similar professional ethics regarding clients' confi-dences are observed as in those instances where weare bound by the terms of a written agreement; but,of course, we are not so tightly bound in otherdirections.

ConclusionIn this Paper I have attempted to touch on as many

aspects of the profession of Industrial Design as spacewill allow and tried to show Production Engineersthat appearance design is no longer the spare-timeactivity of the artist or the architect but is, in fact,the full-time preoccupation of the specialist who hasbeen trained from youth for his profession, who is indaily contact with all aspects of engineering, and whocan understand the manufacturer's point of view.

I have tried, too, to impose upon you my convictionthat the Industrial Design Consultant can bring newthoughts into those design offices where work hasbecome channelled into a set course by decades ofexperience. He can take a leap in the dark which

may, and often does, steer his client towards a neWoutlook.

Above all, I hope I have gone some little waytowards making the point that by team work we cangreatly enhance the prestige of our nation's mer-chandise. British industry at this moment is begin-ning to feel the effects of ever-increasing pressurefrom abroad, a pressure that can only be relieved bybetter and cheaper products which we, the ProductionEngineers and the Industrial Designers, can do somuch to bring to fruition. Our combined rolesprovide a new hope for British industry.

AcknowledgmentsFinally, I would like to place on record my sincere

thanks to those of our clients whose names areappended to the illustrations herein, for their kindnessin allowing me to publish these examples of mydesign work; and to certain of my colleagues for theeditorial and other assistance that they have so freelygiven in the preparation of this Paper.

SESSION IX

INVESTING IN BETTER MACHINE TOOLS

by Sir STANLEY RAWSON

Sir Stanley Rawson, Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, 1914-1921. Chairman,Wickman Limited. Vice-Chair man, John Brown & Co. Ltd. Director-General of Machine Tools, Ministry of Supply, 1951-1953. President ofNational Federation of Engineers3 Tool Makers, 1949-1951 when he resignedto go to the Ministry of Supply. Co-opted to Council of N.F.E.T.M. October,1953.

Sir Stanley Rawson

INVESTMENT implies a return upon what isinvested and that return must be more than what

is needed to replace the amount invested, as well aswhat the late President Coolidge crisply called the" hire of the money ". Quite a number of people areprepared to contend today that the return must coverwhat is needed to replace, by modern assets, thoseupon which the original investment has been spent.This — we may perhaps call it the " inflationarytheory of redemption " — is really a by-product ofexcessive taxation. It reflects the growing uneasiness

as to the amount and rate of capital accumulation inour economic system in which the number of compul-sory preferred choices is increasing, so limiting gravelythe proportion of accumulation available for freeindustrial expansion.

We are living in an age of metals. To all appear-ances we shall continue to do so for a very long time;and machine tools are the instruments by which notonly metals but all similar products of art are giventhe shapes and forms in which we need them. Themachine tool has come to be recognised, even perhaps

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embarrassingly so, as the instrument of advancedproduction. It is thought of, especially perhaps in theHouse of Commons, as a mechanised cornucopia fromwhich flows an increasing stream of desirable arti-facts, shining new and self-sufficient. One day thismay well be so; but for the present we should per-haps be content to say that the machine tool is adevice by which applied skill can effect a geometricaland not an arithmetical improvement in production;improvement, of course, means more than quantitativeimprovement. The skill which can produce a goodworkpiece can produce the means of making manygood workpieces, and making them speedily,accurately and consistently. Speed, accuracy andconsistency or repeatability are the functions ofmachine tools and should not be merely the resultof the manoeuvres of the operator.

In its present form, the machine tool is at oncethe creator and the creation of the most far-reachingand perhaps least regarded industrial revolutions ofmodern times, namely, the production as a matterof course of metals homogeneous and uniform in com-position, and with known and predictable physicalproperties. Similarly cutting materials, as well asthe materials to be cut, have reached a consistencyof structure and performance which no longer leavesthe machine tool designer or constructor to deal withthe problem of irregularity in his materials of con-struction or in the cutting tools he uses. It is nowpossible to predict with confidence how a machinetool should run to remove most economically a givenamount of metal. Production and production timescan be planned with reasonable exactness and auto-matic cycles devised and determined, without fearsof intermittent " hard spots " or similar irregularities.Ideal cutting speeds can be approached by the com-bination of well-designed cutting tools and well-designed structural elements of the machine tool.

