Kibility with idardization

:al Box Co., Ltd., rig Long-wheelbase ..apacity Oilers to Highly Complex t Needs with Maxierational Economy

By Alan Smith DIVERSITY seems to exist throughout the products and establishments of the Metal Box Co., Ltd., and highly involved problems face the company's transport executives. A serious attempt is being made to meet the complexities of plant and output by building up a fleet of vehicles which will be both standardized and capable of tackling manifold tasks.

In the early 1920s, the making of metal containers was in the hands of a multiplicity of small family businesses. These firms drew themselves together to pool resources and technical knowledge, and from this alliance the Metal Box Co., Ltd., ultimately emerged in 1930. To-day, the company is probably the biggest single user of steel in this country and makes more than 1,000 m. processed-food cans and many hundreds of millions of other types of container a 'year.

The variety within the concern exists chiefly because of the nature of its foundation. Some of its factories were built years ago and are unsuitable in layout for the application of the latest mechanical-handling devices, but there are also new or modernized plants where the Most up-to-date labour-saving machines are fully exploited.

350 Per Minute

The importance of handling as it bears on transport finds expression when it is stated that one machine making the familiar medium-sized food tin turns out 350 per minute. Smoothly organized transport is essential for the rapid dispatch of products and the provision of storage facilities, except for immediate operational convenience, is obviously inipracticable. In a can-making factory there are many. machines of the type mentioned, each of which makes 4 lorry-load in about two hours.

There are about 30 factories within the organization and production falls into a number of groups. Opentop cans for processed foods form the largest group of bulky items made and six factories at Carlisle, Neath, Perry Wood (Worcester), Portadown (Northern Ireland), Sutton-in-Ashfield, and Acton (London) concentrate on them. Then there is what the company terms "general line production," which covers the output of other types of metal container, such as elaborate chocOlate boxer's, oil cans and -small Containers extruded from aluminium

B8 pellets. The company also manufactures kitchen cabinets, coloured advertisement display panels for shop windows, and toys.

Factories engaged on general line production are at Carlisle, Clydach, Hull, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Portslade, Worcester. Hackney, Palmers Green, and Bermondsey (London). Belying its name, the Metal Box Co., Ltd., also produces paperboard containers such as collapsible I-lb. chocolate cartons, cardboard containers with tinplate ends as with those used for domestic scouring powders, and paper labels. Cork articles, including cap liner discs, are other items.

Paper and cork-product factories are at Alperton,

Manchester, Morton and Southwark, as well as at Carlisle, Newcastle, Palmers Green and Portslade. At its Perivale, Park Royal and Shipley establishments, factory machinery is made to meet 90 per cent, of the whole organizations needs, and part of its demands for tinplate are catered for by its own mill at Neath.

As many of the factories are in and around certain B9

towns, it is possible in many instances to deal with a group of two or three as a managerial, and transport unit: The nature of the •products of sot* 'factories does not call for extensive ancillary transport facilities and the number. of factory groups with C-licensed vehicles in .fleet . strength is eight. The groups are: ActOn, 13 vehicles; Hull, ,S; Liverpool, 15:. Manchester,. 6; Neath, 1.9; 'Perry Wood,. 34; Bermondsey, 12; and Sutton-in-Ashfield, 13. Vehicles based at 11 other towns bring the total fleet strength to 149. In addition, there are about 50 vehicles operated under contract. The fleet is not large in relation to the company's vast output. C-licence vehicles are used only where economically justified. For instance, the Perry Wood factory, which has 27 lorries, would need . some 160 vehicles to convey .alt its products—and one vehicle can carry 25,000 cans.

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