The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-16

| n CIieCk-uEl Oh inc auCOLuOLlVe re
placement parts procurement polio,
of the Army was begun during thu
past summer by the Senate Truman
Committee investigating the wal
effort. The war had been going OF
for year and half by this time
and reports were coming in thai
sizeable inventories of spare part.
were being built up. The committee
wanted to find out what it was al
, about.
There were no public hearings anC
there was no formal report, so the
subject never got much of an air.
ing. But the investigation turned
up some surprising facts:
Whenever new truck was or
J dered, Their ewere also ordered fol-
that vehicle complete set of what
were known as concurrent spares.
These parts were of course intended
for replacement and repair in case
Of breakdown. But included in the
concurrent spares were parts seldom
NEEDED during the first year of the
trucks life
DIRECT PURCHASE
SOON ABANDONED
/ In ordering these concurrent
spares it was the policy to place the
order with the prime contractor,
the vehicle manufacturer who, in
most instances, ran an assembly OPP
Grafton only, buying engines, wheels,
chassis, and other components from
separate parts makers. For month
in 1912, there had apparently been
an order requiring spares to be pro-
cured In the most direct manner
possible-that is, from the firm that
originally made the parts-but this
order was short lived, and the old
routine of ordering through the We
hicle aSsembler was again resorted
to at the cost of an extra engineer
ing inspection fee, or commission.
About that time the Truman
Committee was we'll into its investi-
cation Of these practices, the Army
made a change in its policies on
parts procurement. First, the list
OF concurrent spares required to &C
company each vehicle or set of We
hicles at the time of delivery was
reduced by eliminating a great num-
Der of the items not required for
! first-year maintenance. Second,
parts other than concurrent spares
were ordered directly from the orig
inal manufacturer.
1t was by these two simple steps
Of changed business procedure that
officers in charge OF this procure
ment were able to report savings of
a billion dollars. They weren't say
ing at all. What the whole thing
amounted to was a stoppage of
waste.
But still the inventories of parts
for vehicles continued to pile up,
far beyond use, far beyond demand.
CONFUSION. DUPLICATION.
OVERSTOCKING
Further investigation into the
common practice of the automo-
tive parts trade began to show why.
In this parts supply business, it is
the custom for one parts manufac-
turer to sell to several vehicle as
semblers. All parts are identified by
serial number. Thus, one independ-
ent parts manufacturer might sup
ply two or three companies with an
item to which he would give q serial
number of say. 1884. When COM
pany A gets this part, however, 1t
may give the part a new number
al Its own, of say 12345. And Com
pany B might give its number of
123456. All parts would be inter-
! changeable. even though they had
different numbers in different cata-
logues.
Failing to take into consideration
this interchangeability of parts re-
suited in tremendous duplication
When it is considered how many
hundreds of thousands of parts are
supplied vehicle assemblers, the
danger Of overstocking becomes ap-
parent.
What has perhopS hurt even worse
is that the indiscriminate ordering
of quantities of every part Just to
build up an Army supply inventory
has squeezed necessary civilian
transportation.
This is the way the little things
pile up.