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The baroque arsenal
Inquiry issues Paul Sieghart (chairman) The big public inquiry Report sponsored by the Council for Science and Society, Justice and the Outer Circle Policy Unit. Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust Ltd, London (1980) 72 pp, £1.50 This book considers what should replace the public inquiry system in cases where the development in question is an important feature of some controversial national policy, especially where some new or complex technology is concerned. Previous attempts (the Roskill Inquiry, the Windscale Inquiry) have not been satisfactory and there are difficulties with the Planning Inquiry
Commission which has remained unused. The proposal is for a Project Inquiry, separate from a statutory local planning inquiry, which would investigate, impartially, thoroughly and in public, the need for the project, the benefits which are claimed for it, and the costs and risks of all kinds which it will or may entail. In so doing it should consider all feasible alternatives, and should give people who are not themselves involved in the decision-making process a wide range of opportunities for contributing relevant material to it, and at the same time help to inform them about the project and its implica-
tions. Only after adequate public discussion and Parliamentary support would the local planning inquiry occur. Because of the adequacy of the prior discussion less time would be needed. The kinds of proposals which might be set before a Project Inquiry include: the construction of a Commercial Demonstration Fast Reactor, a Severn Barrage, a Channel Tunnel. The kinds of procedure are detailed. Waiting in the wings are: (1) the funding of objectors, and (2) environmental impact assessment.
H Faber
The Kondratiev connection and the military millstone M Kaldo The baroque arsenal Andre Deutsch, London (1982) 294 pp, £7.95 This is largely about weapons and weapon systems and the influences which play upon design, whether for armaments or for the normal products and services obtainable in the market place. As with many of the policy studies which are now flowing from Sussex University, it begins with a nod in the direction of Schumpeter and Kondratiev and their long waves--the surges of development each associated with a different technology and a different location. This is to give a framework within which 'baroque' armaments may be set. The twist in terminology came originally from a former director of the Livermore Radiation Laboratories when he wrote of 'baroque, even rococo varieties of A bombs and H bombs.' There is some linkage between the predominant industrial technology of a period, its principal country of exploitation, and the weapons systems employed. For the UK in the 1880s the emphasis was upon shipbuilding and heavy engineering; for the USA in the 1940s the thrust was upon automobiles and aeroplanes. Now Japan is seen as the principal centre of development for electronics. Military technology sometimes is very advanced, stimulating for example, the use of new materials such as aluminium and, later, titanium. At other times the technology drags back or distorts the national economy, contributing to its decline. This latter effect
vol 3 no 3 july 1982
will be commented upon with respect to the UK below. Baroque armaments are 'the offspring of a marriage between private enterprise and the state' but there is a conflict between the capitalist dynamic and the conservatism that tends to characterize armed forces and weapons designers. A weapons system largely defines the lines of command and comprises the basis of the military equivalent of an industry. It involves a weapons platform, a missile, the means of command and communication, the operation and servicing personnel, the stores, etc. The procurement of weapons is analogous to the setting up of a new factory except that this factory does not trade in a market. The criteria of success are internally gauged and 'the system is almost completely introverted, concentrating on the perpetual perfection of itself against some future day of judgment.' Baroque armaments involve attempted optimization, increasing sophistication, and proposals for multirole functions because of the increasing cost of development. They artificially expand industries which would otherwise have contracted, absorb resources that might otherwise have been used for investment and innovation in newer, more dynamic industries, and distort concepts of what constitutes technical advance, emphasizing elaborate custombuilt product improvements that are typical of industries on the decline, instead of the simpler mass-market process improvements which tend to characterize industries in their prime.
