Detroit at War

From the Automotive Council for War Production this week came a stirring report on industry's first six months at war:

> The automotive industry has undertaken to build 75% of all the aircraft engines, more than 33% of the machine guns, 40% of the tanks, besides all the motorized units. One company alone is making more than half the Diesel engines for the whole U.S. Navy.

> The industry is working three shifts a day on war orders totaling $14,000,000,000. In terms of pleasure cars and trucks, that would mean 15,000,000 units--three years' peacetime production.

> It is cutting costs and saving time all along the line through mass-production short cuts: a parts plant lopped 25% off the time Army Ordnance thought it would take to make machine guns; an automaker cut the time scheduled for a British ack-ack gun by four months and evolved a new way of broaching the barrel that cut that operation from 3 1/2 hours to 15 minutes; another parts maker improvised machine-gun equipment that beats regular arsenal machinery by 20-30 times; an automatic cannon that cost $1,200 to make 18 months ago now costs around $600; a new flame-cutting process turned out 12 tank-engine sprockets in 6 minutes v. 8 hours formerly required for a single sprocket.

It goes on & on. But perhaps the most extraordinary thing of all about Detroit-at-war is the change in the industry's thinking about improvisation. As late as a year ago, many automen swore that not much more than 15% of their wonderful one-purpose tools could be used for anything but automobile production. This week's report cited one automaker who is now using more than 80% of his automotive tools and equipment for war production. For the industry as a whole, the big manufacturers have converted some 66 2/3% of their automotive equipment, the smaller ones more than 40%.

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