New Cutting ProblemsThis does not, of course, mean that all problems

have been solved. New metals, new artifacts, suchas plastics, are coming into being, each presenting anew cutting problem, either in speed or tool form,or power absorbed. Reference need only be made tothe variety and intensity of the design studies for pro-ducing, by machine methods, suitable blade forms forthe gas- turbine; and there is no doubt that problemsof even greater complexity will be presented to us inthe course of atomic power development; but thespecialist development of today is the commonplaceof perhaps ten years hence. Today we are moreconcerned with that which is the normal and acceptedsphere. Seventeen years ago, it is probable that notmore than fifteen per cent, of the machine toolpopulation of the country could make effective useof hard metal tools. * Today probably less than fifteenper cent, cannot. For many applications today thelimit of cutting capacity of a hard metal tool is thestrength of the bond between the tip and the shank;and new methods of attachment or application havebeen devised; and newer materials able to cut metalat fantastic speeds are already over the horizon.

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Speed of cutting must be accompanied by accuracy;and the art of cutting must go hand in hand withthe art of measurement. Pieces and components cutat high speeds must go together without that lab-orious and time-consuming rectification which canwaste, on the fitting bench or floor, all that has beensaved on machining. No small part of the irregulari-ties of machine tool production came from intermit-tent shock in the mechanical transmission to thecutting tools. Improvements in gear design and gearproduction have gone far to eliminate this; and thesubstitution in many cases of hydraulic or electricalcontrols has removed still more of these sources ofinaccuracy.

Machine tools are capital assets of a quite specialtype. They are especially flexible in that their useis not confined to one special field of engineering.It does not matter how specialised a particularmachine may be, its products can find a home in awide range of applications. This at once simplifiesand at the same time complicates the problem ofinvestment in them. More factually perhaps thanany other form of capital asset, a machine tool canand should be valued as a calculable repository orstore of valuable future services. What those servicesare must depend upon the particular product amachine has to produce and what are the means ofcalculating the probable intensity of loading of amachine; and whether the intensity of loading isenough to bring it about that the saving in labourcost can offset probably the higher oncost chargesand higher depreciation cost.

If we look for a moment merely at the math-ematical problem of direct labour cost, it would beprofitable to refer to a short but very valuable studypublished in the early days of the war by theMachinery Publishing Company, Ltd. The authorwas Mr. E. G. Flushey, who evidently collected hisdata about 1939. Taking a comparison of threetypes of machines, he showed the wages cost perhour to be the figures in Column A; Column B showsthe corresponding figures for 1956.

CapstanS.S. AutoM.S. Auto

Comparing

A1939

l/10£d.8±d.

l/2*d.

the current pricesmachines, the position appears to

CapstanS.S. AutoM.S. AutoM.S. Auto

BritishU.S.A.

A1939100100100100

B19565/3d.2 / -3 / -

Increase

180%182%190%

of correspondingbe as follows :-

B1956187.5147.0132.0164.5

Apart, therefore, from any problem of pace ofdepreciation, direct labour costs are swinging awayfrom any reasonable conceptions of machinedepreciation. In itself this is a prima facie case forreplacement of more less effective by more effectivemachines.

