As the Materials to Producer Sees It

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by Harry C. Plummer P Director of Engineering & Technolo th Structural Clay Products Institut

ANY manufacturers of bu ing products are coming believe that modular coo nation is a good long range inc ment, which by lowering build costs will create an increasing m ket for building products. "Ally have studied the program agree it presents the best methods that h been proposed to date of apply the principles of mass production buildings and still retain the flexi ity of design necessary for m structures," Mr. Plummer said.

The past 30 years have seen a su stantial change on the part of buil ing product manufacturers in the attitude toward standards, he s They have learned the value of pr uct and application standards a are, almost without exception, operating in the development use of these standards. "Ma groups now realize that constructi standards to be complete must clude materials in combination there is an increasing support standards in this field," he said. N

he Contractor Sees It

by E. K. Abberly ject Executive and Director, rner Construction Company

ANDARDS help the contractor in the two divisions of his work: (1) the things done up to the ng of a contract (2) the things to execute the contract. In the phase of the work, standards in "selling" and "estimating" use they define things in a wellwn and accepted way, Mr Abberexplained. He referred to the ndard Contract Documents"

sored by the American Institute Architects and by others, which e helped owner, architects, engi-s, and contractors to reach comunderstandings.

The second phase of their work. uires the furnishing of labor, s, plant and equipment necessy to execute the work. In providlabor, safety standards are imtant, not only from the humanian viewpoint but also because y reduce costs that arise from ac

ents.

Save Time, Reduce Costs Saving of time and reduction in sts follow from use of standards

in the procurement of material. "Mechanization is one thing the industry has to adopt to the limit of its capacity in an effort to reduce high costs," Mr Abberly said. Standardization plays an important part in the selection of and payment for tools, plant and equipment required for construction, he explained. National joint cooperative committee of the Associated General Contractors, the Construction Industry Manufacturers Association, and the Associated Equipment Distributors. maintaining good relations among the various industry groups. These joint committees will become more important as requirements for equip. ment increase and problems of controls become more acute, he declared.

Important Work Done

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Important work on standardization of sizes and improvement of machinery is being done through the Mixer Manufacturers' Bureau and the Contractors Pump Bureau. Both are affiliated with AGC.

Contractors appreciate the benefits that have derived from the use of ASTM specifications, many of which have become American Standards, Mr Abberly said. He also acknowledged the work of the American In

stitute of Steel Construction, the American Concrete Institute, the Portland Cement Association, and of such Government agencies as the National Bureau of Standards and the Forest Products Laboratory which have helped in time saved and in better methods.

Recommends State Action

Everything possible should be done to release the industry from antiquated, conflicting building code requirements, Mr Abberly declared. He recommended action at the state level rather than at the municipal level for best results. follow per

Because standards formance and must of necessity lag a bit behind the procession, Mr Abberly warns: "Our standards are a sound foundation or base from which to advance, but we must not let them thwart or dull the edge of creative and pioneering efforts if we are to move ahead."

Mr Mason is treasurer of the lumber firm of William P. Proctor Company, North Chelmsford, Mass. He is director and immediate past president of the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association. During the war and post-war period he held various government advisory positions in the field of lumber.

Mr Abberly has been associated with the Turner Construction Company for 35 years. He is now working on the construction of Chrysler Building East, an addition to the present Chrysler Building in New York City.

Mr Plummer is secretary of the newly formed Structural Clay Products Research Foundation in addition to his job as director of engineering and technology of the Institute, national trade association of brick and tile manufacturers.

Mr Williams, partner in the firm of George B. Post & Sons, is a designer of office buildings, schools, hospitals, banks, and residences. He was in charge of the design of the library at the University of Louvain, Belgium, given by Americans; was also one of the designers of the Daily News Building, New York; of the Sterling Memorial Library and other buildings at Yale University; and of the libraries of Peabody College, Nashville, Tennessee. For several years he was in charge of setting up standards of planning, construction, and mechanical equipment for local administration with the Federal Housing Administration.

ANUFACTURER, retailer, and consumer viewpoints on the use of standards to give the homemaker what she wants as well as the best value for her money were presented at the all-day Consumer Clinic, November 28.

