Research In Industry The Basis Of Economic Progress

PREFACE THE state of industry during 1921, reviewed in the light of the unprecedented conditions of the past seven years, has served only to throw into sharper relief the vital economic principle on which healthy industry is based that of providing commodities and services at a minimum, and preferably diminishing, cost. The reduction of production costs in the past has always been obtained through improvements in manufacture resulting in greater yields for a given expendituri of labour, but the progress achieved thereby has been largely fortuitous and unregulated. In order to maintain current standards of living and culture in the face of burdens left by the war, it is imperative that industrial development in future be definitely assured. Since manufacturing advances are won by the introduction into industry of new knowledge, it follows that new knowledge must be systematically sought, and that a portion of the product of industry must be set aside for pursuing the means of further progress. In existing manufactures, new knowledge will result in the introduction of the most efficient and socially most beneficial productive methods to the possibilities of the future it implies organized and intensive effort towards the cultivation of new industries and new products. On the material side, the cause of progress demands close study of commercial resources, whether actually or potentially valuable, and of their application and disposition in manufactured products it demands, that is to say, scientific research. On the personal side, it calls no less for the proper technical and social education of all grades of workers, together with the fullest utilization of their powers in modern administrative systems affording the most effective co-ordination of personnel. The organization necessary to meet the two requirements thus broadly distinguished as research and education will be an integral part of the newer type of industrial administration, and the exercise of these functions will provide solutions to many pressing industrial problems. Research and education will prove powerful economic weapons in the conservation and development of those markets on which our industrial prosperity depends, and instruments for the quickened, ordered progress of society. An attempt has been made in this book to consider the nature of research and its application to the progressive development of industry, and to indicate the manner in which existing research resources may be placed at the disposal of industry, thereby affording guidance to industrial managers in determining the most effective manner of dealing with their manufacturing and other problems. Recent tendencies towards co-operative action for the conduct of research, notably instanced by the formation of Research Associations in Great Britain, are examined, together with the conditions under which a works research organization may be established...