Again machine development has been greatly influenced by the war but somewhat differently than in 1940. For while standard types and existing designs of machines are being used largely in the manufacture of various types of munitions, there has been real development along a number of lines. Special lathes for shell work, new machines for use in making gears, thread grinders and new adaptations of broaching machines have been brought out in addition to producing an unusually large number of standard machines.
Equally important perhaps, was the entry of firms new to machine building into that field. While much of this has been through the contracting of work by well known builders of machine tools in order to meet the ever increasing demand for their machines, machine tools are being built by concerns who formerly made other types of machinery, and in some cases old machine tool concerns that had ceased manufacturing are trying to recover some of their lost trade.
The Office of Production Management has encouraged the building of well-known designs of machines by firms entirely outside the machine tool field. One of the General Motors Corp. plants, for example, is building planers from patterns and designs furnished by an old builder of these machines. Other types of machine tools are being built by plants which formerly built printing presses, hoisting machinery and other diverse lines.
Probably the most striking example of increased production is to be found in the machine tool field itself. Nominally a small industry with an output of $145,000,000 in 1938, and employing about 20,000 men, it has steadily increased production until in 1941 the value will probably approach $750,000,000, and give employment to 100,000 men in the builders' own shops. This is in addition to the thousands of men at work on machine tools in other plants which are making parts or even complete machines on contract in other shops.
Normally an industry with a limited output that prevented the economical use of some of its own best products, expansion of the machine tool industry has not been easy. And a few of the best known builders whose output was never large have been backward in increasing their production to meet the requirements of defense. On the other hand some of the more progressive concerns have done a marvelous job in increasing their output. They have not only enlarged their own plants but they have trained enough additional mechanics to run these plants in two and three shifts. This utilizes the productive capacity of their own machine tools and permits them to send more of their product to the shops on defense work instead of using it to increase their own capacity.
In addition these concerns are utilizing the capacity of many other shops not normally building machine tools, to supply them with individual parts or even complete sub-assemblies of their machines. This not only greatly increases the output of machine tools but it provides work for many shops which might otherwise be idle through lack of demand for their regular product or difficulty in securing the necessary material.
The demand for defense materials has also developed centers of co-operation in industrial districts which should have an effect of stabilizing industry after the emergency is over. A shining example of this is to be found in what has come to be known as the York plan, because the machine shops in and around York, Pa., pooled their machine building capacity, and under very able leadership have become a most important factor in the production of defense materials. Contracts which none of them could handle alone were taken collectively. Work was distributed among the various shops in accord with their capacity and the result has been most gratifying.
Another activity that has been greatly stimulated by the increased need for machine tools is the rebuilding or reconditioning of machines that have seen much service in various shops. Under the stress of war time demand for really good machines the rebuilding industry has become thoroughly recognized as a very legitimate part of the machine tool industry itself. Government specifications as to what constitutes a really rebuilt machine has, with the hearty co-operation of the best rebuilders, eliminated the risk of getting a machine on which the only work done was to wipe off the grease and apply a new coat of paint. No machine can be sold today as being rebuilt which has not received a specified amount of work of specified quality.
As now rebuilt in some of the better shops machine tools that have been built from 20 to 40 years can be made capable of producing great quantities of much needed machine work. With better spindles and bearings, better gears, the beds planed and scraped and with modern electric motors added, many machines have been infinitely improved over what they were when first built. Small motors added for rapid traverse relieves the operator of labor that was considered part of the job when the machine was built. This does not mean that they are equal to modern machines of the same type. But rebuilding gives them many useful production hours at a time when new machine tools cannot be obtained.
One example is that of a 36-inch lathe with a 20-foot bed which was lengthened to 100 feet by adding four more 20-foot sections. At the same time the mechanism of the lathe was rebuilt and motorized, and the lathe is now turning propeller shafting in on the large ship building plants.
Shortage of vital materials has led to priorities, which conserve them for the uses where they are most needed. There have been interesting developments in aviation and in ship building, some details of which are not public property at present. So that in all walks of industry the present world conflict is having a marked effect.
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