Home economists and a representative of labor were in agreement that more standards, put into effect through recognized tests, and carried to the homemaker by means of labels, are needed to prevent waste of materials in unsatisfactory merchandise. Retailers agreed that manufacturers were making a mistake in underestimating the desire for facts on the part of their customers. Manufacturers told what they are doing now to help meet the demand for facts on the part of retailers and homemakers.

Herbert O. Bergdahl, executive vice-president of Associated Merchandising Corporation, acted as moderator for the panel discussion. Mail order houses have done a better job of standardization than any other branch of retailing, he said. He insisted that the most important job to be done is to make the Amer

The ASA Standards Work

"One of the gratifying developments of the past year has been the establishment within ASA of a Standards Mark," said Mrs Elizabeth Sweeney Herbert, Editor of Household Equipment, McCall's Magazine. However, she commented, "I'm afraid that it will not appear on merchandise until the consumer clamor becomes strong enough to carry back through retailer channels to the producer." The successful sales techniques seem to be those that tell the consumer of benefits, she said, adding that the mere printing of a standard does not necessarily promise aid to the consumer.

"It is my conviction that once the Standards (AS) Mark has made its appearance on goods, consumers will come to recognize it as indicative of a promise that products carrying it

meet established standards of qual ity and performance," Mrs Herber said.

Consumers are "people like us who every morning climb out from ander sheets and blankets, stand o a rug to put on our slippers, pus back curtains to close the window dry with a towel after bathing, un fold a napkin as we sit down breakfast," Marjorie Rankin, Ass ciate Professor of Home Economics Drexel Institute of Technology, poin ed out. We select our dresses suits according to what we "like but afterwards we want to kno how they wear, she said. "We'd lik the textile to stay the same size, n to shrink or stretch. We don't wan curtains which droop at the edge and creep up in the middle. A child suit, whether knitted or Wove should fit as well after launderin as before."

Because of the widely diversifi market today, the information t consumer wants can successfully supplied only through labeling. M Rankin said. "And the label, to valid, must be based on national recognized standards."

Professor Henrietta M. Thompson, head of the Department of Clothing, Textiles and Related Art, School of Home Economics, University of Alabama, called attention to the section of the Defense Production Act of 1950, referring to standards [Title IV, Section 402, (h)]:

"Nothing in this title shall be construed (1) as authorizing the elimination or any restriction of the use of trade and brand names; (2) as authorizing the President to require the grade labeling of any materials; (3) as authorizing the President to standardize any materials or services, unless the President shall determine, with respect to such standardization, that no practicable alternative exists for securing effective price control with respect to such materials or services; or (4) as authorizing any order of the President establishing price ceilings for different kinds, classes, or types of material or service, which are described in terms of specifications or standards, unless such specifications or standards were, prior to such order, in general use in the trade or industry affected, or have previously been promulgated and their use lawfully required by another Government agency."

Manufacturers Lose Sales

Today reliable manufacturers are losing sales because of their failure to give adequate and helpful information about their products, Professor Thompson declared, quoting Women's Wear Daily to the effect that small store executives believe that "facts backed up by the manufacturer would help a great deal in expanding the role of brand names in small store merchandising."

Professor Thompson warned that in a defense economy, retailers, dry

The "standard-measure" cake looks good to Milton Shapin and Miss Janette Kelley.

cleaners, and others who are concerned over the need for better information at the "point of purchase" can demand increased Federal and state regulation to prevent waste in manpower, in materials, and in in

come.

When junior's new pair of pants carries a label "washable," his mother usually assumes this means it can be either drycleaned or washed, explained Dorothy Seigert Lyle, Consumer Relations, National Institute of Cleaning and Dyeing. Mothers who bought little boys' "washable" dress pants in Cleveland recently and sent them to be drycleaned, however, found they were ruined when the elacticized belt disintegrated. In this case, the word "washable" on the paper label meant "Do not dryclean." Since the labels had been lost before the pants reached them, drycleaning establishments did not

receive even this slender warning of possible trouble, Dr Lyle explained.

This is only one of the cases Dr

Lyle described in her talk on how better labeling could help the drycleaning industry.

Ephraim Freedman, director of the Bureau of Standards, R. M. Macy & Company, New York City, urged development of more test procedures recognized by authoritative bodies. All American Standards should be built on test methods accepted by an established agency specializing in the field, he said.

Fear of regimentation, fear of unfair competition, fear of losses on substandard products, fear of those who buy "at a price" without regard for quality, and doubt that laboratory tests simulate actual use. conditions are some of the seldommentioned reasons why standards are rejected by the groups concerned, he said.

