New-York tribune., 1918-03-06
ARTICLE vi

line OF derrick ana pie OrlVer towers
guarding the front of Hog Island as
far the range of vision makes a brave
array, 1t seems like challenge-the chal-
lengc of America to Germany. Visible from
the remotest parts of the island the quaint
towers stand pharos, ever reminding
the workers behind the line that all they
do and all they build are not to themselves
but to the front-to ships, to ships, to ships
to the crossing of the ocean-to France
to the Rhine.
On the shipways the towers proclaim and
create are to be born the children of all
this travail. Such a battery of ways was
never dreamed of before these great times.
There fifty of nem-fifty troughs for
pouring ships into the from the Won
drous plant behind-somc for 4O0-foot ships
and some for 450. The minds that con-
ccived this vast scheme grasped the
possibilities of $50 ways, two completed
ships day, or near 100000 tons a year
from one yard When they reduced it to
fifty ways shpbuilding minds, trained in
the old ways and accustomed to the old
scales, stood aghast. The Emergency Fleet
Corporation had scarcely signed the con-
tract when it was filled with anxious regret.
The thing was too great, too complex, to
succeed The suggestion was made that
the company alter its plan and concentrate
on twenty five ways
A Revival of Faith
Then faith was restored. At the next
moment of unfaith it suggested that
thrty-two ways would be enough at the
start. But when it was seen how the whole
tremendous plan of manufacturing ships
was based on exactly fifty ways the original
decision confirmed. To-day work
drives ahead on all the ways, twelve are
ready for shipbuilding and every one of the
fifty will be ready before ship steel for all
is hand.
The ways arc built in groups of ten each,
with considerable intervals between grouns.
The ways of group are of concrete
on concrete piles; all the others are of
timber supported by wooden piles Between
the ways and at either end of them are two
steel derrick towers, supporting booms,.
which between them are able to reach with
their "hooks" every part Of the building
vessel. Standard gauge railway tracks run
down between the ways to deliver material
to the derrclrs, from two extensive and sew
cral smaller storage yards. from the shops
and from warehouses. Fifty or more small
warehouses at the land ends of the ways
afford temporary storage for the smaller
parts An elaborate and carefully planned
network of railways feeds the ways, both
from storage and from the shops, that do
that part of the work which remains to be
done on the material before it is nut in
place, even in fabrication yard South of
the ways work is proceeding on the eight
l,O0o-toot piers at which the ships will lie
while being outitted.
Endless Procession of Workmen
although the ways are constructed in
groups OF ten each, five ways constitute an
erection unit. Speaking roughly, the prin-
ciple OF modern quantity production-such
as that of the automobile factories-is to
bring the material in an endless stream
past the workers, each doing his part as
each piece reaches him. 1t is n.cnifest that
you cannot move ship on a convcyor along
a me OF workmen. SO Hog Island moves
the workers along the ships in a continuous
process. Fer example, the erecting gang
places the parts of keel No. | of group No. l.
Alter them come the rivctcrs and the ercct
ing gang goes on to No. . and as the r;v
etcra follow them to No. they go on to
NO. D. When the keel of No. is comnlc+od
snip NO Is ready to launch, and the end
'Ne' procession OIL Workmen, each doing his
particular part on each ship, follows thcm
pack to NO. ! and to No again. In
TINS way each worker becomes an cxnert
specialist He nttains the maximum of his
personal efficiency by doing nothing but a
certain narrowly limited kind of work tho
rlveters themselves, for instance. being dis
tr'putcd into several classes, according IA
the different kinds of rveting. Thus. von
might say that in this assembling work
ready-made workers deal with rcady-mado
parts. ""N'
ms narrow specialization has tho further
mp et'aht advantage of making it n matter
~ ~. Dl'ei framing to qualify men skilled in
other metal work than sh;nbn;,dinm ~ :"