at factory
gates to punch in.

And so it was a couple of weeks ago, when I set off in my trusty Honda
to visit the home of a small to medium-sized enterprise based in a
rather oddly named town just outside the university town of Oxford
itself.

I had heard that the director of the company would be an interesting
chap to talk to about all things related to machine design and so I
set off through the Shires to find out more about what his company was
up to.

After a most enjoyable journey, I finally arrived at the company's
headquarters which was located on a pleasant, yet rather modest,
industrial estate, typical of many such places that can be found on
the outskirts of English towns.

Certainly, there was nothing that could be called grand about the
place. There was no magnificent foyer with marble floors, no brilliant
towering glass atrium and no line of very expensive motor vehicles
parked outside.

Notwithstanding the fact, the highly affable director of the company
did not keep me waiting in his lobby, albeit that I was 20 minutes
early. He greeted me personally, after which he brewed up a rather
splendid cuppa before leading me into his conference room where he
presented the details of some of the new systems that he had been
developing.

I was impressed. Here was a small to medium-sized enterprise that had
built many machines for a slew of Blue Chip companies too numerous to
mention. Many of them were very challenging complex designs and I was
intrigued to learn how the company's team of engineers had solved the
technical issues involved in creating them.

After spending an hour or so at the company and having enough
material to write up a good technical story, it was time for me to bid
my adieu to the sociable company director and make my way back home
through the leafy English countryside.

While driving, I felt ashamed that I had initially judged his company
by its lack of grandeur. For what it might have lacked in that
department, it had certainly made up for many times over by its
engineering achievements.

I also realised that the lack of evidence of heavy industrialisation
is not indicative of a lack of engineering here in England. Just
because the smokestacks have disappeared, there are still a lot of
highly talented folks out there practising engineering in hundreds of
small to medium-sized enterprises all across the country.

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Best wishes
Dave Wilson, Editor
mailto:news@engineeringtalk.com