DepredationDepreciation is, of course, a highly ambiguous

conception. Technically, as opposed to financially, itmeans the process or series of processes by which amachine tool grows less valuable for its purpose. Thestage of lessened value, at any particular point, maybe marked subject t6 any abnormal influences, suchas serious shortage or pressing demand for machinetools by its realisable market value. That marketvalue is what the average prospective buyer thinksis the approximate worth of its future services in itsthen state. This is only an approximate guide, but isa useful check on financial depreciation or amortisa-tion. The adoption, for technical purposes, offinancial depreciation as an element of cost can leadto some curious misconceptions. How often have wemet the case where estimates are given for work doneor to be done on old machines apparently far belowestimates for the same work on new plant, the wholedifference arising from the mistaken idea that becausea machine has been written down, its otherwiseinefficient production cost is cheaper. Surely to thetechnical man depreciation is more akin to lifeassurance, the higher the age, the higher the risks ofmortality or the weaknesses which lead to it. Todayslow cutting is not good cutting ; and it is probablethat in 80% of the work machines have to do, a sickor diseased machine will not do the work at all.In such cases the chief disability of a machine tool is" absence without leave ". Unfortunately there areno "tables of mortality"' for machine tools. Peopleare not interested in machine tools in general but inmachine tools in particular ; you cannot in such avaried and diverse population as machine tools getanything like the same " spread" as an InsuranceCompany has for its clients. On the other hand,there is much more uniformity of structure abouta machine tool than about a human body and a muchgreater predictability of behaviour. If we take thelife-expectation curve and reverse it, we could for,say, a 10-year life get a series approximately asfollows :-

Year 1.Year 2.Year 3.Year 4.Year 5.

/ o3.04.56.07.59.0

Year 6.Year 7.Year 8.Year 9.Year 10.

/ o10.512.013.515.016.5

Such a series would be much more realistic andappropriate for cost and estimating purposes than touse as a yardstick of cost what is really nothing morethan satisfaction with an imperfect recovery ofexpenditure. It is one more illustration of the factthat financial devices have'no real significance forcost.

From a financial standpoint prudence would dictatethat the recovery of investment should be as speedyas" is practicable ; but financial convenience is aconcept of a different order from that of engineeringcost ; and this difference of aspect is often lost sightof when depreciation is considered as an element of

cost. The early recovery of an investment is anapplication of earnings and not part of the cost ofproduction on new machines.

The Problem of OncostLet us look for a moment at the problem of oncost,

a subject upon which more has been written thanperhaps on any subject, except politics and education.For the purpose of machine tool investment oncostmay be described as the cost of having something, ofhousing and servicing it. In practice the differencein oncost between <* slower running and a moreefficient machine is that in the case of the latter,oncost is more obvious and determinate than in thecase of the former ; but it is undoubtedly the casethat the more speedy machines do need more carefulplanning of their output ; and may well be lessflexible for some purposes than their multi-purposepredecessors. But it is highly probable that a detailedanalysis of real direct and indirect costs would indicatethat the difference may be easily exaggerated. Ofcourse, where it is customary to recover oncost by apercentage charge on direct labour, a notable reduc-tion in direct labour must appear at once as a largeincrease in the percentage needed to recover a givensum. But the given sum may well be less and notmore.

Reference has already been made to the problemsof probable intensity of demand upon a machinetool. We are apt to think of machine tools principallyas machines of high productivity working at aconsiderable load factor on repetition work. Theseare far from being the only types of machines withwhich the investor has to concern himself. Thereexist today production machines whose capacity isso large that there is little likelihood, except underconditions of war or intensive temporary demand,that their output will even be absorbed. At the otherend of the scale are machines for whose product thedemand is in the nature of the case intermittent. Inthe case of the first class, commercial organisationhas gone some way to concentrate and standardisedemand. This is the case in the field of automobilecomponents and in a good many electrical devices.Concentration of demand and standardisation ofdesign have effected enormous economies in the fieldof repetition components ; and the machines them-selves have similarly benefited. When we come to the" big fellows", the problem of idle time assumesconsiderable magnitude. Machine tool designersand makers in all important industrial countries havebeen faced with the problem of handling and shapingcastings and forgings from the largest casts that canbe made. In Great Britain the largest forging ingotthat can be made today is about 250 tons weight.When some of the new plant now under constructionis in service, this limit may well be exceeded ; andeven more powerful machines will have to be availableto handle the product. The multiplication of machinesof this type is obviously uneconomic. They have tobe designed to handle and to cut: the peak weightand the peak dimensions to be handled. Not only themachines themselves, but the services they need —cranes, buildings, service pumps and motors — are

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again on the same " peak" scale. It is obviouslyreasonable that commercial organisation should setabout to procure that such machines are given themaximum possible work of their peculiar order, andthat we should not suffer the economic waste, both ofcapital expenditure and skilled operation, which anunnecessary number of such machines would demand.