The execution of design itself becomes complicated and difficult. Large groups become involved and the people who actually do the work become far removed from the corporate reward system and tend to minimize the risk that their individual subsystem may be considered unsatisfactory. This is further compounded by the multiplicity of external critics, each of whom may have his own interest to preserve. Reports from Litton Industries suggested 'that whatever the merits of its basic concepts, unless the proposal defined such subsystems as, say, the galley in great detail, whoever was evaluating the galley part of the proposal would give the proposal low marks. Since there were many such subsystems, a disproportionate amount of Litton's effort was devoted to routine subsystem design.' The design, development, and production of weapons is, by and large, undertaken by a handful of prime contractors who work in close association with the corresponding armed service groups. The prime contractors deal with a multitude of subcontractors. Between these agents there develops a web of communications. 'If results at one level of design indicated the need to trade among higher order objectives, the whole elaborate hierarchy of specification detail--detail which coordinated the engineering efforts of thousands of contractors and government officials-stood in the w a y . . . ' In this way the development of 'gold-plating' in design and the tremendous slippage of time
165
become explained. The general thesis of the book is promoted through several case presentations. The first deals with Vickers in the UK, then there is a review ofthe American era, followed by an analysis of conservatism in the USSR. Interestingly the book came out just a little ahead of the 1982 sessions of the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence and the Financial Times (3 March 1982), in reporting evidence presented to the committee, brings out some of the points suggested in principle in the book. The Ministry of Defence buys some 20 per cent of the UK electronics output, about ~ of the output of the shipbuilding industry, and about ½that of the aerospace industry. There is a substantial difference between the methods of working required to deal with UK ministry contracts and those needed to deal with competitive weapons supply in world markets. Again, weapons procurement and design and development have standards which depart considerably from those expected in dealing with commercial non-weapon engineering products. The Financial Times gives the example of the Clansman family of combat radios which took 16 years from first studies to production, finally incorporating complex, expensive and out-of-date technology: this was to be compared with an industrially competitive time of three years maximum to provide 'the good' rather than 'the best'. In the case of the mechanized combat vehicle (MICV) the first study of the diesel power pack was commissioned in 1969 and, after the trial of ten power pack designs, there are still 3-4 years to go from now before the plant will be in service.
Again, a competitive effort produced power packs in under three years. The Ministry of Defence has a procedure (called by the industry the 'snakes and ladder process') which consists of five basic steps: formulation of a staff target (ST) in which the armed services, helped by government R&D organizations, say what new system they would like. A feasibility study (FS) assesses the ST to refine it to a Staff Requirement (SR). This provides a statement of intent by the ministry to order such equipment but the project is subjected to project definition (PD) before a decision is taken to go to full development (FD) with orders placed upon industrial companies. At each stage a project is scrutinized by key committees. At the beginning each armed service has its own committee, while in later stages scrutiny is by Operations Requirements Committee and Defence Equipment Policy Committee. The latter only examines projects exceeding £25 M in value. Ministers generally only become involved at the FD stage. In a subsequent leader the Financial Times (12 March 1982), goes on to discuss the tendency to call for higher sophistication in weapons and the justification which is advanced that they are more effective ('more bangs per buck'). A consequence of this is that weapons costs outpace inflation and that weapons spending has a greater effect on the national economy which, in turn, may have further consequences. Kaldor goes into great detail concerning what she calls the militaryindustrial crisis, quoting particularly from the USA scene. The effect on engineers is noted: 'Since I've been at Lockheed, I've been laid off a total of
five times in nine years. Lay-offs are a real severe problem to people.., there are something like 3500 who are hourly, and the rest are salaried, close to 10 000 are really specialists, really brilliant in their area...' A Rockwell designer remembered when 'there was literally an aerospace engineer's uniform. We all wore white shirts and black ties. Engineering was our entire lives. Many of us lived simply for the joy of solving complex technological problems...' Comparable instability in employment in other countries is quoted and linked with the development of 'alternatives' movements. In a military sense Kaldor sees a possible line of development through cheap precision guided munitions, using modern electronics on a massproduced basis, etc. This echoes in a technological way some of the radical non-technological thinking about warfare by such people as Liddell Hart in the 1930s. In any case many practical examples of simple or local measures, involving weapons and manpower, can be set alongside the giant systems. But the over-arching notion is that we are embedded in a complex of contemporary social systems, a mixture of capitalism and central planning, with a dynamic and a rigid side. These are impregnated with associated categories of thought and the technological outlook of the time. Within this web we have a little freedom and may make choices based on some awareness of how the whole thing moves which, with a lot of luck, may bring some advantage.
ability, reliability, appearance, and all other characteristics that the need entails. The handbook is aimed at directors and senior managers in industries where product standards for quality are largely dictated by cost and competitiveness. It also concerns buyers and producers of items and systems in all sectors of industry where agreed contractual commitments prevail. Further, it deals with control schemes which are likely to interest those concerned with their introduction and operation. Logically the handbook begins with a glossary of some 37 concept groups, eg design with respect to quail-
ty. It is indicated that there are at least 12 types of specification. Standards and techniques are provided for those characteristics which relate to quality: economics, safety, manufacture, reliability, maintainability, maintenance, availability. Sampling and measurement are dealt with. A primary emphasis is upon management, as in BS4981, BS5750 and BS5760. The last of these particularly stresses programme approaches and should be widely studied. The span of industrial applicability is considerable.
