October 25, 1917 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



29 



rejected, and the manufacturer had his troubles in get- 

 ting the material out of the way. 



This concern not only lost the profit involved in the 

 sale of a carload of veneers, and not only lost the money 

 represented by the expense in freights, extra handling, 

 selling cost, etc., due to the necessity of moving the car 

 the second time, but it lost this account absolutely and 

 irrevocably. It would be next to impossible to con- 

 vince this buyer that the veneer house which htid shipped 

 this car could be depended upon to carry out instruc- 

 tions without having to be watched closely. And the 

 customer doesn't want to feel that he has got to inspect 

 every shipment with the utmost care in order to avoid 

 being stung. 



TT>e buyer of veneers and panels expects to make an 

 inspection of the goods delivered to him, and he may 

 even expect to find an occasional shipment which is not 

 up to the mark, but he also expects that the product will 

 run "true to form, " as they say at the race tracks, and 

 will be close enough to the mark always to show that the 

 manufacturer knew what he was about, and v/as doing 

 his level best to fill the order as written, and never to 

 violate the spirit of the specifications, even if occasionally 

 the letter was not adhered to. 



Of course, buyers occasionally send out specifications 

 that are much more severe than practical requirements 

 suggest. They are written in this way, either because 

 the buyer hopes to get something especially good, or 

 because the user is not acquainted with the situation and 

 does not know that allowances must be made for natural 

 variations in the material. All this can be adjusted, but 

 it is defects of actual manufacture that cannot be ex- 

 plained away, and that get the manufacturer "in wrong" 

 with the buyer. And the bigger the buyer and the more 

 important the account, the harder it is to restore the 

 standing of a concern which has delivered material 

 which was poorly turned out, and which was not care- 

 fully inspected at the time of shipment. 



Wise members of the veneer and panel trade are 

 learning that inspection counts for a great deal. Those 

 who have had to do w^ith government buyers since the 

 war began know that inspection is the vital point, and 

 that the buyer is not inclined to make very many allow- 

 ances for a product that is not up to grade. And in the 

 ordinary commercial transactions which make up the 

 bulk of the average business, careful inspection at the 

 mill or factory will go a long way to build up the repu- 

 tation of the manufacturer for quality, and to conserve 

 the good will vifhich he has won as a result of satisfac- 

 tory dealings previously. 



One of the veterans of the trade, whose mill is famous 

 for the fine quality of the veneers it turns out, spends a 

 lot of his time in the plant. He is a good office man, 

 but he is a better manufacturer, and he makes a point 

 of being over where the stuff is being produced. He has 

 a good superintendent, but he likes to see for himself 

 what is going on. And it is a noticeable fact that while 

 he visits all departments and looks into the work of the 



day in each, he spends most of his time in the shipping 

 room. 



He likes to see the veneers as they are being meas- 

 ured and counted and crated for shipment. He fre- 

 quently interposes his personal opinion regarding the 

 suitability of certain stock for the order on which it is 

 being shipped, knowing as he does the requirements of 

 the customer. And when he goes back to the office, he 

 has a very fair idea of the general character of the ship- 

 ment, and in the case of a kick by the customer he can 

 answer the complaint much more intelligently than if 

 he had to depend on the verbal report of a subordinate. 



This does not mean that every manufacturer should 

 be his own inspector, because that is out of the question; 

 but it does show that the wisest members of the trade 

 appreciate how important this part of the work is, and 

 give as much time to it as they can spare. The veneer 

 man and the panel man should have trained employes 

 who have been taught to discriminate, and who know 

 when the product fits the work and when it does not. 

 Likewise, they should be able to spot a poor product 

 from the standpoint of manufacture, and to throw it out 

 without a moment's hesitation. 



In the panel business it is a good idea not to take too 

 much for granted, in connection with the various 

 processes of the work. In other words, it is a safeguard 

 of the business to inspect the work as it goes through 

 the factory. The foremen of departments and the super- 

 intendent can do this very well, and with a final close 

 inspection in the shipping room there is not much chance 

 for poor work to get by. In fact, there should not be 

 much room for complaint if the inspection is properly 

 done. 



One of the things which sometimes slips by the in- 

 spector in a panel plant handling high-class work is errors 

 made in matching up the veneers. This may have been 

 properly indicated, but a mistake made in putting the 

 pieces in place. A certain amount of artistic feeling is 

 needed to detect faults of this kind, and to appreciate 

 the mistake which was made in putting the veneers to- 

 gether. But an experienced man can usually pick out 

 faces which were not properly matched, and send the 

 panels back to the glue room for rehandling in this 

 respect. 



TTie best product, meaning the product whose repu- 

 tation in the trade is of the best, is the one which is well 

 made and properly inspected. A factory whose per- 

 sonnel and methods may not be I 00 per cent right may 

 still win a reputation for turning out good goods if its 

 inspection is rigid, for it will detect errors and require 

 remanufacture. And the very habit of watching for and 

 locating mistakes is bound to react favorably on the 

 plant, and lead to the correction of the errors of produc- 

 tion which caused the poor product to reach the shipping 

 room. 



Machinery was turned over for the first lime on October I 5 in 

 the new plant of the Inman Veneer & Panel Company, Louisville. 

 Work in this plant was started early last spring, but failure of 

 certain equipment to arrive held back construction considerably. 



