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“Industrial Alcohol’s Promising Future,” Journal of Commerce, FFbuary 5, 1917. Address on Alcohol before t h e Franklin Institute, November 21, 1917. “Our Nitrogen Demand and Supply i n t h e Event of War,” J . I n d . Eng. Chem., 9 (1917), 204. “The Effect of Temperature and Duration of Reaction in the Formation of Light Oils in Coal Carbonization a t Atmospheric Pressure,” I b i d . , 9 (1917), 261. (Whitaker a n d Crowell.) “Comparative Study of the Thermal Decomposition of Coal and of Some of t h e Products of Its Carbonization,” Ibid., 10 (1918), 431. (Whitaker a n d Suydam.) “Manufacturing Consumers Make Pleas for Change in Alcohol Regulations,” Oil, Paint Drug ReP., 98 (1920), 29. “Personalities.” Award of Perkin Medal t o Dr. C. F. Chandler. J . Ind. Eng. Chem., 12 (l920), 183. “Protest against Nenr Volstead Bill Manufactures. Denounce Pending Measure as Menace t o Drug and Chemicalhdustries. Enforcement Officials Lack Knowledge of Legitimate Uses of Nonbeverage Alcohol,” T h e Pharmaceutical Era, 64 (1921), 233. “Industrial Alcohol and I t s Relation to Prohibition Enforcement from the Manufacturers’ Standpoint,” J . I n d . Eng. Chem., 13 (1921), 647. “Charles F. Chandler, Dean of American Chemists,” Ibid., 14 (1922), 977.
CONFERRING THE MEDAL DR. MILTONC. WHITAKER, M y dear Friend: It gives me the greatest pleasure, as the representative of the Society of Chemical Industry and the affiliated chemical and electrochemical societies of America, to place in your hands this beautiful Perkin Medal, as a token of the appreciation arid affection of your fellow chemists.
Acceptance By Milton C. Whitaker
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I have always believed that the Perkin Medal is the greatest honor that can he conferred upon a chemist by his fellow workers. I am accordingly deeply appreciative of the distinction which your committee has bestowed upon me, and doubly grateful to receive the beautiful symbol of the honor from you, sir, a Perkin Medalist yourself and by unanimous consent the beloved dean of our profession. It has been my good fortune to be an organization man rather than an individual worker. Achievements which have resulted in the award of the Perkin Medal to me are necessarily, therefore, achievements of the men with whom I have worked. It would be a pleasure to catalog the names and individual accomplishments of these men, but the list would be so long and involved that it is probably better at this time to generalize. Accordingly, the medal is accepted by me, in a representative capacity, as a distinguished honor conferred by the American chemical profession on these men with whom I have been associated in the thirty years devoted to study and practice in the field of applied chemistry.
ORGANIZATION FOR CHEMICAL PRODUCTION Organization for this or that purpose is a venerated topic for speech makers-especially efficiency experts and others with more or less amateur standing. Organization for chemical development and production has been spared much of this limelight, probably because of the new elements introduced and the greater difficulty in understanding the problem or even the language of chemical industry. Nevertheless, the fact must be recognized that no program of chemical production can be carried through without an adequate organization, any more than mechanical production can be accomplished without operators, or railroads run without men. While research chemists and physicists are laying the foundations for products, processes, and plants, it is incumbent upon somebody to develop, study, and perfect, concurrently, a suitable
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organization to carry their research results through the various stages of development and finally to profitable production. Furthermore, organized effort is obviously more rapid, efficient, and thorough than single-handed work, and this applies to every step from research to sales. Accordingly, it seems appropriate, in spite of the overworked character of the subject of organization, to outline some of the methods which my associates and I apply to chemical development in order to arrive at the results which your committee has accepted as collectively justifying the great honor of the P e r k b Medal. Arthur Little once said, “There is great danger in an organization chart-someone might mistake it for an organzzatiolz.” After this apt, if somewhat blunt, awakening, we wouldnot venture even to submit an organization chart. For the purposes of developing and coordinating the work of organization, the problems requiring individual treatment and timing may be arranged under the following general heads: (1) objective, (2) direction and policy, (3) research and engineering, (4) construction, (5) operation, (6) office and accounting, (7) sales and promotion, and (8) general seasoning. Time will not permit a detailed analysis of the methods of development for each of these organization headings, but the system which we have followed may be illustrated by selected examples. OBJECTIVE The objective of an organization requires the most careful analysis. This applies to all organizations, whether old or new. What is it supposed to do and where is it headed for? Obviously, the scope and extent of an organization should be adjusted to the facts developed by such an analysis. Over-organization seems to be the most general fault. We saw many cases during the war where there was so much organization that no one was left to do the work. We still frequently find organizations “all dressed up and no place to go.” This condition of organization seems to be largely due to the fact that almost everybody in a company, from chemists and engineers to office boys, has some pet theories in regard to organization that he would like to try, and will try if permitted. It is difficult for some of us to understand why men with highly specialized technical talent, which puts them in a class by themselves, surrounded by most fascinating problems and with worthwhile achievements easily within their reach, have a hankering to do “executive work,” which in so many cases means to sit at a desk and function as a “traffic cop” for correspondence. DIRECTION AND POLICY The direction and policy of an organization for chemical production is obviously, on account of its basic position, the most important element of the whole program. An organization without proper and carefully defined policy is like a ship without a rudder. It may gyrate around without going anywhere in particular, or it may, in close quarters, do a great deal of damage, both to itself and to its neighbors. Furthermore, a policy should be carefully worked out in the beginning, and it must “stay put.” Missteps in the formulation or execution of policy may be of little consequence at the time, but may at some future date loom up like a rock in the channel. I n any project of development, therefore, direction and policy deserve and must receive, far in advance, the most profound and intelligent consideration. RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING Research and engineering are the logical preliminaries to the development of any new program of chemical production, and, we believe, are equally necessary to improvement in the efficiency of established operations. Volumes have been written on the subject of organization for research. We claim no originality
