Suggestion Box (1943)

[Music] these men are just ordinary workmen but they are winning the Battle of production with Ingenuity with initiative with suggestions for a faster better way of getting the job done Andrew kton for instance he sorts and stacks varying lengths of metal tubing it wasn't a hard job but it was a slow one as each load of tubing was dumped on his workt he separated the two blanks one at a time and while he was doing it he was doing a little thinking he placed metal strips on his table over the marks indicating the desired two blanks the miscellaneous tubing is dumped on top then by simply lifting the metal strips those above 93 in come up together those of 82 in do likewise he ran up his production from 146 to 516 lb of tubing per hour in Washington the suggestions of one plant are made available to thousands of plants for today when time and economy are of vital importance every suggestion for a better method of work is being circulated throughout the country to benefit industry as a whole the board for individual Awards of war production Drive headquarters is a clearing house for suggestions that have already proved their worth and been adopted in the plants where they were conceived the board made up of experts in all fields of Industry analyzed the merits of suggestions submitted by Labor Management committees in thousands of plants throughout the country they touch on every phase of War Industry and every type of individual job this is a machine which uses great quantities of heavy lubricating oil waste shavings were carded off to the smelter covered with this valuable [Music] oil though the metal was saved the oil was wasted until Edgar Gaston a janitor the plant made a suggestion perforated false bottoms were put in the shavings truck loaded trucks stand for a while the oil seeps off the shaving and is drained from the bottom for further use Gaston's idea saves 40,000 Gall of oil a year in this plant alone Charles vreski had been removing knobs from cylinder barrels with a large engine Lae he thought of a way to do the same operation with a high-speed circular saw a tool on the unused and available machine list the holding fixture also was available having been used in another plant operation the simple adjustment makes it possible for pki to increase his duties saving thousands of man hours a year and releases three Lads for necessary Precision work holding and rotating a 30 lb cylinder liner against the buffing wheel was slow unsatisfactory and uncomfortable for the operator Isidor Clark designed a homemade spinning fixture to hold the liner against the polishing wheel saving is more than 4,000 manh hours per year more than $6,000 per year 1 hour and 12 minutes per cylinder liner and 50% longer life for the polishing wheel Fran o shinski is was another machinist who had a tough job and a happy thought reaming the ends of pipes to make them larger required two men it was dangerous to both if the reamer strikes a snag it can buckle and throw the operator's shoulder out of joint o shinsky suggested a rig to hold the reamer and keep it from twisting now he works alone releasing his helper for other necessary work the pull deck sections in place on a ship was necessary to weld hooks or angle clips on the sections first the device to pull the sections together was hooked around the angle clips held firmly the device is twisted like a two-way cork screw drawing the deck section slowly and accurately in place then the clips had to be removed first turning off the welding metal knocking the angle clip loose finally cleaning up with a Pneumatic chisel Joseph kobach one of the shipyard workers designed a utility hook to take the place of the angle clip one bolt holds the hook in place on one of the under beams of the barge section when the sections are fitted the bolt is removed by hand in a few minutes results eliminates thousands of angle clips saves thousands of man hours a years saves material thousands of inches of welding metal and the steel used to make Clips eliminates accidents to mount of lens for grinding one side has to be built up with ceiling wax this was a laborious job coating one lens at a time layer by layer shaping the hot wax all the while burned fingers slowed up the process even more the operator and sofa saved time and fingers by using her head she devised a mold much like grandmother's button mold which she places in a tray of cold water melted wax is poured in lens is set in place the process is finished former production 60 lenses A Day present production 500 lenses a day a flame detector is the vital mechanism on a ship a plane a tank a PT boat that signals the start of a fire our Fighters can use all they can get and speeding up their manufacturer is a vital need four little pins hold a flame detector together these pins must first be cut to sides then the ends bent to an exact angle William plish a die maker watched and studied these several operations that went into the making of these small pins he studied the proportions and requirements of the pin then he carefully outlined the results of his study on a suggestion form and submitted it to the plant management the suggestion is tested a die that combines all the operations in one a single machine needing a single operator the wires are cut cut and bent at the same time and flow from the new machine with a fluency that any Bomber Crew menaced by fire would cheer to see the suggestion passed on by the plant Labor Management committee was considered an outstanding contribution to the overall war effort as such it was forwarded to Washington and voted an award for individual achievement in industry but it did not stop there all these suggestions and thousands of others like them are are fanned out Way Beyond the machine shops and plants where they first took shape they are being made available to every industry and every plant where the weapons and tools of War are turned out they are multiplying their original savings and materials and man hours over and over again Ingenuity has been mobilized and the Workman with an idea is doing service beyond the line of [Music] duty the sum of millions of one man of assignments thoughtfully ingeniously carried out at the bench at the machine on the assembly lines in civilian work and in the home is the only total equal to Total War [Applause]