Polly Storr
Quality and reliability Quality Assurance British Standadards Institution Handbook 22, BSI, UK (1981) 243 pp Some seven major standards in fifteen parts are brought together in this book providing a structure of quality. It deals with quality assurance systems, reliability and reliability programme management, and quality related costs. Quality in this context is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a given need. To assure control or improve quality it is necessary to evaluate it in terms of economics, function, availability, maintain-
166
Sydney Gregory
DESIGN STUDIES
Commission which has remained unused. The proposal is for a Project Inquiry, separate from a statutory local planning inquiry, which would investigate, impartially, thoroughly and in public, the need for the project, the benefits which are claimed for it, and the costs and risks of all kinds which it will or may entail. In so doing it should consider all feasible alternatives, and should give people who are not themselves involved in the decision-making process a wide range of opportunities for contributing relevant material to it, and at the same time help to inform them about the project and its implica-
tions. Only after adequate public discussion and Parliamentary support would the local planning inquiry occur. Because of the adequacy of the prior discussion less time would be needed. The kinds of proposals which might be set before a Project Inquiry include: the construction of a Commercial Demonstration Fast Reactor, a Severn Barrage, a Channel Tunnel. The kinds of procedure are detailed. Waiting in the wings are: (1) the funding of objectors, and (2) environmental impact assessment.
H Faber
The Kondratiev connection and the military millstone M Kaldo The baroque arsenal Andre Deutsch, London (1982) 294 pp, £7.95 This is largely about weapons and weapon systems and the influences which play upon design, whether for armaments or for the normal products and services obtainable in the market place. As with many of the policy studies which are now flowing from Sussex University, it begins with a nod in the direction of Schumpeter and Kondratiev and their long waves--the surges of development each associated with a different technology and a different location. This is to give a framework within which 'baroque' armaments may be set. The twist in terminology came originally from a former director of the Livermore Radiation Laboratories when he wrote of 'baroque, even rococo varieties of A bombs and H bombs.' There is some linkage between the predominant industrial technology of a period, its principal country of exploitation, and the weapons systems employed. For the UK in the 1880s the emphasis was upon shipbuilding and heavy engineering; for the USA in the 1940s the thrust was upon automobiles and aeroplanes. Now Japan is seen as the principal centre of development for electronics. Military technology sometimes is very advanced, stimulating for example, the use of new materials such as aluminium and, later, titanium. At other times the technology drags back or distorts the national economy, contributing to its decline. This latter effect
vol 3 no 3 july 1982
will be commented upon with respect to the UK below. Baroque armaments are 'the offspring of a marriage between private enterprise and the state' but there is a conflict between the capitalist dynamic and the conservatism that tends to characterize armed forces and weapons designers. A weapons system largely defines the lines of command and comprises the basis of the military equivalent of an industry. It involves a weapons platform, a missile, the means of command and communication, the operation and servicing personnel, the stores, etc. The procurement of weapons is analogous to the setting up of a new factory except that this factory does not trade in a market. The criteria of success are internally gauged and 'the system is almost completely introverted, concentrating on the perpetual perfection of itself against some future day of judgment.' Baroque armaments involve attempted optimization, increasing sophistication, and proposals for multirole functions because of the increasing cost of development. They artificially expand industries which would otherwise have contracted, absorb resources that might otherwise have been used for investment and innovation in newer, more dynamic industries, and distort concepts of what constitutes technical advance, emphasizing elaborate custombuilt product improvements that are typical of industries on the decline, instead of the simpler mass-market process improvements which tend to characterize industries in their prime.
The execution of design itself becomes complicated and difficult. Large groups become involved and the people who actually do the work become far removed from the corporate reward system and tend to minimize the risk that their individual subsystem may be considered unsatisfactory. This is further compounded by the multiplicity of external critics, each of whom may have his own interest to preserve. Reports from Litton Industries suggested 'that whatever the merits of its basic concepts, unless the proposal defined such subsystems as, say, the galley in great detail, whoever was evaluating the galley part of the proposal would give the proposal low marks. Since there were many such subsystems, a disproportionate amount of Litton's effort was devoted to routine subsystem design.' The design, development, and production of weapons is, by and large, undertaken by a handful of prime contractors who work in close association with the corresponding armed service groups. The prime contractors deal with a multitude of subcontractors. Between these agents there develops a web of communications. 'If results at one level of design indicated the need to trade among higher order objectives, the whole elaborate hierarchy of specification detail--detail which coordinated the engineering efforts of thousands of contractors and government officials-stood in the w a y . . . ' In this way the development of 'gold-plating' in design and the tremendous slippage of time
165
become explained. The general thesis of the book is promoted through several case presentations. The first deals with Vickers in the UK, then there is a review ofthe American era, followed by an analysis of conservatism in the USSR. Interestingly the book came out just a little ahead of the 1982 sessions of the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence and the Financial Times (3 March 1982), in reporting evidence presented to the committee, brings out some of the points suggested in principle in the book. The Ministry of Defence buys some 20 per cent of the UK electronics output, about ~ of the output of the shipbuilding industry, and about ½that of the aerospace industry. There is a substantial difference between the methods of working required to deal with UK ministry contracts and those needed to deal with competitive weapons supply in world markets. Again, weapons procurement and design and development have standards which depart considerably from those expected in dealing with commercial non-weapon engineering products. The Financial Times gives the example of the Clansman family of combat radios which took 16 years from first studies to production, finally incorporating complex, expensive and out-of-date technology: this was to be compared with an industrially competitive time of three years maximum to provide 'the good' rather than 'the best'. In the case of the mechanized combat vehicle (MICV) the first study of the diesel power pack was commissioned in 1969 and, after the trial of ten power pack designs, there are still 3-4 years to go from now before the plant will be in service.
