Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-10-01
By JOSEPH S. EDGERTON.

Development of hundreds of small
business and industrial concerns to
provide materials and parts for war
planes and the farming out to allied
industries of contracts for part and
subassemblies has greatly eased the
emergency load on the aircraft fac
tories and has made it possible for
them to step up production in the
face of shortages of trained per-
sonnet, plants and tools.
Before the British and American
emergency demands, for airplanes
launched the aviation industry into
the present expansion program only
about per cent of the total VOL
ume of aircraft production was
handled through subcontracts. To-
day at least Is per cent of the total
is in subcontracts, and the proper
ton Is gorwing.
Broadens Load.
The farming out of contracts for
castings, cut and shaped parts, cleo
trical equipment, instruments and
subassemblies of various kinds has
taken much of the expansion load
off the airplane factories them
selves, has distributed the national
defense load very broadly among
American Industries and businesses.
building them up and so creating
strong production pyramid. Using
the subcontracting method has OBJ
waited the necessity for three shift
operations in airplane factories
which have been short of trained
personnel for carrying on operations
around the clock.
The airplane engine industry has
developed the subcontracting sys-
tenn even more extensively than
has the aircraft building industry
1t is estimated that the engine in
dustry today is subcontractirg as
much as 40 per cent of its business.
Both the airplane and the engine
industries are resorting to another
method of overcoming the shortage
of highly skilled aviation workers
and especially of supervisory per-
sonnet. This is the breaking down
of manufacturing operations.
Requires Less Versatile Men.
In the past one man might have
carried one part such as a piston
through a number of operations,
such as machining the casting, drill
ing for pins and growing for rings.
He had to be acquainted with many
types of machine operations and to
transfer from one type of machine
to another, setting up various types
of cutting tools and making pre-
cision adjustments.
Breaking down the process, one
man would carry on single opera
ton on one machine, requiring far
less experience and skill. The draw
back to this method is that it re-
quires many more machine tools
and a vastly greater amount of
space. It's great advantage is that
a man can be trained in relatively
little time to carry on single OPP
Grafton by rote and can do it with
out much supervision.
This breaking down of operations
is the secret of the automobile mass
production method. That it has
not been developed more extensively
in the aircraft industry has been
due to the fact that few airplanes
of any one model have been built
in the past, as compared with the
tens Of thousands of automobiles
OF the same model produced.
Raises Many Problems.
Breaking down of operations in
an airplane factory. however, is
lengthy process, calling for very de-
tailed engineering planning, the de-
signing of special tools for indi-
vidual processes, the construction of
tools and the enlargement of fac
tories and redesigning of the as
sembly lines.
The process of breaking down OPP
erations, however, is going on today
all through the aircraft and engine
industry. the pace usually being de-
termined by ability to get the neces-
sary machinery designed and built.
1t is a process which will vastly
speed up production once it be-
comes possible to freeze" particu-
lar airplane design so that thou.
sands instead Of scores or hundreds
Of one model can Be manufactured.