Billingham Film Unit cine magazine called "The Workshops Can Make It" that focuses on the organisations and processes of the ICI Billingham Engineering Works.  Footage includes staged meetings and to camera pieces, and a look at all the work undertaken in the different workshops including the Drawing Office, Pattern, Mould, Blacksmiths, Platers, Plumbers, Tube, Machine and Fitting workshops, and the Central Office for administration. A manager explains about the "work...

Billingham Film Unit cine magazine called "The Workshops Can Make It" that focuses on the organisations and processes of the ICI Billingham Engineering Works.  Footage includes staged meetings and to camera pieces, and a look at all the work undertaken in the different workshops including the Drawing Office, Pattern, Mould, Blacksmiths, Platers, Plumbers, Tube, Machine and Fitting workshops, and the Central Office for administration. A manager explains about the "work studies" programme. Title: Just Billingham Number 21 Title: The Workshops Can Make It The film opens with a panoramic shot of the ICI Billingham site and discusses how to move materials from place to place.  Interiors of the chemical plant are shown with workers.  Inside the control room various instruments are seen that control the processes.Two shots of pressure gauges show dials at different angles. Engineering Works Workshop Manager Mr W Panton addresses the camera from his office in the next shot, explaining the function of the Engineering Works. A staged telephone phone call between Mr Panton and the workshop manager takes place.  After the workshop manager arrives in the office, he addresses the camera and elaborates on the various skills and divisions of labour within the department of 1200 men. Sequences depicting the work that goes on in each different workshop follow: draftsman are at work in the Drawing Office; wooden patterns are produced in the Pattern workshop; metal moulds are made in the foundry, with casts made from brass, bronze and aluminium; metal components are shaped in the Blacksmiths workshop; welders are at work in the Platers workshop; pipes and tubes that are unique processes to ICI Billingham are made in the Plumbers shop where workers in aprons oversee an electrically operated welding machine.  In the Machine and Fitting workshop, turning, planing, grinding and finishing take place.  Finally the film introduces the administrative hub of the Central Office.  Workshop Manager Jack Cheseldine reports on progress and achievement while asking questions of a worker in a meeting about the hold-up in die-casting jobs. The lay-out of the foundry is also discussed with Bernard Webber, the Work Study Officer for Engineering Works. Webber then explains in some detail what "work studies" are and how this has led to increased wages. A tracking shot through the workshops filled with complex machinery closes the film. Title: The End Credit: Billingham Film Unit