MANUFACTURE
THE following chapters will furnish exercises in composition, both oral
and written, based upon the various phases of business. They are
intended to show the application of the principles underlying
manufacturing, buying, and selling. Of course, we cannot expect to go
into great detail in any one of the divisions. That must be reserved for
future study, perhaps reserved until the time that you enter a
particular business. We must remember that our first consideration is
the study of English, the problem of clear-cut expression. Underlying
clear-cut expression is clear-cut thinking. It cannot be repeated too
often that without a definite thought there can be no definite wording
of the thought. To say, "I know, but I don't know how to tell it," shows
a lazy brain. Learn to exercise your thinking powers so that you can
force them to stay upon a subject until you have thought it out
carefully and can express it. All of the oral exercises in the following
chapters require careful preparation. This does not mean that they
should be written out before the recitation, but it does mean that they
must be carefully thought out. The preparation need not take a
particular form. The main thing is that you know exactly the points that
you wish to make before you begin to speak. If the exercise calls for a
paragraph, have clearly in mind the plan by which you expect to expand
your thought. Perhaps you expect to begin with, or to lead up to, a
topic sentence. Remember that this may be done in several ways. Choose
whichever plan seems best. If the exercise does not call for a
particular form, such as a paragraph or a debate, you are left free to
develop your thought in the way that you think fits your subject best
and to the length which you think it demands.
There are many different kinds of businesses. We shall not attempt to
consider any except the most common and fundamental. Some, like farming
or mining, consist in bringing forth certain products from the ground.
Such products are called raw materials, of which an example is wheat.
Some raw materials are sold and used unchanged, but most of them go
through the process of manufacture in order to be directly usable. The
miller is an example of a manufacturer, because from wheat he makes
flour. In this chapter we shall study the principles underlying
manufacture.
The exercises do not by any means exhaust the subject. Each one is to be
considered as a nucleus about which others are to be grouped. If you
live in a manufacturing district, other subjects will easily suggest
themselves. If you have studied Industrial History or Commercial
Geography, you probably have in mind a number of topics for discussion.
If you know but little about raw materials, read some of the books
suggested in Exercise 257. At all events let your work be definite.
Whatever statements you make be able to substantiate by an illustration
of something that you have seen or heard or read.
=Exercise 250--Manufacture=
Almost all the things we eat, wear, and use every day are manufactured
articles. Each one of them requires its own particular process in the
making, involving the necessity in most cases of complex and expensive
machinery, of expert workmen, and of still more expert management. Take,
for example, the shoes we wear, in the manufacture of which an amazing
number of complicated machines and of expert workmen is necessary.
According to the United States Department of Labor, men's rough shoes go
through eighty-four distinct processes performed by skilled workmen and
automatic machines. No less amazing is the amount of work turned out by
these machines. It has been estimated that the McKay machine, which
attaches the soles to the uppers, sews up in about one hour and a half
one hundred pairs, an amount which it would take ninety-eight hours, or
about eleven whole working days, to sew by hand.
Each manufacturing business has peculiarities, machinery, methods, and
even a language of its own; sometimes men must spend years in the study
of the technicalities of certain manufacturing businesses before they
become expert in them. It is evident that we cannot take up any one of
them here except in so far as the principles of one apply to all, and
these can be set down only very briefly.
The first essential to successful manufacturing is correct buying. In
fact, in some businesses this is so essential that the buyer gets a
larger salary than the manager himself. We can see the reason for this
when we consider that a good buyer must understand not only the
materials that he buys, but also the manufacturing processes, so that,
knowing the process through which the raw materials will go in his
particular business, he will buy those materials that will make the most
profitable manufactured articles.
The next essential, and in most cases the most important one from the
manufacturing standpoint, is a management capable of producing the best
product at the least cost. The managers decide what shall be produced
and how; they hire the workmen and decide what each shall do; they
decide what shall be done by hand and what by machinery; and they choose
the machines. Sometimes they go even so far as to determine exactly the
method in which each task shall be done, and whenever they see that it
would be advantageous to install a machine, they do so. Pursuing this
policy, a Chicago yeast concern not long ago put in three machines for
wrapping the small yeast cakes, eliminating the services of 140 girls
and cutting the cost of wrapping to three-fifths of what it had been. In
the steel business the early success of Andrew Carnegie and the famous
Bill Jones was largely due to the fact that on several occasions they
did not hesitate to break up half a million dollars' worth of machinery
and replace it with newer and more efficient kinds.
The third essential to manufacturing success is aggressive marketing of
the product. From the standpoint of money success this is probably the
most important consideration; so important is it, in fact, that it will
be more fully discussed in the chapter following.
=Exercise 251--Manufactured Articles=
_Oral_