e ngineering perfect ion . the better and cheaper is the produn it can turn out. T he Engineering T eam: R. D. His cocks. design engineer for de Ha\'i lland Canada. pointed out \\"hen he accepted the i\ !cCurdy Trophl" :lt the Canadian Aeronautical lnstitute ·s dinner last MaY. that aeronautical engineering to day is a te:11111vork proposition. Here is the root of the difficu lty. T o collect together the technically superior engi neers and d ra ftsmen. and then weld them into a team is a job in itself. To keep this ream technical! , on its roes. in the rapidly chanfcing field of aero naut ics. and to keep their thoughts Ao\\"ing accura tely and clearlv from Quality • Engineering B!/ GROUP CAPTAIN H . R. FOOTTIT "Quality in engineering is one of t he manifest.:itions of what I call t he Second Industrial Revolut ion." -Vc~l Cronstedr' IN T H E MID-THIRTIE S, the Vhstern \Vorld was enduring an u neasy peace. Already the t ram p of German and Ita lian boots, and the th underous cries of " H eil H itler" and "Duce•·, were ra ising the black clouds of war on the horizon. In the d ying over the face of Europe and ·western Ci,·ilizat ion. If war came, in which camp would Russia's armies stack their rifles? In musty diplomatic offices a q uiet campaign was being blueprinted to in d uce Russia to the side of the West. Parr of th is plan was to g ive techn ical aid to Stalin 's current "Fi1-e Year Plan.'· As the plot blossomed into actual ity, teams of Russian engineers coursed th rough major industrial layou ts in Europe and :f\."orth America. F altering q uestion followed fa ltering q uestion around tht: conferenct: table. Slowly the Russ ians eked out the information they req ui red. A nd in many cases a licens ing ag rt:ement fo llowed. A Lesson Learned: In one instance the old V ultee Aircraft Corporation sold a license to Russia to bui ld the Vultce V-1 I att:ick homht:r . But once the cng int:e ring drawings and reports • f )ircrt,Jr of J:'111;flJtrn11;•, (;f!,· T 10 /,fftf Di,, .. , /. I '. liut Canarlu /.11/ . were shipped behind the Russian fron t ier, trouble started. For the \ ·.11 was a relatively new airplane and the eng i neering had been done by a small g roup in a hurry. Between R ussia's lack of skilled t radesmen with prod uc t ion know-how, a nd the poor quality of the engineeri ng, the g reat Moscow plant came to a slow halt. A U.S. engineering-production ream, seconded to R ussia. solved the problem. But the Russians had learned that, like all things under th e sun, there is a cer tain "quality" to engineering . Q ual ity, as applied to engineering, is perhaps too broad a term . Bur here h igh quality eng ineering means nor only technical superiority, but engineer ing w hich h as the stamp of lucid accuracy on it so that it reflects clearly the engineering department's inten t ions. Thus it flows smooth ly through the records office, the loft, production planning, tooling, purchasing and all the multitude of control points that make up a modern ind ustrial complex. F inally, of course, the mechanic in the shop makes up the part with ease and fits it perfectl y into the a irplane. High qua lity engineering 1s the soug ht-after goal of every ind ustrial orga nization. It is probably never at tained in an absolute sense. But the up-hill figh t goes on from the time the first line is put on a drawing, until the l:1st product rolls 011t of the shop. for the clost:r a company can come to this m ind to paper. day in and day out. is impossible of human attainment. But to continually strive for this ideal, is to continually strive for the pay-off of high qual ity eng ineering. W ith the " big stick'. of ai r power a \' ital factor in this warmongering world . we a re more apt to associate quality in engineering with the abi lity of the engineers and draftsmen to design pans th::n can he readi lv turned out on a quantity production basis . This producibil ity facet of engineering (]Ualin· is certain ly an importan t one. Production records sifted from statis- Q ua lit~· in e n1,:inecring ( to p ) s im p li fie, the productio n worker,' j o l, ( be lo w ) . H i 1,:h standard , in c n :,!'inceri n~ n1ean ~ produ<'lion ca n be ca rrie d out I,, · worke r;. o f ('0111- parativc h · low· ,k ills. w ithou t anv Sa('rifice ·of quali t~· in th e fin is he d product. t ies of World 'Nar II show that this feature, and the skill of the manage menr, w ere the two fac tors that deter mined the time a company took to tool up and produce a modern war plane. \~' hat eng ineer ing has achieved along th is line, is \\'h:n \'al Cronstedt, Direc tor ol Engineering for .'\ no Canada ·s Gas Turbine DiYision, ca lls the Second Industrial RcYolution. O ut of several hundred Pratt & V,' hitney engines built d uring four years of the last war, O\'er two-thirds were manufactured by un skilled licensees. without any prel'ious a ircraft experience. This fact adds weight to Val Cron stedt's words: ' 'During the last war such compl icated products as aircraft t- 2 !! u ii: IL I.II 0 0 bcr of pn:cis1on parts " ·ill increase, making this factor oi e\·en g reater im portance. Yet the tighter the tolerance on parts, the more difficult and costly they a re to make. Drawings that call for excessi\'ely close t.alerances, also call for wasting man-hours :rnd money. Jarry H yd raulics of 1\ lontreal. a Ca nadian cont ractor with a \\·icle repu tation for h igh qual ity workmanship in the aircraft hydrau lics and landing gear field, has had consider:ible exper ience on p recision manufacture . Says John W. Truran. an execuril'e of Jarry, "Basically, in a ircraft hy d raulics, the secret of quality in engi neering lies in knowing where to apply high precision and where not to. There I l I I I ~ < Cll a WIND TUNNEL l?E5ULT5 1 PREDICTED \, t FULL SCALE r :J I 2 I: MACH NUMBER. 