The economies in operation of large modernmachines, on suitable work, are beyond question.Machinery times on integral armoured frames oftanks came down from weeks to hours by the use oflarge machines. We can look at the great verticalboring mills handling work up to 21 feet diameterwithout which the accurate machining of large slowspeed generator casings or water turbines would bequite impossible. But these economies can be verydearly bought, unless sensible organisation can beapplied to the building and use of these greatmachines.

One further consideration should be borne in mind.The introduction of the copying lathe and the pro-filing miller, with either built-in or detachable copyingdevices, has brought repetition machining to a pointwhere quite a modest number of pieces justifies theuse of copying methods, even where the pieces them-selves arc simple in outline. There are very fewjobbing shops which would not find a copying attach-ment to a centre lathe the boon and the blessing tomen ; and as these devices can work, either from amaster piece or a template, their convenience andadaptability are excellent. Even where half-a-dozenpieces only are required at any one time3 they canwell pay for their keep.

Finally, perhaps we may touch upon one very

difficult problem. Where does tooling leave off and anew machine begin ? With machine tools, as withevery other form of mechanical extension of thehuman hand, there is a tendency on the part of themachine operator to expect new machines to do thework the way it has always been done and do itbetter. That is not the way to "get the best out of amachine. Methods must suit machines. Thepsychological effect of the introduction of newmachines can be completely lost if the new machinesare asked to use just the same tooling set-up and thesame.work layout as the old. In that way the wholetempo of a shop can be lifted and the way openedto greater and probably more diverse output.

It would, perhaps, be helpful as a final point todraw attention to the efforts which are now beingmade upon an international scale to build up aunified conception of the significance and function ofmachine tool testing. It is, of course, a common-place that in any articulated structure, minorirregularities in the constituent parts may well becompensated for in the finished and completed whole;and it is in the performance of the completed wholethat the machine tool buyer is interested. This, Isubmit, is only half the story. You may not make agood machine out of exactly dimensioned parts, butyour chances of doing so is far better than if youindulge in hit or miss construction. The experienceof the leading members of the U.S. machine toolindustry in meeting the demand of the automobileindustry for consistent and accurate machinery hasbrought an immense improvement in the effectivenessand performance of their machines, and insistenceupon accuracy in detail parts is the necessary pre-liminary to satisfactory wholes.

SESSION X

INVESTING IN BETTERQUALITY CONTROL AND INSPECTION

by Dr. BERNARD P. DUDDING, M.B.E., F.Inst.P.

Dr. Bernard P. Dudding, Vice-Chairman, Advisory Scientific Panel,General Electric Company Limited. Apprenticed at Chatham Dockyard.Scholarship — Royal College of Science, Double First Diploma, Physics andEngineering. 1911-1915 — National Physical Laboratory. 1916 — Assistedin founding Research Laboratory for the General Electric Company. President,International Commission of Glass. Awarded M.B.E. for Scientific Services inthe First World War.

BY reference to the Conference Programme, youwill note that the titles for all the addresses have

a common form. It is clear that those who have beenhonoured by the invitation to address the Conferencehad little influence on the choice of the titles of theiraddresses. As I would have preferred a rather

different emphasis in the title of this address, I wishfirst to analyse the title in some detail.

Investing. The first word suggests that I have toarouse your interest in an 'investment'. Normallywhen one thinks of ' investing \ two thoughtsimmediately arise : the act of investing calls for

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