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"It Can't Be Done!"

30th April 1943, Page 33
30th April 1943
Page 33
Page 33, 30th April 1943 — "It Can't Be Done!"
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

In the Commercial Materialization of an Idea there are Three Phases, One of which is "Will It Pay P What Have We Missed as a Result ? Profit Would Not Matter if the State Carried the Cost

By " Azote "

IFyou want a job done, give it to the man Who doesn't know it's impossible."

The source of the quotation escapes me, but its cynical wisdom is dynamic.

" It can't be done," has greeted the enthusiast from his elders ever since things started to be done. The elders have resented the presumption of the younger, coming men, in proposing something beyond that which they themselves had accomplished.

There are three phases of possibility or impossibility in the " can't be done " smoke screen. If the screen be dispersed, and the phases separated out, impossibilities can often be turned to

The first phase of existence of an idea born in the mind of a scientist—or a ploughboy, for that matter—is the possibility or otherwise of its existence in the material world. The proving of this possibility is the laboratory stage of the development of the idea, without consideration of constructional possibility of the mechanism required to put the idea to practical use.

This mechanism of operation is the second phase, and it is here that the designer and the engineer come in, to prove that the theoretically possible idea can be so clothed in mechanism that it is capable of the sustained performance of the operation for which it was Conceived in the mind of the scientist (Or ploughboy).

The third phase is concerned with the economics of the matter, that is, can the boss make any money out of the new idea? If not; it is no good.

Those are the three phases included in the generalized criticism " it can't be done."

• Obviously the criticism of the first phase emanates from the ranks of the • scientists themselves, that of the secona phase, from the engineers and designers, and of the third from the boss's watchdog, the accountant.

Ideas should be welcomed, not trodden upon, as they often are. They should be proved in the laboratory by competent research men (or women), working without bias in one direction or the other. These workers should arrive at the decision regarding the possibility or otherwise of each idea presented for examination.

Then the engineer should be told to make the thing up to the designs presented to him by a man who kiice,vs the capabilities of materials, the stresses that Must be provided for, and all the conditions of construction, operation under temperatures and pressures, and the appearance of the finished mechanism or product.

The Part of the Engineer The engineer should construct the mechanism to the best of his training and specialized knowledge in the preparation and treatment of the materials of construction, so that the finished product Should truly reproduce the picture that 'the designer had in his mind, which, in turn, duplicated the conception of the master mind from which the idea emanated—that of the scientist (or ploughboy).

• .There will, during the course of this procedure, be failures. These must be examined, and it must be -determined whether they are due to the impossibility of translating into material form the ethereal original conception in the mind of the inventor or whether they are attributable to some person in the train of workers concerned who has not suitably performed his part. Also, it has to be decided at which of the three phases the failure has occurred.

Generally speaking, failures will be few when the scheme has been working long enough to ensure that each worker is mentally suited to his part in the scheme.

The mentalities of the " back room boys "—for that is what they are—in the various teams making up the whole need to be of quite different orders. In the laboratory the mentality should be concerned only with the possibility of demonstrating the conversion from the ethereal to the material stage. Considerations of whether it can enter the stage of practicability are not yet the question.

In the hands of the designer, who has to clothe the idea with matter that . will stand up to everyday operation, this is the only point that need be considered. Strengths and suitability of materials for the purpose of its existence are the questions, and the matter of cost is quite alien to the duties of either the designer or the engineer who has to make the mechanism as

designed.

The last stage is that of the accountant, who has the final decision whetker to use or to scrap the idea. No matter how clever the conception, ingenious the design, accurate the engineering, or efficient the performance, if the thing will not make any money for the boss, although tile whole nation call for it, into the salvage pot it goes and this is the end'of it. .

He who has the power of decision to use or not to use an idea, has a big responsibility to mankind. It is up to him to ask the three questions and not to accept "it can't be done " as an omnibus answer covering them all.

When it is considered what the world would be without transport, radio, the telephone and telegraph, and many other things, inhumanly as they may be used at the present time, the respon, sibility for refusing to accept an idea which might represent something as big as any of these things can hardly be estimated.

When we consider further the instructions that are given to the third-phase controller, the accountant, to refuse to use anything that " won't pay," we may well wonder what we have missed.

Won't pay ' means that it will Cost WO man to develop, or the tools will cost too much, spread over the particular section of probable sales of that particular concern.

If the " won't pay " costs be spread over the whole nation instead of an infinitesimal portion, such as is the one organization concerned, these costs can well be afforded without any question whatsoever, and the nation will not have lost something, it may be, of incalculable value to the whole of mankind.

In Russia, they do it that way.

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