32 president's address — section b. 



impossibility, I inaugurated a system of monthly meetings or 

 technical conferences, to be attended by the various superir- 

 tendents of H.M. Factories, and representatives of their 

 chemical, engineering, accounting, and operative staffs, etc 

 The primary object of these meetings was to afford ine an op- 

 portunity to instruct the various staffs as to the technologv ot 

 the various processes and plants and to discuss and dispose 

 of the manifold problems which arose, particularly during 

 the earlier stages of manufactu're. 



"A graphical system of costs representation was brought 

 into being, in order to compare the work of the various fac- 

 tories, and acquaint the several staffs with the relation be- 

 tween the cost of manufacture and efficiency of working. The 

 costs so dealt with included practically all those coming into 

 the Department. Various methods of manufacture were con- 

 trasted, in order to emphasize the fundameiital fact that most 

 manufacturing projects are either made or marred at their 

 very inception ; if in the first instance a wrong process or 

 plant be selected, no amount of technical knowledge or skill 

 can avoid competitive failure. 



■'The bearing of the laws of thermo-chemistry and thermo- 

 dynamics upon the manufacture of explosives, acids, etc., wa^ 

 emphasized and explained, and eventually our various factories 

 were required toi demand from each of their section managers, 

 chemists-in-charge, engineers, etc:., a, carefully prepared and 

 accurate chemical-technical precis of all of the operations 

 coming under them. These precis, or technical reports, were 

 then circulated amongst our various factories, and finally to 

 an increasing extent amongst the chemical manufacturers of 

 the cGimtry at large, as were also the comparative costs 

 graphs. 



"At a very early stage, and when our factories were com- 

 mencing to come into operation, a Statistics Branch was 

 formed to collect -and tabulate the information for these 

 technical meetings. With the loyal coi-operation and assist- 

 ance of the accounting staffs cf the several factories and of 

 the Finance Dei>axtment, an enormous mass of very valuable 

 costs data was rapidly collected and tabulated and made 

 available for circiTlaticn. 



" The system of instructive administration outlined in the 

 foregoing paragraphs has been almost a lifelong ideal, and it 

 has been a great privilege to bring it into operation and see 

 it bear fruit ; it has been the means enormously to reduce 

 the cost of manufacture at national, and, I hope, also in- 

 directly at private trade factories, and at the same time it has 

 greatly reduced the consumption of raw materials, thus assist- 

 ing the shiyjping position. 



