PREVENTION IS BETTER

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 8th Year

Issue

Issue No.

3

Date Released

Nov 1954

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1PREVENTION IS BETTER
2. 2HELPING HANDS
3. 3FAIR DEAL: regatta story

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: Essential colliery workshops for planned work-flow brings the job to the skilled men. Servicing of machinery, locomotives and motor transport, concentrated and well- equipped maintenance service to perhaps many other collieries. A maintenance indexing report is provided of the location and task undertaken.
NCB Commentary - The colliery of to-day depends more and more on the machines in service underground. When these machines break down, as machines will, there is trouble. Production is held up, men are idle.
Up until recently maintenance and repair of machines has been carried out mainly at the colliery itself. Good new machines have been cannibalised for spares but robbing Peter to pay Paul is always a wasteful business.
Colliery workships are essential for local servicing, but may of them are out of date, with inadequate facilities. Prevention is better than cure and to-day the trend is towards doing first-aid servicing at the colliery, and keeping accurate information on machines and their working life in a central establishment where forward planning can go ahead and regular maintenance be carried out.
To-day there are Central Repair Workshops dealing with the needs of whole areas. Machines that come in for regular servicing are first stripped and cleaned chemically before their component parts are checked for wear and for the need to replace them.
At these workshops the layout brings the job to the men, and encourages a planned flow of work as opposed to the piece-meal patching up which is inevitable in the small colliery workshop. This way expensive machine tools and skilled men used to major over-haul work are concentrated in a well-equipped workshop serving perhaps a score of collieries.
Such a workshop is equipped to carry out complete reconditioning of all machinery that can be transported from the colliery.
Stores are important too, not only for parts but in order to loan out replacement machines while the orginals are undergoing servicing.
To-day existing Central Workshops are being extended and new shops are being designed with planned maintenance in view.
The Coal Board won’t be satisfied until there is one within reach of every colliery area.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 5 September 1954.

Keywords

Science and technology; Mining; Engineering

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.9 No.109, November 1955, p570.
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board