Again, a competitive effort produced power packs in under three years. The Ministry of Defence has a procedure (called by the industry the 'snakes and ladder process') which consists of five basic steps: formulation of a staff target (ST) in which the armed services, helped by government R&D organizations, say what new system they would like. A feasibility study (FS) assesses the ST to refine it to a Staff Requirement (SR). This provides a statement of intent by the ministry to order such equipment but the project is subjected to project definition (PD) before a decision is taken to go to full development (FD) with orders placed upon industrial companies. At each stage a project is scrutinized by key committees. At the beginning each armed service has its own committee, while in later stages scrutiny is by Operations Requirements Committee and Defence Equipment Policy Committee. The latter only examines projects exceeding £25 M in value. Ministers generally only become involved at the FD stage. In a subsequent leader the Financial Times (12 March 1982), goes on to discuss the tendency to call for higher sophistication in weapons and the justification which is advanced that they are more effective ('more bangs per buck'). A consequence of this is that weapons costs outpace inflation and that weapons spending has a greater effect on the national economy which, in turn, may have further consequences. Kaldor goes into great detail concerning what she calls the militaryindustrial crisis, quoting particularly from the USA scene. The effect on engineers is noted: 'Since I've been at Lockheed, I've been laid off a total of
five times in nine years. Lay-offs are a real severe problem to people.., there are something like 3500 who are hourly, and the rest are salaried, close to 10 000 are really specialists, really brilliant in their area...' A Rockwell designer remembered when 'there was literally an aerospace engineer's uniform. We all wore white shirts and black ties. Engineering was our entire lives. Many of us lived simply for the joy of solving complex technological problems...' Comparable instability in employment in other countries is quoted and linked with the development of 'alternatives' movements. In a military sense Kaldor sees a possible line of development through cheap precision guided munitions, using modern electronics on a massproduced basis, etc. This echoes in a technological way some of the radical non-technological thinking about warfare by such people as Liddell Hart in the 1930s. In any case many practical examples of simple or local measures, involving weapons and manpower, can be set alongside the giant systems. But the over-arching notion is that we are embedded in a complex of contemporary social systems, a mixture of capitalism and central planning, with a dynamic and a rigid side. These are impregnated with associated categories of thought and the technological outlook of the time. Within this web we have a little freedom and may make choices based on some awareness of how the whole thing moves which, with a lot of luck, may bring some advantage.
ability, reliability, appearance, and all other characteristics that the need entails. The handbook is aimed at directors and senior managers in industries where product standards for quality are largely dictated by cost and competitiveness. It also concerns buyers and producers of items and systems in all sectors of industry where agreed contractual commitments prevail. Further, it deals with control schemes which are likely to interest those concerned with their introduction and operation. Logically the handbook begins with a glossary of some 37 concept groups, eg design with respect to quail-
ty. It is indicated that there are at least 12 types of specification. Standards and techniques are provided for those characteristics which relate to quality: economics, safety, manufacture, reliability, maintainability, maintenance, availability. Sampling and measurement are dealt with. A primary emphasis is upon management, as in BS4981, BS5750 and BS5760. The last of these particularly stresses programme approaches and should be widely studied. The span of industrial applicability is considerable.
Polly Storr
Quality and reliability Quality Assurance British Standadards Institution Handbook 22, BSI, UK (1981) 243 pp Some seven major standards in fifteen parts are brought together in this book providing a structure of quality. It deals with quality assurance systems, reliability and reliability programme management, and quality related costs. Quality in this context is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a given need. To assure control or improve quality it is necessary to evaluate it in terms of economics, function, availability, maintain-
166
Sydney Gregory
DESIGN STUDIES