Imperial Valley press., 1942-07-02
CAPITAL TALKS
by
Peter
Edison

YOU get W lllliihAiS tAiN' W."
production is coming along lam
ously. and then you bump into ma
chine tools, which provided the
country with the original Public
Bottleneck No. way back in Oc-
tober 1910, when the country was
Just getting defense conscious
Well, the machine tool bottleneck
has been widened considerably but
you still can't get a machine TOOL
through the eye of a bottle, or you
can't make a machine tool out
OF a sow's ear, or something
Preliminary figures on ma
chine tool production for the
merry month of May run to
SIIS million. That figures out
at the rate of STA billion worth
of machine tools a year. Com
pared with 1882 machine tool
production, which was only S22
million for the entire year,
that's wonderful. II means that
i'm May, 1912, the cOuntry's 100
odd machine tool builders turn
ed out over five times as many
pieces of metal working ma
chinery as the industry turned
out in the whole of the bot
tom depression year. and nearly
as much i'm that one month as
i'm an average $50 million year.
Yes, that's wonderful, but it's still
not good enough. In February, 1912,
machine tool production required
was placed at 81 billion worth for
the year. Though the rate OF pro-
duction has been going up every
month, from 10000 units in Febru-
ary. to 24,000 in March, to 25,40O
in April and 29,500 in May, 81 bill
lion worth of machine tools year
means 100000 new units year or
over 41.0O0 a month and the in
dustry is still quite a way from
that goal.
60-HOUR WEEK
What's wrong? Recent figures OF
the Bureau of Labor Statistics in
dicate the industry as a whole is
still averaging only 60 hours week
The theory of putting the industry
on a three-shift, 168-hour work
week is still a theory. Some OF the
big plants have attained 1t, but a
lot of the smaller ones haven t. Not
enough machine tool makers foi
one thing, and certain lndepeno-
ence among them, for another. II
some skilled workman is assigned
to the second or third shift, he Is
too likely to say, why should l
when l can go to some other plan'
and get a job on the first shlftP'
A lot of the men now making ma
chine tools had never seen one
wear ago. The training program ma.
been tremendous, but it has no
been licked.
Shortages of special steels ant
alloys have interfered, too.
A vast amount OF missionary
work has been done by the machine
tool division of WPB and its engl'
neers to encourage greater use Of
plant facilities, more extensive sub
contracting, developing new sources
to build complete machines, finan-
cial relief on plant expansions. Bu'
the Job of machine tool productlor
has been confined largely to the
firms that were in the business be-
fore the defense effort began ane
there has been too little or too late
conversion of other industries capa-
BILE machine tool production.
CROSS S-CRITICISM
There is a possibility that new
machine tools were over-ordered
While Army and Navy procurement
| officers have criticized WPB foi
failing to step up machine tool pro-
duction as fast as the services
wanted it, Army and Navy have
themselves been criticized for ap-
proving too many high preference
ratings on new equipment, and no.
insisting on more sub-contractint
and wider use of existing equip
ment.
That situation was partic-1y
corrected in May, When WPB
took over control of machine
tool ALLEGATIONS, assigning IS per
cent of all new tools to use by
us. manufacturers of war sup
plies available to u. S. factories
Another relief, reducing the siz'
of the bottle to the size of thu
bottleneck, is WIPES current sur
vey of new facilities. If it is de
termined that there will not b.
sufficient materials to keep goinI
some of the new plants being plan
ned, building of those new plant
may be stopped. Machine tool
ordered for those plants could b
diverted to other uses
k~>lL>~D Ds~vs1san