Evening star., 1953-09-23
Today, the Buttons
Push Themselves
Automatic Plonts Presuqe
Factories Without Men
By Thomos R. Henry

By Thomas R. Henry
The automatic factory operated by
electronic brains now is close at hand.
It represents the next big step for
ward in mass production, the Ameri-
can invention which sometimes has
been called this countrys single great
est contribution to civilization and
which, probably more than anything
else, assures the Nations continued
wealth and security.
In the new kind Of factory, human
labor will be restricted largely to NOV
ing materials from one major opera
tion to another.
The chief developments in the auto
matte factory idea to date have been
in the electronics industry itself, for
mass production of the seeming in
f1nitely complicated mechanisms which
make up the insides of television and
radio sets, hearing aids, guided missile
directors and a host of military gad-
gets, many of which still ere on the
restricted list.
Project Tinkert0y.
Perhaps the major development has
been what the Navy calls-with the
war-born military fondness for code
names-Project Tinkertoy. 1t has been
cooperative project of the Navy Bu-
reau of Aeronautics. the Bureau of
Standards. and several industrial COM
panies. These latter include the Dough-
nut Corp of America, for it so happens
that there is real relation between
the mass production of doughnuts and
the nrnHi1PfinH1 nf oIoafrny,in Na,.fe
This project has advanced to the point
OF a large pilot plant in sight of the
Pentagon Building operated for the
Navy by the WHY'S Motor Co
Equally significant has been the auto
matte factory development of the STAN
ford Research Institute of Leland
Stanford University, working under an
Air Force contract. Both Navy and
university projects have proceeded
along quite similar lines, although en-
tirely independent.
The automatic factory idea has been
devoted chiefly to the electronics in
dustry as the field in which the need
seemed greatest. 1t is new industry,
hardly heard of two decades ago. 1t is
vital to national defense It's growth
in production of purely civilian products
has been phenomenal since the war.
This production now is at least SO
per cent greater. says the Stanford In
Stitute announcement, than during the
wartime peak.
In case of war, Navy engineers call
culated, the present electronics indus
try with its somewhat antiquated
methods could not possibly supply the
military demand, the necessary expan-
slonS would be slow, and the delay
might be disastrous
Techniques Out of Date.
Electronic devices themselves are new.
The industry, however, had only the
old production techniques to fall
back upon. These have been considered
the ultimate in Superefficiency but it
seems they already are getting little
out of date. considering the potential
tiles brought about by the advance of
science.
When layman not especially me-
chanically minded looks into the inside
of television set with it's great null
tiplicity of parts it seems about the
most complicated thing in the world.
Up to now, these parts, mass produced.
AAtN'~ ACA6SAy NSNAA lbtCd UOBCGIl6I Nv
hand. Many of the operations have
been extremely delicate They have
also, of course, been subject to human
errors and affected by the fatigue and
boredom of workers. Both the Navy
and the Stanford automatic techniques
make no mistakes. don't get tired, and
the fingers operated by the electronic
controls are nimbler than human
fingers.
All the patents of the Navy-Bureau
of Standards process are owned by the
Government and free to anybody who
wants to use them. There is nothing
secret involved.
Thus the automatic factory TECH
nique Should make possible not only a
vastly increased rate of defense pro-
duction, but should materially cheaper
civilian electronic devices. The amount
OF cost production, however, is difficult
to calculate. The initial investment in
machinery, for example, will be con-
sloerably greater than is necessary for
hand operation. Thus the machinery
In the present pilot plant cost about
So million. Taking this investment
into consideration, the Bureau of Aero
nautlcS engineers calculate a present
overall saving OF from Is to so per cent
in cost OF producing many civilian de-
vices.
Here again. however. the picture be-
comes highly complicated. For tele-
vision set, for example, the major ex-
pense is in producing the cabinet, and
this does not enter into the automatic
factory operations
Possibility of extending the tech
niques to industries other than the
electronic, where the immediate need
is not SO pressing and which have been
geared to other methods, remains to be
explored.
Questions and Answere