Intra-Plant Standardization

N OTHING quite so completely epitomizes the philosophy of present-day production as the one word, specialization, which in turn connotes standardization. The efforts, progress and results of the broad cooperative movement of simplification and standardization, guided and sponsored by the Department of Commerce, have been widely disseminated and generally endorsed. That this national program for the elimination of production waste is probably the most outstanding industrial achievement, from a dollars and cents standpoint, in the last decade, is largely recognized. Manifestly this coairdinated plan, which is based on the cooiperation of all or a large proportion of an industry, has its limitations-it cannot, for very obvious reasons, encompass the vast field of application open to the individual manufacturer. So despite the tremendous savings accomplished in this nation-wide effort, many individual plants have not as yet made the most of the possibilities afforded by intelligent intra-plant standardization. In the first place, conditions within a given plant are so individual in many respects that a codperative standardization would be utterly impossible. Secondly, the more intimate details of operation and management are matters over which the individual plant must have full control and in which the highest individual ingenuity must be allowed to operate. It is evident, therefore, that the individual manufacturer has an infinitely greater opportunity to secure the many benefits and economies of standardization than is possible solely through the coiperative movement within an entire industry. In fact, the possibilities run virtually the entire gamut of factory operation. A few of these possibilities together with the manner in which certain manufacturing concerns have handled them are set

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