MACHINERY IN U.S.A.

Grey River Argus, 12 May 1931, Page 3

MACHINERY IN U.S.A.

Much has been said, at one time or another, about the freedom with which American manufacturers scrap obsolete or obsolescent, machinery and tools and the impression has been very general that American factories, as a whole, were singularly enterprising in this regard. J u 1925, the American Machinist, a technical journal, made a survey of the metal-working machinery in the United States, and reported that 44 per cent of it was more than 10 year s old. It considered that in view of the progress in tool designing in the decade, every tool over 10 years old should be considered obsolete. The same publication recently made another survey and reports that 48 per cent of the machinery is now 10 or more years old. In the calculating machine, cash register, and typewriter industry as much as 73 per cent, of the machinery in use was installed before 1920. There is the same proportion in railroad repair shops and car builders’ plants. In the textile industries the proportion is fl2 per cent. The smallest percentages are in making aircraft and parts, 4 per cent, in plants making motor vehicle bodies and parts 2® per cent, and in plants making motor vehicles 28 per cent. On the average, although progress in tool-making has been greater in the last five year s than in any other similar period, the proportion of obsolete machinery in use is greater now than it was in 1925.