ABSTRACT
The general electric corporation was a major force behind automation. The company had been a pioneer in automatic machine tool control and, having abandoned early record-playback efforts, had become one of the chief manufacturers of numerical controls (N/C). The aircraft engine group, with plants in Evendale, Ohio, and Lynn, Massachusetts, employed the bulk of N/C expensive equipment, in the fabrication of rotating parts for military and commercial aircraft engines. The cost-effectiveness of N/C, then, was dependent upon optimum utilization of the equipment, and this could only occur with effective maintenance of the machinery, careful coordination of the production process as a whole and efficient machine operation. The N/C machinists would be expected to keep the machines running. Management had learned quite a bit about the realities of running N/C equipment by the time the strike ended. The low machine utilization and poor quality led to increased management pressure on the work force.
