SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 215 
Mr. Henry G. Smitu, Member:—I think the Society is very much indebted to Mr. 
Rigg for keeping this very important subject before it. It is a subject which permeates all 
branches of industry, and the real difficulty behind standardization is human nature itself— 
the fact that no two persons think exactly alike. 
Of course you have to balance the question of standardization against the question of 
progress. To my mind there is very little danger of standardization being a real bar to 
progress as progress will keep ahead of standardization. 
So far as standardization pertains to the shipbuilding industry it covers two very broad 
subjects : 
1. The standardization of ships themselves. 
2. The standardization of parts of the ships and of the processes of building. 
So far as the matter of standardization of ships themselves is concerned, I think we 
are very much handicapped in this country. 
The real fundamental that governs the possibility of standardization is, of course, quan- 
tity production, and in this country it has never been possible in the past, except during the 
experience of the war, to have enough ships of the same type to standardize them to the 
extent they have done abroad. We must remember that practically every shipyard in this 
country builds a great variety of ships, ranging in several cases from tugboats to battle 
cruisers, and that there has never been enough building to make it possible for any one yard 
to specialize on a particular type of ship as is frequently done, however, abroad. 
We will not overcome this particular handicap until we have enough ships to build, so 
that we can have at least a few duplicate ships. It is, of course, possible to standardize cer- 
tain features of the design, but even here the practice varies with the different shipyards. 
Some advance, however, can be made in this direction, but it requires the cooperation of the 
shipowner to make it possible to adhere to the standard practice of the particular shipyard 
where his ships are built. 
When it comes to the standardization of ship fittings, 1 had some experience on that 
line twenty years ago, when I was in the Navy. We started out to standardize everything 
in the way of fittings and thought we would be able to succeed on watertight doors, hatches, 
air ports, and also many other things, and we worked out the details with a great deal of 
care and submitted them to various shipyards and to a number of inspectors for comment, 
until we finally got in shape what we considered were A-1 standards, and used them as 
such. 
The object of standardization is both economical production and quantity production, 
and unless you attain one or the other there is little value in the standardization of ship 
fittings. The difficulty we were up against was this, that no sooner was the standard issued 
then someone came along with the very urgent suggestion for an improvement, and, in 
spite of the most vigorous effort to maintain the standard when once issued, changes were 
made which destroyed the real value of standardization, as any change made in the design 
carried through in the manufacture. The jigs, fixtures, etc., that had been prepared for 
the economical manufacture of these standards had to be changed or were of no further use. 
Many of you will remember the Long Arm System Company at Cleveland, Ohio. It 
set up to manufacture ship fittings and spent many thousands of dollars in the preparation 
of jigs for the manufacture of air ports, watertight doors, hatches, and many other appli- 
ances. The shipbuilding firm with which I was associated after leaving the Navy, bought 
many items from the Long Arm system (many fittings), and they were good fittings. We 
