Molins System 24 Machining Centre

My father (Patrick ‘Pat’ Davies) worked as a sales manager for Molins between 1968 and 1974, when the machine tool division was closed down to save costs in order that Molins could go public.

My father had trained as an engineer in the immediate post-war years, first at Miles Aircraft and then doing his national service in REME. He worked for many years for E A Carters, including installing an improved electrical system for the fuel rods on the nuclear reactor used for training at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich (somewhere near the Romney Road and Trafalgar Road junction). (See "Control Panel for Jason Nuclear Reactor")

My father worked for Dr Theo Williamson and Jimmy Hutchinson. Theo Williamson had developed at Ferranti's in Edinburgh the concept of numerically controlled machine tools for three-axis cutting machines in order to avoid the problems and errors inherent in manually-operated drills and lathes (epitomised in Alan Stilltoe’s classic novel Saturday Night, Sunday Morning). Ferranti was a pioneering electrical engineering business. At Molins, Theo Williams designed the world’s first batch production system and later invented and supervised the development of a fully-automated machining system, called System 24, and now generically known as flexible manufacturing systems.

Molins started as a packaging manufacturer, principally for the tobacco industry, and became a major manufacturer of cigarette-making machines. Both businesses required high standards of engineering. Molins invented the flip-top cigarette packet which proved fundamental to the marketing of Phillip Morris’ Marlboro brand. When my father joined Molins the factory was based in Deptford (on Evelyn Street). I remember that from the top of the office block there was a good view over the still-working docks to the north and east. Inevitably the site is now close to the large McDonald’s opposite Surrey Quays (sic).

The machine tool division moved to Saunderton, near High Wycombe, Bucks, in 1969/70. Across the road from Desmond Molins’ farm, the factory was set in some lovely Chiltern countryside. I used to visit the shop floor with my father on Saturday mornings (and learnt to drive in the car park on Saturday afternoons). Molins was one of the first private companies to buy an IBM/360 Model 40 computer. This was installed in an air-conditioned double-glazed room - and with its own white-coated ’priesthood‘. Everything was programmed on punch cards. Molins and IBM jointly developed the software to operate System 24, and many of the early machines were installed in an IBM factory in the US. Watching the blocks of aluminium being cut on the machines was impressive, as were the cigarette machines. My father’s briefcase was always full of samples of cut pieces, including the Concorde window frame. Molins had open days at the Saunderton site, and published a glossy company magazine, Molinissmo. There was plan for the BBC’s Tomorrow's World to include System 24 in a programme, but this never came to fruition. They were exciting times, with lots of interesting engineers from around the world coming to our house, and a feeling that with System 24 Molins was on the threshold of realising the new technology dream for British manufacturing.

My father returned to work on System 24 in 1980 when a French company Intertec bought many of the plans, spares and some of the machine tools, and started to manufacture updated machines. With hindsight Intertec repeated the mistake of Molins by not manufacturing themselves or subcontracting the products required by customers, rather than only selling the machines. But they had some success in the US and Indian markets. Intertec was hit by the downturn in the aerospace industry and folded in the late 1980s. Intertec’s founder was Henri Kahn, whose son Phillipe Kahn in turn founded Borland the software company.

— Jonathan Davies