U.S. LEADERSHIP IN DESIGN

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25516, 9 June 1948, Page 4

U.S. LEADERSHIP IN DESIGN

WARNING GIVEN BY N.Z. ENGINEER

BRITISH EXHIBITION DISAPPOINTING

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 8. Britain needed to concentrate on the skilled design of her mass-produced goods, said Mr P. L. Laing, a New Zealand civil engineer, who has returned after two years in the United States as an engineer-observer on behalf of the Public Works Department. Mr Laing, who undertook duties with the New Zealand Trade Commission in Washington and also visited the United Kingdom, said the British could not afford to regard as slightly second rate the quality of American mass-produced goods. Their quality resulted from skilled design rather than trade skill. “The people of the British Common-wealth-have for a long time accepted the superiority of American mass production skill but have remained-rather smugly over-confident that we have a stranglehold on quality,” said Mr Laing. This confidence was based on the fact that British tradesmen were the best in the world and, as far as luxury goods like furniture and chinaware and luxury motor-cars were concerned, that was still justified, but today the luxury customer was not the only judge of quality, and the working man was a more important market than the rich man.

“A comparison between British (including New Zealand) and American design is most striking in the appliance field, refrigerators, kitchen stoves, washing machines, and so on,” added Mr Laing. “A visit to the Home Show at Olympia was most disappointing. Equipment designed and built in Britain was almost uniformly only fair. Far too evident were open seams, sharp edges, re-entrant angles, and difficult-to-clean surfaces. Clearly enough, manufacturing of good designs can be done in England, as witness several items being made under licence to American concerns.” i

Higher Quality Important It seemed desperately important that the, ® ritish should search for higher quality in their volume-produced articles. America achieved results with a relatively low percentage of skilled craftsmen, but a very high employment level of young scientists and designing engineers. Whether the British liked it or npt trade skill was vanishing and they might replace it, as the Americans had, with the drawing board and the laboratory. America was one great field of opportunity for young technicians. Large salaries, with highest going to physicists and industrial chemists, were paid by industry. “Our standards for house-building and more tailormade construction works like hydro-electric schemes and reinforced concrete work generally compare very well with the best in America and are higher than for much of the work to be seen over there,” Mr Laing said. . Unfortunately most of these works involved large quantities of manufactured articles. American building by-laws differed various States and control over building was non-existent in some Places, with resulting very low standards of construction, concealed by the most elaborate finishes and decora;t° ns ; . Building trade wage rates were the highest of all artisan rates and there was almost no apprentice training in many trades. It appeared certain that the whole weight of American ingenuity would be brought to * e £ T . ‘?„ re jL uce a . s I 2 uch as possible the need for these trades on construction. Prefabricated steel forms, simpler de®iS®s and . mechanical equipment had already virtually eliminated the need for carpenters on some bridge construction work.