John, have a read of the Wiki page I referenced above. What you say is bits of the story, but they don't apply to 'RR Merlins', because the UK end of the manufacturing was much more diverse than a couple of sheds with fitters in one and engineers in another!
But there's a nugget of truth to the refinement 'in shop' and hand fitting approach at the RR Derby works - but
not at Crewe, Glasgow et al.
The 'data lag' of design changes was a common issue in the period and a factor even in shadow factory production in the same area, let alone across the Atlantic. Some was a lack or recorded data, but in the case of the Merlin, given there were also UK shadow factories, and as I said above even a Ford factory, that would not affect the Packard organisation alone.
That said, most would agree that the UK aero-industry was, until the development of shadow factories with semi- and unskilled labour, culturally a much more 'skilled worker' rather than building the skill into the machine mass production approach, which was the model the US followed in W.W.II.
That
also said historian L.T.C. Rolt rejected working at Crewe because he saw it as a depersonalised and deskilled machine, which actually says a lot about what you see and a lot about you (in Rolt's case he was a late 'arts and crafts' engineer in a sense) and not necessarily an objective assessment of the subject.
I'd also say that the US expanded the production infrastructure incredibly quickly and incredibly effectively, even with the lead in of European purchase and lend-lease of 'pre-war' materiel. The UK's gearing up, even with the expectation of an expansion capable structure had a remarkable number of hiccups from
prima donna owners, industrial action and governmental and factory slowness. But then no US factory was ever bombed by the enemy, nor all the surrounding issues that the British 'got on with it' under.
It's a fascinating area, but when reading about it watch for the partisan bias in too-much of the general writing on the topic. There were cultural differences (from the level of spelling and vocabulary, like this post with 'organisation' and 'labour') to actual industry approach. However watch out for the theme: 'ours good, shortcomings their fault' which gives away someone with a home-team bias, and thus data to be wary of.
Regards,
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