Impressed By Japanese Industry, Research

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30593, 9 November 1964, Page 14

Impressed By Japanese Industry, Research

The director of the Industrial Development Department of the University of Canterbury (Mr T. R. Pollard) returned to Christchurch yesterday from a five months tour of overseas industrial and research organisations.

On the trip, he said, ' much information was | gained both in industrial techniques and research that would in future be used by the department. “I paid particular attention' to the buildings and layout of research laboratories,” said Mr Pollard. "This should be useful for the building which will eventually be erected at Ham for. the 1.D.D.” Mr Pollard said he was particularly impressed with Japanese industry and research. They were really “pushing on” and putting money and automation in it. Working conditions in Japanese factories, he said, were good. So were the quality and amount of production. Mr Pollard said he was impressed by the tremendous growth of Japanese industry and new industrial buildings. FOOD PACKAGING An interesting point of Mr Pollard’s tour was a visit to a large packaging firm in Geneva, Switzerland. Here he saw the latest methods used for packaging foods used in

the various supermarkets | throughout Switzerland. “The firm has developed a method of transporting cut flowers in plastic containers holding gas,” he said. “Such packaging can add five days’ life to cut flowers.” Another visit which Mr Pollard singled out as being one of the most interesting on his trip, was his call on a firm inj Edinburgh, Scotland, to see: their latest developments ini machine tool control. “They used magnetic tape as the controlling medium,” said Mr Pollard. “The drawings of the part to be made have their dimensions given as co-ordinates. “These are transferred to punch cards and then through a computer to the magnetic tape which in turn controls the operation of the machine tool movements.” Mr Pollard visited the Royal Air Force establishment at Farnborough to disicuss the problem of weighing : aircraft with self-contained I apparatus. AIRCRAFT IN N.Z. “It was thought that such a method could be useful for top-dressing aircraft which are used in New Zealand,” he said. In Milan, Italy. Mr Pollard visited a large electrical test-

ing station. The station had facilities for testing circuit breakers up to 8 million KVA and could carry out high voltage impulse tests up to 4 million volts.

In Australia, Mr Pollard; visited sections of the C. 5.1.R.O. and the National University at Canberra. Here he saw some of the work of Sir John Eccles. “When Sir John Eccles was professor of physiology at Otago in 1951, I.D.D. built three nerve stimulators for use on his research work to be carried out in Canberra,” he said. “These units are still in continuous operation and are the backbone of the nerve stimulation and recording apparatus.” Asked when he was due to retire from his post as director of the department, Mr Pollard said: “As far as I know, in February.”