Stories by Edwin Laird Cady

An Ancient Technology, In Which the Hardest Metals Are Poured Accurately in Ceramic Molds, Is a Growing Modern Business

Tubing Today is Much More Than Pipe. Among Other Things it is Becoming a Stock as Basic Sheets or Bars

Felt, Most Ancient of Textiles, Has Become an Important Material of Modern Engineering. Covering a Wide Range of Characteristics, Felts Are Now Available for Fabricating a Great Variety of End Products

Silver, Long Tied to Currency Values, Can Become the Fair-Haired Boy of Industrial Engineering Metals. Its Mettle Has Already Been Proved in the Brazing, Electrical, and Chemical Fields. Future Expansion Will Depend Upon Price and Industry's Attitude

Beautification of Factory Grounds, Considered by Some To Be at Best a Waste of Money, Is Proving Itself a Sound Investment

New Operating Techniques Applied to the Ancient Practice of Casting Are Resulting in Products Which Come From Molds With Qualities Obtainable Otherwise Only by Wroughting

Recognition of the Importance of Time as an Element in Metal Working Is Giving Rise to Theories Regarding the Action of Atoms When Subjected to Heat and Pressure. New Techniques Are Growing Out of These Theories

Significant Industrial Developments Invariably Initiate Great Series of Inventions, Refinements, and Modifications. So Broad May be the Scope That Ultimately Not a Corner of Industry is Unaffected

Struggling to Rise from the Status of a Stunt Process to That of a Respected Tool of Industry, Sprayed Metal, With Its Unusual Metallurgical Structure, Offers Solution to Difficult Production Problems

LOOKING AHEAD—Wastage of metals in processing considerably reduced by elimination of scaling. . . Harder but less brittle steel produced at a lower cost. . . Perfection of uniform case-hardening. . . Soldering in molten salt. . . Thicker metal sections quenched.

Through Objective Study, Every Job in a Plant May be Accurately Evaluated. With an Incentive Created, the More Experienced Worker Selects a More Difficult Task Where His Superior Skill and Knowledge Pay Off. The Inevitable Results are Higher Wages for the Worker and, at the Same Time, Larger Profits for the Employer

Reducing the Time Gap Between Conception and Production, Pilot Plants Can Also be Profitable in Themselves. Flexibility of Pilot Plant Equipment Permits It to be Equally Valuable Whether Used in the Plant Laboratory or on the Active Production Line. Co-Operative Pilot-Plant Operation is Being Adopted by Many Industries Today

Damned by Some and Praised by Others, the Old Apprentice System Had Much in Its Favor--For Those Times and Machines. Modern Equipment Does Automatically Much of What Apprentices Learned to Do by Skill; Efficient Training Now Takes Days Instead of Years

Full Advantage Can be Taken of All Metal-Fabrication Methods and of Desirable Characteristics of Metals Themslves. Weldments Reduce the Need for Complicated Castings and Intricate Machining

Portable, Quick-Indicating, and Inexpensive Instruments--that Shop How Wet, or Dry, a Material Really is--Take Guesswork Out of Jobs Ranging from Painting Walls Through Multi-Color Printing

Most Executives in Most Departments of Industrial Organizations are Too Specialized and Too Busy to Obtain a Bird's-Eye View of Their Firm's Integration in the Economic Matrix. Cognizant of These Facts, Many Companies are Establishing Departments--Sometimes of One Man--to Keep an Ear to the Ground and a Keen Eye on the Horizon

The Uses for Pure Oxygen in Industry have been Growing for Years--Now they are Growing Even Faster. To Meet the Demand for this Hard-Working Gas, New Methods of Transportation, Plant Distribution, and Even Manufacture Within the User's Plant are Steadily Being Developed

To Apply Heat Where and When Wanted, and in Exactly the Right Amount, Has Long Been a Dream of Metal-Working Industries. Now Contoured Ceramics, High-Frequency Currents, Controlled-Atmosphere Furnaces, and Molten-Salt Baths Give Precision to Heating Processes

To Evaluate Properly All the New Processes that Appear, Industrial Management Would Need a Crystal Ball. Next Best are Standardized Tests--Often Unestablished--and Long Experience, which Demand Time. Hence, Most Developments Need a Long Maturing Period

With Forethought and Planning that Rival the Best-Laid Strategies of Armies, Industry is Shifting to New Sites. Local Skills, Water Power, Climate, and Other Once-Vital Factors Yield to Emphasis on Markets, Tailored Transportation, and Community Outlook

Specialists, Familiar with All Phases of a Particular Process, and Fabricators, who Assemble and Sell, but are Not Manufacturers, are Supplementary Figures in Modern Industry. Interdependency, Mark of a Complex Civilization, Can Bring Better Products at Lower Cost

With an Increase in Facilities for Quality Control, Engineers Have at their Command a Powerful Tool for the Creation of More Jobs and New Industries. Materials, Methods, and Machines All Contribute

Millionth of a Second X-Ray Equipment Has Been Built Which Can be Directly Applied to Great Numbers of Practical Industrial Uses. Its Ability to Watch High-Speed Machinery in Motion May Practically Influence Present-Day Machine Design, Use, and Maintenance Techniques

Time and Motion—All-Important Factors in Industrial Processes—Have Been Studied for Years and Will Have to be the Subject of Eternally Continuing Studies. Every New Industrial Change Must be Geared to the Ever-Present but Never-Changing Human Being