VALUE OF QUALITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26793, 9 June 1948, Page 6

VALUE OF QUALITY

MASS-PRODUCED GOODS

RECOGNITION BY AMERICA OVER-CONFIDENCE APPARENT IN BRITAIN P.A. AUCKLAND. June 7. The need for Britain to concentrate on skilled design in her massproduced goods was emphasised by 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 Trade Commissioner in Washington and also visited the United Kingdom said we could not afford to regard as slightly second rate the quality of American mass-produced goods, a quality resulting from skilled design rather than trade skill. Faith in British Tradesmen “People of the British Commonwealth have for a long time accepted the superiority of American mass-pro-duction skill, but have remained rather smugly over-confident that we k av< - _ 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 marxet than the rich man. “A comparison between British (including New Zealand) and American design is most striking in the appliance field refrigerators, kitcnen stoves, washing machines, and so on, added Mr Laing. “A visit to the home show at Olympia was most disappointing Equipment designed and built m Britain was almost uniformly only fair. Far too evident were open seams, sharp edges, re-entrant angles, and difficult-to-clean surfaces. Clearly enough, the manufacturing of good designs can be done in England, as witness several items being made under licence to American concerns. It seemed desperately important that we should search for higher quality in our volume-produced articles. America achieved her results with a relatively low percentage of skilled craftsmen but a very high employment level of young scientists and designing engineers. Whether we liked it or not, trade skill was vanishing, and we 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 the highest going to physicists and industrial chemists, were paid by industry. Building Standards Compared “Our standards for house building and more tailor-made 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,” continued Mr Laing. Unfortunately most of these works involved large quantities of manufactured articles and architects to present an attractive finish.

American building by-laws differed in 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 decorations, said Mr Laing. Building trade wage rates were the highest of all artisan rates, and there was no apprentice training in many trades. It appeared certain that the whole weight of American ingenuity would be broughi to bear to reduce as much as possible the need for these trades. Prefabricated steel forms, simpler designs and mechanical equipment had already virtually eliminated the need for carpenters on some bridge construction work.