SPECIALISATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 278, 26 November 1935, Page 8

SPECIALISATION

DOMINION FACTORIES CASE OF WOOLLEN MILLS PAsMERSTON N., Nov. 16. One of the charges often brought against New Zealand industry is that it is uneconomic because the various factories do not sufficiently *'specialise” in the lines they produce, said Mr. A. E. Mander, secretary of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, in the course of an address to the Manawatu branch of the New’ Zealand Economic Society. Jt was commonly said by the man in the street that the woollen mills, for instance, would be mure efficient if they were to specialise, one mill concentrating on tweeds, another on worsteds, another on flannel, another on blankets, another on knitting yarn, and so forth. “As a matter of fact, that is nonsense,” said Mr. Mander. “Jn the first place, lhe various types of production all dovetail in with one another. When the combing process has separated the long straight fibres of the i wool from ail the short or curly fibres, the former are used for the manufac- ! lure, of worsteds, and latter for making such types of ''loth as flannel and blankets. The various lines of production are thus complementary to one another lhe waste product of one being the material required for the other.” Moreover, there was the question of maintaining all-the-ycar-round producI tion. Most lines were seasonal, and lone of the problems of the mill-owner | was that of arranging the work to I meet all the changing seasonal de- ! mands, switching the workers from one type of production to another as required. Again, the young weavers had to be trained on the simpler kinds of cloth before they could be put to weaving complicated patterns. In Various Countries. It. was true that these processes might, bo carried on in different mills, owned by different companies, but in the same vicinity. This was the system in England, but it did not. prove that this system was lhe, best. In New Zealand the processes were carried on in separate mills, but as a rule the wool and worsted mills adjoined each other, were owned by the same, company, and were under the same general management. This was much economical than the English system of having each ‘‘department” own ed by a separate company and independently controlled. ’J'he English industry merely happened to grow up that way, but in the newer industries of Germany and U.S.A., and especially in the most modern of all woollen industries, that of Japan, lhe same system was adopted as was found in New Zealand. In Special Cases. ( Mr. Mander said that be did not suggest that the whole question of specialisation could be dismissed, simply because the popular idea of it, in one particular but outstanding instance, was mistaken. Ju his opinion there was a good case to be made out for a thorough, systematic inquiry into the whole question, considering each type of industry separately, and he believed there were some industries which could improve their working very considerably if the various factories would reach an agreement leading to a greater degree, of specialisation. Manufacturing engineering was probably the industry which would gain most of all by such an agreement; for there it was often found that a very large proportion of the total cost ot production was the cost of making special patterns, tools, jigs, and fixtures. while the production run itself might be too short to justify all lhe preparatory work.