Radio Automation

Forerunner of the Integrated Circuits

Nowadays, computers and robots are everywhere. Production lines can be almost entirely con-trolled by them, and the workshop is full of the sounds of machines without the chatter of workers. In the mid-1940s, labour-free production was still a fantasy because there were no computers and electronic devices were very primitive. However, in the British countryside, there was a highly automated production line, which could generate 1500 radio receivers a day with very little manpower.

John Sargrove, the visionary engineer who developed the technology, was on the cutting edge of his time. For more than a decade, Sargrove had been trying to figure out how to make radios cheaper. Automating the manufacturing process appeared to be helpful. But radios didn’t lend themselves to such a method: too many parts and wires had to be linked. Even a simple receiver might have 30 separate components and 80 hand-soldered connections. At every stage, things had to be tested and inspected, so radios required a large amount of highly skilled labour to make.

In 1944, Sargrove came up with a solution. His idea was to dispense with most of the fiddly bits by inventing a primitive chip – a slab of Bakelite with all the receiver’s electrical components and connections embedded in it. The chip he designed could be manufactured by machines. After World War Ⅱ, at a small factory in Ef fingham, Surrey, Sargrove built an automated production line called electronic circuit-making equipment (ECME).

At one end of each ECME line, an operator was sitting there to feed in the plates. She didn’t need to be equipped with much skill, only quick hands. From now onwards, everything was manipulated by electronic switches and relays. The first stop was the sandblaster, which roughened the surface of the plastic so that molten metal would stick to it. The plate was then cleaned to remove any traces of grit. The machine automatically checked that the surface was rough enough before delivering the plate to the spraying section. There, eight nozzles rotated into position and sprayed molten zinc over both sides of the plate. Similarly, the nozzles would not start spraying until the plate had been placed well, and the plate swished. The next stop was the milling machine, which ground away the surface layer of metal to leave the circuit and other units in the grooves and recesses. Now the plate was a composite of metal and plastic. It sped up to be painted and the circuit was tested. By the time it emerged from the other end of the line, robot hands had fitted it with sockets to attach components such as valves and loudspeakers. It took only 20 seconds for the whole process when ECME was running at full throttle.

ECME was astonishingly advanced. When the panel arrived, the electronic eyes and photocells would produce a small current to trigger each step in the operation, thereby avoiding undue wear and tear on the machinery. As the plates moved along the conveyor, they were automatically examined at each stage. And the machine would automatically adjust itself or even stopped when necessary, if there were more than two sub-quality products in a row. In an orthodox factory, workers’ responsibility is to look over the faulty circuits and repair them. But Sargrove’s assembly line fabricated circuits so fast and cheaply that they directly cast away the faulty ones. At the time, Sargrove’s circuit board was even more surprising. It predated the printed circuits that are now widely used in electronic devices, from watches to military weapons, yet it was more sophisticated. Its built-in components made it more like a modem chip.

When Sargrove presented his invention at a meeting of the British Institution of Radio Engineers in February 1947, most professional engineers were impressed by it. So was a journalist from The Times. He reported the following day: ‘ECME can produce almost without any help from a human, an entire radio receiving set. If this method could be applied to other forms of electronic apparatus such as the television, the eff ect would be equally excellent.’

The receivers had many advantages over their predecessors. With fewer components, they were much sturdier. The possibility of robots making the sorts of mistakes human assembly workers sometimes did was quite low. ‘Wiring mistakes just cannot happen,’ wrote Sargrove. No wires also meant the radios were lighter and cheaper to ship abroad. And the radios were more reliable because no wires would come off. Sargrove also pointed out that the circuit board could be bent, and this opened up the prospect of inserting electronics into the cabinets of Bakelite radios.

Sargrove had devoted himself to applying this type of automation to other products. He believed the innovation could be used to make more complex electronic devices than radios. And even if only part of a manufacturing procedure was automated, the savings would be substantial. But although his invention was extraordinary, he was not being favoured by chances. ECME was too progressive for its own good. It could only seem competitive on the condition of mass production because each new task meant retooling the machines. Besides, break-down was frequent. Complicated as it was, ECME still depended on old-fashioned electromechanical relays and valves, which failed with monotonous regu-larity. The downfall of Britain’s economy made things worse. Most industries were dogged by power cuts and post-war shortages of materials. Sargrove’s financial backers began to get cold feet.

There was another problem Sargrove hadn’t foreseen. One of ECME’s biggest merits – the savings on the cost of labour – also accelerated its downfall. There were two ECME production lines in Sargrove’s factory to yield the two circuits required for each radio. The two lines did what a thousand assembly workers would have done before. Workers were only needed to put the raw materials in at one end, insert the plugs into the sockets, and install the speakers at the other. After that, the only work left was to place the pair of Bakelite panels into a radio cabinet and check whether it worked properly.

Sargrove, a bit of a utopian idealist, regarded automation as the resolution to post-war labour shortages. He thought his new technology would liberate people from drudgery on the produc-tion line and give them opportunities to do more meaningful work. ‘Don’t have the idea that we’re depriving people of their jobs,’ he told the Daily Mirror, ‘our duty is to free men and women from being the slaves of machines.’

Sadly, workers saw things differently. They viewed automation in the same light as the everlasting light bulb or the suit that never wears out – as a threat to people’s livelihoods. If automation spread, they would stand little chance of being released to do more creative occupations. Instead, they’d join the dole queue. Financial backing for ECME fizzled out. The money ran out. And Britain lost its strong momentum in a technology that would revolutionise industry just a few years later.

Questions 1 – 7

Label the diagram below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1–7 on your answer sheet.

Questions 8 – 11

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 8–11 on your answer sheet.

Questions 12 – 13

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in boxes 12 and 13 on your answer sheet.

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