0 FlGUR.E 1 LOW QUALlTY TEST RESUL. TS engines were made, not by skilled workmen, but by laundresses, wait resses. h ousewi \'CS. street sweepers, and cooks. Thev diJ this after only a few days instruction on the part each had to play in the ir industrial role. To accept this hard fact. is to accept the equally true one that the q uality in engineering in all its phases- d rawings. specifications, assembly anJ test inst ruc t ion s, etc.,- had reached a high degree of development." Precision in Production: T he re is an important side to this producihility that must not he forgotten . This is pre c isio n. And as the performance of mil i t:iry and cornrncrcial aircr:ift rise with th l' rapid p;in· of tn li11ology, the 1H11n have been m any exam ples in our manufacturing experience where draw mgs called for extremely close tolerances, simply because the designer has assumed that a ll h ydraul ic com ponents must be kept to such t ight d imensions. Our own serYice experi ence has shown that in many such cases normal shop limits would suffice. O n the other hand, we sometimes find parts, such as an actuating cyl inder, which will call fo r a relat ively rough fin ish of 32 m icro-inches. Jarry's ex perience on such as this dictates a finer 4-6 m icro-inches finish to ensure satis fac tory service." Applying the correct d imensional limit , to cnsun- good ~cr\'ICt'. easy manufact ure. and illlcrchangc:,l., il it y. hom:\er. is only one of tht many sides of quality engineering. But what is the founcl::nion for ensuring high quality e ngineering; Val Constedt, one o( the pioneers in aeronautical engineering . has d ra w n from his backg round of o\·er 40 years in the business. and states fran k ly that qual ity in engineering springs from the "moral fibre' ' of the engineering dep:irtment. Ii the moral fibre is hig h, then the qual ity of the engineering is high . on record 0 :\/E OF THE building blocks for maintaining a top moral fibre is an engineering records organiza tion. This is the pol iceman of the engineering department that ensures that the drawings are explicit in their instructions to unskilled workmen, that all pans lists and assembly lists are pris t ine in the ir accuraC\' . and that the engineering change system is m ain tained and functioning 111 such ;1 manner that there is ne\'er an y question of Engineering's intentions and instruc tions to Production, purchasing. outside Yendors, and others. Under Cronstedt ·s experienced eye, Ano's Gas T urbine Engineering ha\'C bui lt up a recording svstem that makes extensiYe use of punch card business machines. According to A no, and verified by the experience of Pratt & \ \ ' hitney and ~ ' right Aeronautical Corporation, a mechanica l recording system is the only answer to keeping track of the thousands of pa rts and the thousands of changes that go into a modern airc raft engine. Business Cards: Punch cards gi\·ing the basic drawing data . ca lled the Drawing Ti tle /\!aster . are supple mented wi th ca rds for the ?'\ umer ical Pans List, A lphabetic Pans List. Ma terial Specifica tions. Inspection and Processing, \,\'e ight :\nalysis. and many others. Through the use of these cards the Engineering Department can log \·alu able data, and answer many specific questions in an efficient and speedy manner. For example, the Procurement Department asked for the details on parts for a particular model Orenda engi ne th at were made from aluminum casting, forging, or extrusion, and from magnesium casti ng. 13y feedi ng the cards throug h the business machine, the answer was co mpleted and printed in k " tli;111 1 ho11n,. . /ll,C!..: .-ll'T In a nother case. it \\·as decided that a ll parts finished in black oxide would he ch:1ngl'd to a phosphate treatrnrnl. By push ing the l nspcction and Process ca rds through a h igh speed sort ing ma chine. th:ll can h :rndle these at a r:ne of (,()() :1 minute . the numbers or t he dr:1wings requiring this change were sifted out in less than l O minutes. M easure of E fficiency: This business like manner boosts engineering effi ciency. T he other importa111 building b lock to keeping the high sta nda rd of Cronsteclt's engineering team. is to m easure th is efficiency. This he does by a number or stati stic:il controls, such l/) ~ < J _, 0 0 V) 2 0 __, __, I 0 2D TIME: ).';roun '°"'" 111 most cases . .. often the first appc:.irancc. It gives a prcttv good idc:1 of 11·hat lies under the surf:ice .. .. 1lthough 11·c will :idmit that thcrc arc ,ome deceitful dandies. :\ ppc:tranccs count in aircr:1ft too1 .-\ gooJ :ippe:irance indic:ites a well-kept cr:ift because good :tppe:trance indicat<.:s attention . And that cared-for appearance instills confidence where confidence is nceded as 11-cll as increasing the ai rcraft' s value. .\ good appearance is so easily and inexpensi1·eh· obtained and maintained todav on anv ,teropbne 11·it h tried and proven products. He~c·s h

Quality in Engineering

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AVRO Museum

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