SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
SPECIALISATION AND STANDARDISATION IN 
ENGINEERING INDUSTRIES. 
The same Committee states that it is clear that, in some branches of 
the Engineering trades, industry has not kept pace with up-to-date 
requirements. . The principal remedies for this state of affairs are 
believed to be specialisation and standardisation. Specialisation leads 
directly to standardisation of the product, first because it is necessary to 
secure economy of manufacture, and, secondly, because a more extended 
experience with a restricted range of products brings out the best. 
methods of construction and manufacture. By standardisation the 
Committee does not imply the slavish adherence to a fixed design to 
the detriment of the introduction of improvements or of entirely new 
designs. On the contrary, it is anticipated that the combined policy 
of specialisation and standardisation will mean rapid progress. 
STANDARDISATION OF CHAINS. 
One of the results of war-time collaboration in the national interests 
of British Chain Manufacturers is now seen in the formation of a perma- 
_ nent Association, the main objects of which are— 
(1) The standardisation of chains, wheels, and chain saibreall 
. cutters, so as to insure interchangeability and increase production. 
(2) The carrying out of comprehensive research work. It is 
anticipated that the policy which the Association has thus adopted 
“will enable British driving chain manufacturers to greatly extend 
and i improve their businesses. 
STANDARDISATION IN COACH BUILDING INDUSTRY. 
At the recent Federal Conference of Coach, Waggon, and Motor 
Body Builders, beld in Melbourne last September, attention was directed 
to the desirability of standardisation of materials and especially of 
wheel materials. Information was furnished to the Conference showing 
the extraordinary variety in sizes and types of spokes and naves used, 
especially in drays and waggons. Great interest was evinced in the 
question, and the Conference passed a resolution requesting the Institute 
of Science and Industry to convene a Conference of Coachbuilders and 
Manufacturers of Carriage and Waggon Materials to draw up a schedule’ 
of standard sizes and shapes for carriage materials. 
The question of the utilisation of Australien timbers was also dis- 
cussed by the Conference, and a second resolution was passed urging 
that research work on the physical properties of Australian economic 
timbers should be undertaken by the Institute on the lines adopted by 
the Forest Products Laboratory of the United States of America Depart: 
ment of Agriculture. 
POWER-ALCOHOL--RESEARCH WORK IN ENGLAND. 
At the request of the British Alcohol Motor-fuel Committee, Pro- 
fessor Harold B. Dixon, Department of Chemists, Manchester Univer- 
sity, has undertaken the direction of a scheme of experimental work to 
sho) 
