The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-06-21
BY LEO L. REDDlNG.

|
One of the most important services
an active development organization
can render to it's town is the compiling
of information as to just what kinds of
industrial establishments the town
ought to have and can support.
The collecting and analysis of this
sort of information is termed making
an industrial survey" In some of the
larger cities many thousands of dol
lars are spent annually by commercial
organizations in making industrial SER
veys and keeping the information con-
tanned in them up to date. For this pur-
| pose experts who have made a life
| time study of industrial conditions, are
| usually called in. Indeed, the making
of an absolutely accurate and'complete
| industrial survey is one of the things
| that can only be done satisfactorily by
| a trained expert, and for this reason
| it is a task which must ordinarily be
| financed by an organization rather
| than by an individual.
The main essentials of an industrial
survey-the basic information from
which correct conclusions must be
/ drawn-are not so easy to collect &C
curately as might appear at first
glance, since there must be added to
a complete knowledge of local condi-
tons, the widest possible range of in
| formation regarding industrial devel-
| opment of all kinds in all parts of the
| country.
l know of one large industry, with
capital running into the millions,
which requires for the manufacture OF
| its finished product three kinds of raw
material, the products of three widely
separated sections of the country. Let
us call these three kinds of raw ma
terial &C. 81" and CO." This company
built up great business by establish
! ing its plant at a point where the raw
material &C" could be obtained almost
without expense. 1t had to haul 81"
100 miles by rail and 90" 1000 miles
by water and 200 miles by rail.
But competing manufacturing estab-
lished plants at points where they
could get both &c" and 81" at a mini
mum of expense, and 90" with much
! shorter haul.
The company | am telling about,
thereupon moved it's plant several hun
dred miles, added some more millions
to its capital and began manufacturing
| at point where it could obtain IL"
at a minimum of expense without
transportation, &c" by a 20O-mile rail
haul and 20" by a 1,000-mile water
haul.
In this new location the company
prospered exceedingly until a rival
concern employing an industrial engi-
neer to make a study of its operations
and industrial conditions in a score of
communities, finally established a
plant at a point where 20" was pro-
duced. to which ~" could be trans
ported by short haul and find that
even with 1000 mile transportation
charges added to the cost of CO. it
can make the finished product much
more cheaply than the first company
l have referred to.
This was case in which only an
expert, thoroughly trained, would have
dared to recommend the establish
ment of the plant of the rival COM
pany where it was actually located.
And to go to the other extreme,
know of town of 1900 population, in
the center of a great fruit growing
territory, where the natural assump-
ton was that factories making apple
barrels, peach baskets and strawberry
boxes ought to flourish. But these in
dustrieS were established and failed
because of conditions which the local
people who backed them were ignor-
ant of-conditions that made it posi-
Bile for manufacturers hundreds of
miles away to make the same articles
and deliver them at the railroad sta
ton in this town for less than the To-
cal shops could make them. Finally
an expert was called in, some time
spent in the study of local conditions.
and then he pointed out what was
needed there was cannery. The
planning mill and the basket factory
were converted into a oannery and
the prosperity of the town and the
farming country surrounding it was
materially increased
/ Getting factories is one thing-gett-
ing the right kind of factories is an
other thing. No community wants to
encourage failure. What your COM
mercial organization can do for your
town is to engage the right kind of
an expert to make the right kind of an
industrial survey and cooperate with
him so that he obtains all the essen
tial information. The right kind of an
expert will discover resources of raw
material, productive but UNEMPLOYED
labor, transportation possibilities that
imost Of the psAple IN your town never