March 1, 1913.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



291 



Laboratory Organization in the Rubber Industry. 



By frederic Dannerth, Ph. D., Consulting Industrial Chemist. 



PAPER READ AT THE INTERNATIONAL RUBUER CONFERENCE, 



HELD AT GRAND CENTRAL PALACE, NEW YORK, 



SEPTEMBER 23 TO OCTOBER 3, 1912. 



THERE are certain persons to whom a manufacturer 

 should tell the whole miserable truth of his failures — 

 his lawyer, his chemist and himself. Above all, he 

 should be absolutely frank with himself. After he has con- 

 (fratulated himself upon the perfect manner in which his goods 

 are being bought and his factory is being managed, he should 

 stop for a moment for a close scrutiny of his plant. 



The ConsultiiiK Chemist would very often like to question 



Dr. Frederic Dannerth. 



the manufacturer on this point, but he is prevented from 

 doing so for obvious reasons. 



Successful corporations of today have either a written or 

 verbal arrangement with the managing directors, which is in 

 effect: 



1. To purchase the best raw materials for a given purpose 

 at the lowest possible market price. 



2. To criticize the manner in which the factory manager 

 is making up these raw materials into saleable goods, and help 

 him to attain perfection. 



3. To help the salesman, when it is found that competitors 

 are offering better quality for the same or for less money. 



4. To deliver to the factory manager, heat, light and 

 power at the lowest possible cost. 



One corporation president who had risen to a realization 

 of the importance of chemical consultation, recently opened a 

 conversation thus: 



"Our competitors have us skinned to death on water-tank 

 packing; we have been put out of the race with our air-brake 

 hose; our railroad steam-hose has rotted away in actual use. 

 Do not waste any time on theoretical considerations and 

 research work, but go right ahead and give us these three 

 things. What we want is results, and you will have to earn 

 your fee every day, for we cannot afford to gamble away one 

 hundred dollars without getting the results we want." 



As a matter of record it might be added that that particular 

 man is still w.inting those results. He has failed to realize 



that the science of Applied Chemistry was not created in an off 

 hour, but is the product of many years of arduous labor and 

 thought. From the day when "the compound man" was the 

 chief chemist of the works, we have come to a point in the 

 development of factory management where all chemical prob- 

 lems should first be presented to the Supervising Chemist, 

 an official who occupies a position parallel with the Factory 

 Manager and the Operating Engineer. In some cases he is 

 permanently employed by the organization, while in other 

 cases he devotes only a portion of his time to his duties at 

 one particular factory. 



The constant growth in efficiency of the rubber industry is 

 largely the result of organization that insures the orderly 

 use of every talent required. Occupying a very important 

 place in such organization is the fullest use of a laboratory 

 staff with trained chemists. It is the duty of this depart- 

 ment to: 



1. Investigate all new processes. 



2. Constantly improve existing ones. 



3. Correct and explain irregularities of current operations. 



4. Invent new and useful processes. 



5. Determine the value and exact composition of all raw ma- 

 terials. 



6. Determine the value and composition of competitors' 

 products. 



7. Advise correctly on "specification goods." 



8. Control different stages of many processes. 



Hence if these constructive forces are to be used to the 

 fullest, it must be through the creation of an organization 

 that will cause every department in that organization to co- 

 operate with the laboratory. To accomplish this I present 

 for your consideration methods which are the result of 

 careful study for many years in some of the largest manu- 

 facturing plants in America. 



The Supervising Chemist is valuable to the firm in pro- 

 portion to his perspective, his ability to see from afar the 

 possibilities of some new proposition, whether it be a problem 

 in purchasing, manufacturing or selling. Directly under him 

 he has a corps of five first assistants who are in some cases 

 designated as chief chemists. They are: The Engineering 

 chemist, the Buyers' chemist, the Factory chemist, the Sales 

 chemist, and the Research chemist. 



The organization of the Laboratory Department includes: 



1. Systematic abstracting of the important foreign and 

 domestic journals and of the patents of the principal coun- 

 tries. 



2. Forwarding copies of these abstracts weekly to all who 

 can use them, with instructions to study them carefully and 

 advise the Laboratory immediately of those which might be 

 of value. 



3. Thorough abstracting of the literature, in the case of 

 new work, thus presenting all that has been published relat- 

 ing to the subject. Repetition of the work of others is thus 

 saved, valuable suggestions are received and new lines of 

 thought are opened. 



4. A pamphlet library containing catalogs of machinery, 

 structural material, scientific apparatus, etc., is kept up to 

 date by correspondence with the manufacturers of these 

 materials. This collection can be made far more valuable 

 than regularly published books upon identical subjects. 



5. All translating, abstracting and indexing should be in 

 charge of one competent man, with assistants, if needed. 



