what is a presswork manager ??

[janjan]

hi i have a relative hector edgar who married in 1919 who was a presswork manager ? does anyone know what this job was ??
thanks???

 

[Alf]

I imagine he Supervised the Press workers. I believe they now call it Floor Management it must had been a special job having seen the size of the presses. Went on a school trip once to the works at Castle Bromwich Kingsbury Road where they were pressing whole motor body parts. Anyway someone on the Forum will put me right and more to the point you Jan

 

[jude]

Hi Jan, as Alf said he would indeed have been a department manager for the press shop. For those of you who dont know what a press is its a machine that turms a blank piece of metal into whatever it should be, they could be huge electrically operated machine press's as used in the car factories or they could be medium to small ones hand operated ones! I worked at Amal Carburettors Witton and when I wasnt on the assembly line I would go and work on the press's I loved it once you got the rythem going you could really knock your piece work out. And thats another story ha ha!

 

[Rod]

Press

Here are two types of press one worked by hand the other an electric powered press ........they came in various sizes from the small handpress shown to huge monster sized presses. A presswork manager might have managed many people in a Press Shop.

It's worth noting that the presses shown are for metal pressing, there are other kinds of press, the most obvious might be the clothes press used in large scale laundries. There are other kinds of Pressing machines too.

 

[Goffy]

Everyone is talking about "presses" both hand and power. More important is the Press tools that are fitted into these presses, these are specific to the part that they produce, and are manufactured by Press Tool Makers.
The Presswork managers job would be to ensure that the correct tooling would be being used in the presses under his control to produce component parts at the correct quantities to match a production schedule. with the possibility of either or both press or tooling breakdown, his job would be extremely skillfull and at times very stressful, and a vital link in the chain to ensure a constant flow of production parts, especially vital in the motor trade. Goffy

 

[Goffy]

Yes gary, This type of pressing requires rows of very large presses, when you consider the number of pressings required to produce a motor vehicle and the immense cost of tooling, its only by efficiently high production techniques that the cost per vehicle is kept relatively low. All pressings are now produced to very close tolerances, only possible by modern manufacturing methods, so when a vehicle reaches the end of the production line, it will not only start at the touch of the key, but tick over at the correct rate, from where it is driven to its designated area for transport.
These component parts, be they pressings or otherwise, are not stored ready for use, the old way, they are ordered to arrive on the production line at the precise time and place where they are to be fitted, and considering that the varieties of versions of the same vehicle, the ordering and production of parts
is of extreme urgency. Goffy

 

[matchpoint]

We've found some female press workers in the family tree. Would there have been any difference in the type of press operated by men and women in the late 1800s?

 

[Alf]

We've found some female press workers in the family tree. Would there have been any difference in the type of press operated by men and women in the late 1800s?

These would be the smaller ones worked by hand above, posted by Rod #4

 

[Peter Walker]

Presswork in 1919 is very different from today, although big machines were being developed very raidly then. I would guess that a lot of the workload would be spinoffs from the WW1 war effort, as it would have taken some time to tool up for new projects.
Peter