Industrial Research 



345 



needs and desires as a basis for competing for his trans- 

 portation dollar. 



A telegraph or telephone company has, among other 

 things to think systematically about, a complicated and 

 important personnel problem. 



All of these are management problems deserving of, 

 and often subjected to, industrial research of the highest 

 order. To the extent that engineers, and particularly 

 mechanical engineers, are more and more tending to 

 dominate the field of management, these may all be 

 claimed as appropriate opportunities for the application 

 of the research skill of mechanical engineers. 



Conclusions 



1. Many correspondents emphasize the difficulty of 

 attempting to classify industrial research activities 

 according to the particular engineering or other dis- 

 ciplines within which they fall, or according to the 

 particular academic training of those engaged in them. 



2. While testing of raw materials, of work in process, 

 or of finished product involves activities that are usually 

 of a routine rather than a research nature, a consider- 

 able amount of true research is often found associated 

 with or inspired by these inspectional activities. 



3. Research with respect to the materials, equip- 

 ment, methods, and processes of manufacture is one 

 of the commonest and most important types of activity 

 of mechanical engineers in industrial research today. 



4. Development of better products and of new 

 products is a second very important type of research. 

 On it all progress in the essentially mechanical indus- 

 tries depends. 



5. Opinions differ widely as to where, if anywhere, a 

 line should be drawn between normal engineering 

 design, engineering development work, and research. 

 It is the opinion of the writers of this report that re- 

 search activities and the research spirit and teclmique 

 should be broadly, rather than narrowly, conceived. 



6. Research, and particularly field-research, for new 

 uses and new markets for old products is of the greatest 

 importance. 



7. Fimdamental research, broadly defined as includ- 

 ing data gathering as well as investigations of a more 

 purely theoretical nature, is very common in industry, 

 and is very often an activity of mechanical engineers. 



8. Research in universities and engineering schools 

 which is partly or wholly paid for by individual indus- 

 trial clients or cooperating industrial groups constitutes 

 an important part of the great volume of industrial 

 research. 



9. Management can well be thought of as a branch of 

 mechanical engineering. It is certainly a type of work 

 in which a great many mechanical engineers are 

 engaged. It is a field in which much is being done that 

 well deserves to be called research. It is a field 



in which mucli more organized research should be under- 

 taken by industry. 



10. The formal organization of a company's research 

 activities varies widely as between companies of dif- 

 ferent sizes and amounts of experience in research, but 

 not in any significant way as between different indus- 

 tries as such. 



11. Wliile the activities of public utilities seem to 

 differ in kind from those of factories, the differences are 

 probably more apparent than real, and the research 

 activities of utilities arc as diverse and important as are 

 those of manufacturing cstablislmients. Research in 

 management is probably relatively better developed 

 among public utilities tlian in industry generally. 



12. The writers of this report suggest for the consider- 

 ation of those interested in industrial research the thesis 

 that everything that anybody in industry does in the 

 course of his daily work is either routine or research. It 

 is suggested that the universal acceptance of this thesis 

 as a matter of definition would do much to clarify the 

 thinking of industry with respect to the fundamental 

 basis of its present prosperity and future security. 



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