Need Colorfastness Standards Mr Freedman recommended development of colorfastness standards because of a growing tendency to employ cheaper dyestuffs and less expensive finishing procedures.

Since 1946 Macy's have developed approximately 400 informative labels, Mr Freedman reported. "Our efforts are meeting with excellent consumer response," he said.

Milton J. Shapin, Merchandise Administrator, Spiegel, Inc, of Chicago, told the Clinic that in 1949 mail order customers were more satisfied

(Continued from page 12) processes know something of the length of the time it takes the Federal Specifications Board to grind out a specification.

We have to get a system that will work faster. It is imperative. We are working on a plan at the present time, in collaboration with the General Services Administration to try to streamline the efforts of the Federal Specifications Board. With its 77 technical committees, with its everlasting reference to every one of the 57 varieties of bureaus and agencies in the Federal Government, it now takes too long to generate anything useful.

A Specifications System

We will probably finally come out with a system of Federal specifications, interim Federal specifications, and a series of military specifications for peculiarly military items of no interest to the Federal Government as a whole. There probably will be a fourth class of straight departmental specifications for those Federal Government departments which have a sole and peculiar interest in something that should be standardized.

When we get our cataloging effort going fast enough and far enough, when we have identified common items to a sufficient extent, when we have set up specifications for those common items, it will not take too smart a supply manager to be able to select for exclusion from the system many of the varieties of common use items which the whole Federal Government now keeps in store.

Visualize Savings

This is all largely in the future. Our accomplishments have not been too great. We understand the problem of simplification and visualize what it can do for us, not only by saving us money in a year-by-year peacetime expenditure, but against that day when war comes. It could be the salvation of the country in permitting us to fight a war without so dissipating everything we own that we will have lost the peace that follows.

Industrial Mobilization and Standardization

by John C. Green

John C. Green has been Director of the Office of Technical services for the U.S. Department of Commerce since 1945, and is in charge of foreign patent protection activities for the U. S. Government. Following the war he was in charge of release of Federal Research data acquired in Germany and Japan. Recently, he received an award for scientific services from the U.S. Secretaries of the Army and Navy.

HE National Security Resources Board and the Department of Commerce have considered the primary order of business to be in the field of certain critical and strategic materials. The D.O.'s and restrictions have been aimed toward the conservation for primary needs of materials like copper, cobalt, columbium, and the like which are essential to the defense procurement program.

The superimposing of a great defense program upon the highest production and consumption of civilian economy the world has yet seen obviously creates severe and continuing shortages. We seem to have too little of everything, particularly in the metallurgical field. Raw materials for many industry uses were not profuse before the present effort. Now we find that metals which were laboratory curiosities a few years ago are of tremendous importance to our military programs. The new tools of warfare created by science-jet engines, guided missiles, and the likeabsorb substantial production capacity of metals for which we were just beginning to find beneficial industrial applications.

The orders issued by the NPA in the Commerce Department are clearly in the direction of gearing civilian requirements with the defense pro

grams.

Various ways and means of conserving materials will be examined to determine which may be effectively applied with due regard for industry reaction and acceptance. It may be that some central items will have to be eliminated from normal civilian use. If and when this happens, industry must locate reasonably

satisfactory substitutes to preserve its markets.

There has been some comment in the press concerning the possibility that the military agencies will "overspecify" their requirements as a safeguard against being caught again in the state of unpreparedness which has put so much urgency behind the present effort. General Harrison and his men are clearly aware of this possibility and it is never overlooked in their discussion with the military and others who are developing the procurement specifications. Wherever a specification can be prepared to include a satisfactory, less critical supbstitute material or to reduce without weakening the amount of strategic material required, this will be done as one immediate and tangible conservation measure. General Harrison has directed the recruitment of conservation experts for the staff of his industry divisions. Each of the leading industry divisions-iron and steel, nonferrous metals, etc.will have a trained engineer whose primary responsibility will be to see that conservation in its broadest aspects is properly interpreted and applied. In addition to the individual experts in each industry unit there. will be a conservation coordinator in the office of the assistant director in charge of these divisions. It will be the coordinator's task to effectively correlate the work and to see that the benefits of conservation applied in one industry may be given the broadest dissemination in other areas of possible value.