Evening star., 1942-06-28
Industry Learns
New Methods
In War Drive
Godgets to Be Bigger,
Better and Cheaper
After Conflict
BY FRANK MacMILLEN,

bigger, better and cheaper.
Men who have been considered ex-
perts on mass production as the
country knew it before this war ad-
nit they are just beginning to
realize what true Standardization
plus quantity production can mean
when peace returns
The huge demands of war and
the scarcity of many materials
hitherto considered essential are
driving home the lesson, technical
men say, that this country has never
really tried mass production on the
grand scale.
There are plenty Of experts who
assert that when the effort is really
applied to everyday consumers and
durable goods the results will be as
founding
Types Simplified.
Back of their assertions lies
little publicized but intense drive di-
rected from Washington and spread
ing throughout the counntry's man
u1acturing plants to concentrate
production on relatively few types
and sizes of manufactured goods so
that mass production can really earn
its name-so that huge quantities Of
| a given item can be turned out with
out the halt and waste implied in
| interruption for size and variety
changes which have little real re-
lation to consumer preferences.
This by no means implies dead
level of similarity in the things
available to the consumer after the
war, experts on standardized and
simplified design said.
Much Of the change will take place
where the average user will never
know the difference; in the "in-
| nards" of automobiles and washing
machines, the sizes of home piping
for water and heating, the size and
variety Of buttons and buttonholes.
the simphfcation of underwear
types and sizes. fewer sorts OF elec-
! trio. bulbs. to name only a fraction
of the possibilities.
Such changes make little differ
ence in the long run to the user.
Yet they mean big savings by the
producer in materials needed now
| for war, and eventually such savings
in materials are expected to ccme
back to consumers in peacetlme
| in the form of lower prices and,
often, improved goods.
Big Savings Seen.
That such simpltdcation efforts
really speed production and lessen
the use of materials was indicated
by a recent comment of Howard
Coonley, former president of the
National Association of Manufac-
turers and now chief of the simpli-
fication branch of the War Pro-
duction Boards Bureau of Industrial
Conservation, on a single material
limitation order issued by his
bureau affecting the valve and pipe
industry.
He said of this one order, known
as L-42:
schedule 2 cuts down the number
(of kinds) of pipe fittings which are
being produced from $500 to less
than 5000. It has been estimated
that by means Of this one simplifled
practice order an increase OF Is to
IS per cent in production can be
accomplished in this branch Of the
industry.
I'm the line of brass. bronze and
IRON body valves, covered by sched-
ule / of LAP we expect we shall
be able to increase production and
shipments by 25 per cent.
TT is estimated that this schedule
alone will save more than 100000
pounds of copper-base alloy enough
to produce about 100000 50-milli.
meter fuses
Savings in material which are
expected from other schedules Of
LAP include 10000 tons of cast
iron through the simplification of
soil pipe and fittings, as well as
$1,000 tons Of steel and 500 tons
of copper through elimination Of
metal jackets for boilers
Regarded IS Sample.
Considering this as merely
sample of what is being accom-
plished in simplifying industrial de-
sign, experts here are convinced
that. after the war, there will be
no return to multitude of little
used types and sizes Of industrial
products. that mass production will
finally be freed to produce in hugh
quantities
The work has been going forward
rapidly under such Government
agencies as Coonley's division, the
whole specifications branch Of
WPB, the Governments National
Bureau of Standards which was in
the field many years before the
war. the Army, Navy and Treasury
procurement services, and the
American Standards Association.
the chief engineering society in
terested in this work
Most important lift for the move
ment toward standards and simpli-
| fication recently has come from
Price Administrator Leon Hender-
son, who has written for the current
issue of the Magazine of the Amer
ican Standards Association an
article which frankly recognizes
that prices cannot be regulated
properly without the kind of con-
troll OF quality which is implied in
recognized and widely applied in
dustrial standards.
Technical experts here are con-
vinced that once such standard and
simpHfied lines are developed for
goods used by consumers, manufac-
turers will never again return to the
relatively hit-or-miss system which
was common before the war.
They believe that more profit to
the manufacturer and cheaper
prices to the buyer, when peacetime
markets return, guarantee the COR
rectneSs OF their prediction.
kArX, T.~GI:> I@-,n,