The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-04-11

Chicago.
A visitor to the plant comes
upon a business conducted on a
scale that amazes and in a fash
ion that makes one realize the
modern world is moving too
twiftly for following methods
of the past. The factory on
Dickens avenue is as new in its
spirit and in its workings as
radio itself.
For instance, the Grigsby- Grunow
Company has no warehouse. Thirty
carloads of raw materials come into
the plant every morning and thirty
carloads of completed radios go out
every night.
5000 Sets Daily
That means 5000 complete radio
sets turned out at the plant every
day, and even this output is nov
insufficient to supply the worldwide
demand.
So adequate supplies can be avail
able, the company has five mills
with all efforts devoted to providing
lumber for its needs; approximately
eighty-four tons Of steel is used
each day; enough wire is used for
its super dynamic speaker to circle
the globe daily; $4,000 pounds of
tinfoil is used every day; approx
mately $4,000 pounds of paper daily
for condensers; more than twenty
tons of wax each day for the i'm
ORIGINATING of condensers, chains,
etc, and more than five thousand
pounds of aluminium.
These figures become more i'm
pressive due to the fact that only
five years ago the Grigsby- Grunow
Company was operating in one floor
of a little building on Lake street.
A year ago it got along with 100000
square feet of floor space. Five
years ago the number of employees
totaled only forty.
Made Own Machines
Radio is new, and the company
found itself without any machines
in vogue to handle heavy pro-
duction. Its own engineering staff
made the required machines and
made them so simply that they
could be operated without mistakes.
There are fifty experimenting
engineers in the employ Of the COM
pany today and their slogan Is 1T
can be done"
This attitude is a reflection of the
spirit Of the two men, still COM
pc ~atively young, who are at the
head of the institution and who
grasped opportunity when the
identification of radio was at its
dawn.
At the plant on Armitage avenue,
Mr.. Grigsby and Mr.. Grunow, with
a few hundred employees, had the
nucleus for the present expanded
institution. There has been a
genius FOR handling men as we'll as a
genius for mechanics. The new
plant is a place where ability is
recognized and the pay envelope
reckoned accordingly.
AS recently as last July only a
fifth of the floor sr~"e at what was
the Yellow Cab Company quarters
were used by the firm. Now all OF
the space, 100000 square feet, is
utilized.
$4,000 for Picnic
Last August a picnic of the plant
employees and their families was
held at Cary Seven thousand at
tended. The cost of the outing,
taken care Of by the firm, amounted
to $4,000.
Ten Northwestern trains OF
twenty cars each we're required to
transport the picnickers. Mr.. Grigs-
by and Mr.. GrunoW both attended
the picnic and gave proof of the
fact that they had not forgotten
how to play and that the romantic
success of their business venture
had not altered their spirit of
camaraderie.
Good workmanship" is the slogan
Of the firm, for to every seven or
eight employees there is an inspector.
And each set, from the time it
leaves as raw material and comes
forth finished article, goes through
1000 tests.
And after that
Well, there is no city, village or
hamlet in America where the sets
turned out in the big plant on the
northwest side are not In use.
Also they find their way TO many
foreign countries, among them Eng
land, Australia, Japan and China.