Evening star., 1942-02-02

miracle of the American mass pro-
duction technique, is born again out
of the rooted IS acres of eternally
turning wheels. For the last decade
these cars-filled with gas, oil and
water and all ready to be driven
wherever the long roads beckon-
have been coming to the end of the
production line at q constant rate
of one a minute for II hours each
working day.
This great factory, largest Of
Chevrolet plants, is being turned
over completely to producing imple-
ments of war-chiefly armored We
hicles. There are walls and roofs,
power plants, men. trained brains
and practically nothing else for the
titanic job in hand.
Product of Specialized Machines.
The Chevrolet was the product Of
hundreds of highly specialized ma
chimes. Lathes, drills, presses and
all the rest have been designed
through the years. each for one job
and one only-that necessary to pro-
duce part for Chevrolet. A
lathe, for example, was not the sort
Of lathe one would find in a ma
chine shop or even in a small in
dustry. 1t was lathe designed to
cut just so much, perhaps few
thousands Of an inch, OF the top of
an engine block. at just the right
time in just the right place. 1t
would take a block of metal just so
big and no bigger-or with, at the
best, a very slight margin of ad-
! justment.
Such has been the technique OF
mass production which has made
possible the millions OF Chevrolets
crowdingSAmerican highways. The
machine was made to do one job
perfectly, without the slightest pos
sibility Of error. A drilled hole in a
sheet of metal one-five-hundredt
/ of an inch out of place or ten
thousandth Of an inch too small in
diameter might mean stopping the
whole production line, with enor-
nous wastage Of power and time,
until the error was located.
The automobile industry simply
could not afford such a possibility
Human eye and hand, however
skilled, are bound to make mistakes
They cannot be trusted to adjust q
machine The machine has only
one job to do. 1t does it in precisely
the same way, millions and millions
of times, without ever being
changed
Weakness Of Mass Production.
Such has been the strength and
in the present emergency, the weak
ness of mass production. For the
lathe made to exact specifications
for shaving a thousandth of an inch
OF a block Of steel foot wide and
feet long cannot be changed to
shave a five-hundredth of an inch
of block IA inches wide and feet
long.
This is hardly an exaggeration.
The machines in the Chevrolet fac
tory were designed to make parts
for Chevrolets-parts 50 exact in
dimensions that any one of them
made at any time can be fitted into
any Chevrolet anywhere in the
world. Such a part is absolutely
useless for any other purpose. 1t
couldn't possibly be made to fit a
| Cadillac or a Pontiac.
The particular job to which this
factory has been assigned is not
| far removed from the ordinary au-
tomobile- making technique. But the
fact that it has automobile-making
machinery-actually is a disadvan-
tage.
Machines Tossed Out.
Machines which have cost up to
S60,000 and which weigh many tons
are being moved laboriously from
the factory and, for want of storage
space, covered with grease and
placed under tarpaulins in vacant
lots. There they will remain until
the end of the war. Plant officials
hope that they will be of some use
again sometime, that wind and rain
will not cause millions of dollars
worth of complex mechanism to
deteriorate too badly. But, they ad-
init, the war is bound to have a
profound effect on automobile de-
sign and mechanism and it may be