APPLIED SCIENCE AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH 209 



works manager. More recently, laboratories have generally 

 been established as independent departments of the company 

 and are responsible to the general manager only. If an execu- 

 tive of a manufacturing company is a technical scientific 

 expert, he may have felt the need for a laboratory and estab- 

 lished one under his own control. In this case, the laboratory 

 is necessarily very closely associated with his W'Ork. A labora- 

 tory may have been established under a separate director, not 

 himself associated with the executive officers of the company, 

 as a reference department for the executives. In this case also 

 the laboratory is closely associated with the officers of the 

 company and tends to be concerned largely with questions of 

 policy and the introduction of new products. In a large com- 

 pany, a research laboratory is usually established as a separate 

 department, having its own organization and available as a 

 reference department for all sections of the company. 



The position that the research laboratory should occupy in 

 an industrial organization is perhaps best determined by the 

 criterion that the research department should be responsible 

 to the officer of the company wdio is in charge of the develop- 

 ment of new products. If the introduction of new products 

 is in the hands of the plant organization, the research depart- 

 ment should be responsible to the plant manager; if there is 

 a definite development department, or, if new products are 

 introduced through the agency of some definite executive, it 

 is to that executive that the research department should be 

 responsible. The research laboratory, in fact, should be asso- 

 ciated primarily wdth development. 



It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the success of the 

 research laboratory depends upon the application of its work. 

 Since application naturally depends to a great extent upon 

 co-operation with other departments of the company, every- 

 thing that promotes such co-operation is to be encouraged 

 and anything different is to be discouraged. There is some 

 question, on the other hand, w^hether the laboratory^ re- 

 sponsible for original w^ork leading to new products should 

 deal with manufacturing problems. If a research staff en- 



