OPINIONS FROM OTHERS.
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The Editor invites correspondence on all subjects connected with the use of commercial motors. Letters should be on one side of the paper only and typewritten by preference. The right of abbreviation is reserved, and no responsibility for views expressed is accepted.
Mechanical Principles and Load Origin.
The Editor, TEE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[1597] have been ranch interested to read the article on "Mechanical Principles" in your issue of 28th March. It is good to have thee old fundamental principles. put into print for the public. Your article began with the load. It is instructive to go a stage further back. The load is at ground level and has to be raised to lorry level. How did it get to ground level, seeing the goods of which it is composed were made or handled at bench level'? Raw material of every kind has to be raised from the ground (e.g., mining, agriculture). All manufactured articles (with very few exceptions) reach bench height during machining, weighing, counting, inspecting, etc., etc. During or after packing they get to floor leve, or the level of the truck or barrow upon which they are moved about the works, eventually reaching the stores. Then they have to be raised again to lorry level. If we take the difference in level at 3 ft., there is nearly 7000 ft. lbs. of work wasted per ton of goods handled..
Small and medium-sized factories could effect a considerable saving of labour in handling if they would adapt their factory trucks and barrows to the height of the benches, and keep their goods at bench height in the stores. It sounds a cranky idea, but is actually as fundamentally sound as, say, the travelling-way method of erecting in quantity production. The factory truck is evolved from the sackharrows; the sack-barrow has to be low ; the factory truck should not be.--Yours faithfully,
Cambridge. GEORGE MOOR.
Research and the Salesman.
The Editor, TrEE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[1598] Sir,—Your article in " Research " in the current issue Of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR is exceedingly timely, and represents the least we should do. Are you not, however, omitting one half of the problem and its solution? I take it that you are thinking predominantly, if not exclusively, of a Research A.ssee dation for the production side of the motor industry. But what about the selling end of the business'? Is it not as important, if not more important, than the production aide ? Some of our foremost business Men consider that, on the average, selling costs are greater than production costs under modern conditions, and in any cage the bare idea of such a proposition being remotely true should decide every manufacturer to explore the matter thoroughly for himself. "The question of selling," says one of our most experienced salesmen, "is the great question before the manufacturer to-day." Consider the present situation.
(1) We have no data on a broad scale for the study of the selling side of business in our country. (One of the keenest students of this subject in America still speaks of "the baffling scarcity of data" in his country.)
(2) There are three great elements to reckon with in the selling world Capital. Labour and the Consumer —but only the world; two of these have received any decent measure of attention up till now.
(3) Scores of intensely interesting and vitally important selling questions continue to remain unanswered or only partially answered because they cannot be explored by individual firms. (4) One of our Allies has Courses on this subject in 14 different universities—we have none.
(5) The New York Advertising Men's League and the Association of National Advertisers have co046 operated during the past five years in maintaining a Research Fellowship in the department of psychology of Columbia University. The Research Fellow gives his full time to the investigation, interpretation, and reporting of new experimental Studies in the psychology of advertising. (The results have shown that the laboratory study not only measures the relative value of the different appeals but also • analyses the reasons for these differences.)
These facts are being studied by more individual business men than most of us think, even at the present time but what, is needed is that someone with a trade platform (such as yourself) should blazon them forth so that they might be considered by masseS of men conjointly in every part of the country.
By all means let us go ahead with our agitation for research to the limit of our present power ; but do not let us forget that to produce the most efficient article at a cheap price (no one can produce an efficient article at the cheapest department) is onlyone half of the job, and that if the article is to be sold in big quantities at a remunerative price it must have behind it an equally well-developed selling orzaniza lion. —Yours faith fully, R. IVICKEAN CANT.
Transport! Transport!! Transport!! !
The Editor, TEE COMMERCIAL MOTOR,
[1599] Sir,—I have perused with interest your articles upon the "Road Transport Boaid," but so far, with I believe one exception, they have not touched upon the great question of keeping the vehicles on the road. • I would venture to suggest that this is as vital as using them properly when they are there.
You owe referred to the desirability of the R.T.B. ,
seeing that valuable transport was not "hung-up" indefinitely for want of a small part, and with that I entirely agree now, having two such., cases• on hand (one belonging to a wholesale meat purveyor and the other to a farmer).
But another point is to see that existing repair facilities in or near large industrial -centres are utilized to the best advantage. For instance, my firm although doing repairs to every class of -petrol vehicle, yet specialize in Ford repairs, and we could easily undertake more repairs to this make from outside our own immediate district.. And yet there may be some firms engaged upon important national worl< who are inconvenienced for want of such a repair ser vice.
do not for a moment suggest Government control_ of repair shops, for that would .probably be disastrous, but I put forward the suggestion that it might be wisdom for the R.T.B. to make it part of its work to take stock of special repair facilities in or near industrial districts, and to suggest its use accordingly to owners of vehicles as and where desirable.—Yours fatt,hfully,
MILNE AND RUSSELL, LTD.,
Croydon. per pro F. G. MILNE.