Quality Control / Honda 1970s

[Lobo]

As I approach first start-up of my 750K2 since total rebuild, I’ve been wondering whether Honda started every ‘750 unit and ran it through the gears etc before shipping? If indeed each engine was started, to what extent was its shakedown? And if they were shipped ‘cold ‘, what % of units had issues - inc the whole bike, eg forks / front brake (leaking?), electrical issues etc? Intrigued.

[Laverda Dave]

I remember seeing a film years ago of the Honda 750 production line and every bike was put onto a rolling road, run through the gears and all the electrical and brake systems were checked.

[heli_madken]

I saw a crate being opened in a 70s dealership with a partly assembled 400/4 inside. I cant remember how much assembly was required but would this mean the bike would have to be fully assembled to test on a rolling road then disassembled?

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

At the Luton Vauxhall production line circa 1963 they started them up drove them off at the end over some sort of cattle grid and into a car park. None starters were pushed to one side where they were fixed by a remidial team.

Addendum - again back in the 1960/1970 period vehicle manufacturers worldwide  used to send CKD kits all over the world - at one time all Opels sold in Ireland were assebled as CKD (Complete Knock Down) kits - the main components such as Engines, Gearboxes etc were fitted in the country of build - this was either due to a lack of skills or to get around import rules.

[Sesman]

Was it ‘every bike’ or was it batch testing.

[Lobo]

I guess, Ted, cars are a little different in that they are completed in the factory. As ‘madken has pointed out, the Hondas arrived onshore in many pieces (within their crates) begging the question were they ever fully assembled as a complete unit prior to dispatch.

And more crucially, English built Vauxhalls vs Japanese jewels…. hmmm 😂.

Anyways; it seems Laverda Dave has answered the question, with each bike being built up, tested and then partially disassembled for shipping.

Cheers.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

During the 1960s it seemed that every manufacturing place I worked at or visited regularly included a small group of Japanese  visitors with clip boards. Not sure if it was covert industrial espionage or what it was.

They certainly have attention to detail judging by what friends working at Toyota tell me.

[Laverda Dave]

The Japanese attention to detail and quality control is legendary. I remember doing a British Standards QA course in the early 90’s and we learnt all about Japanese methods such as JIT (Just in Time) for production and quality inspection at every critical stage. It has to be remembered Japan was flattened during the war and therefore they could start from scratch with new machine tools and methods taught to them by the Americans.
Of course Britain was victorious during in WW11 so of course we could get back to manufacturing on clapped out machines building pre war designs to pre war methods complete with oil leaks, poor quality of materials and inspection and all lead by poor management with zero investment for the next 40 years!
Allan (MICTD on here) was involved with QA and inspection and would know more.

[flatfour]

From memory, vehicles were supplied in "Knocked Down" or KD form to allow imports to incorporate the necessary local labour content. In some markets (perhaps notably India) the fitment of locally produced engines and other power train components was permitted by the manufacturer, in other markets (New Zealand for example) vehicles were supplied complete and assembled locally. It very much depended upon individual market requirements, although those countries incorporating their own components were subject to regular scrutiny from the UK factory.

At one time, K.D. Kits was such a big concern at Cowley that it had its own rail terminal within the factory.

For a while when I was in Japan, I was assigned to the Honda (car) plant. At the time, Jaguar were developing the AJ6 engine, as we were told that it was a complete new engine or retool for XK engine production, because the tooling was, at 30 years old considered to be too worn to work to tolerance. At Honda, most of the tooling was older than that and the tolerances far tighter, yet they achieved consistently high levels of quality in production.

[taysidedragon]

I went to the Triumph Hinkley factory back in about 2004 and had the full tour of the production line and testing area. Every single bike is started and run on a dyno to check engine performance and all systems work.
The bikes are then partly dismantled and crated for dispatch.  The crates are smaller that way, saves transport costs.
Triumph (John Bloor era) learnt how the Japanese achieve their high quality standards and followed the same process. I'm sure that Honda were doing it that way back in the sixties and seventies,  testing every bike before sending them out.

Incidentally,  Triumph transferred most of their production to the Thailand factories later, but are now bringing a full production line back to Hinckley.