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for the systems which we have adopted, but take this occasion excellent plant men. It likewise follows that many chemists who think they are qualified by nature to handle plant problems to record some typical schemes followed in our work, in the hope that they may serve as guides to others in what to do or what are essentially research men. Some men are not fitted for either . research, plant, or sales, and would probably do better in insurnot to do according to their desires or tastes. The overhead set-up for research must be analyzed as a pre- ance or music. A man who is essentially a plant man is liable to be a nuisance Liminary to any plan to develop a research organization. The objective, interest, and resources available to the directors and in a research laboratory, and, on the other hand, a man with research inclinations is a hazard to any executives are of primary importance production process. in any research program. Their ability t o understand the scope of our activiDiversification of training and exties, their confidence in our abilities, perience among the members of a retheir determination to see the thing search organization is of the utmost through, and their capacity to stand value when the organization works as disappointments, are qualities which a group. While each investigator may must be measured and will form the have his particular problem, team work foundation on which the program may is a necessary element in order to be built. In short, ambitious reachieve the greatest results. searchers must exercise care in the The man who is inclined or prefers selection of their bosses. to play a lone hand, who is selfish or Many research projects are doomed secretive, is out of place in any orto failure before they start, because ganization. Individual effort is limited of the lack of interest or understandto theacapacity of a single person, ing on the part of the overhead. If whereas the advantages of an organiresearch is to be a part of an organzation should be capitalized by proization at all, it is entitled to the full ducing results which represent the benefits of cooperative support of combined effort and experience and e9ery man in that organization from knowledge of a number of men paroverhead to office boy. Research men ticipating. Thus it is that many sucare liable to be sensitive and somecessful developments come from the times temperamental. They respond laboratory for which it is difficult to to encouragement and wholehearted award the credit to any individual. Underwood & Underwood support, while, on the other hand, a This is sometimes reflected in the MILTON C. WHITAKER single knocker may wreck the works. difficulties encountered in an effort to The greater portion of our organized research effort has been unscramble an invention for the purpose of securing patents. with the Welsbach Co., Columbia University, the U. S. Indus- While the United States patent law has not kept pace with trial Alcohol Co., and the U. S. Industrial Chemical Company. cooperative effort in research, and the problem of allocating The confidence and undivided support which we have received the inventions to individuals in such an organization is becoming from the directors and officers of these organizations, and the increasingly difficult, on the other hand a knowledge of the undermistakes they have stood for and paid for, form the basis on lying principles of these patent laws broadens the field of vision of the investigator. which we have been able to build recent organizations. We always see to i t that officers and directors understand CONSTRUCTION what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it. We Equipment for industrial research is selected according to discuss our projects and policies and program with them. We do not even deny them the privilege of sharing our disappoint- the number and scope of our problems, and the amount available ments and understanding our failures. We have received in is made or acquired in accordance with our needs and the progress of our work. A laboratory for the development of new return encouragement, confidence, support. processes and products should contain all necessary physical A president of a corporation or a chairman of a board who and chemical apparatus for the investigation of each fundamental reads and understands the research reports, knows and follows principle involved in the projects under study. Every theory the progress of the work of every chemist and engineer in the and fact contained in the literature and bearing directly on the organization, who champions the fellow who is down and enproblem or related problems is made available to the investicourages the fellow who is up, and who interprets these results gator before work is actually undertaken. We regard this as and conditions to his directors, may be a rarity in some programs much a part of our research equipment as the apparatus and for the development of chemical production, but in our cases i t desks. Most of these chemical and physical facts and theories has been the inspiration. We attribute these conditions to the have to be checked and confirmed, and the laboratory equipcare we have exercised in the selection and training of our bosses. ment should be ample to meet these requirements. They doubtless will ascribe it to other reasons. As the results of the laboratory work are completed, checked, Our research organizations consist of personnel, equipment, plotted, and discussed, plans are considered for an elaboration problems. Diversification of all three of these elements, within of these principles into a small laboratory apparatus. Conthe scope of the project, is both necessary and desirable. firmation of theories and reasoning at the laboratory desk, and We have no formula for the selection of the men. We do further consideration and discussion of results bring us to the not believe any one can pick a winner every time from a group point where cooperation is required between the chemists and of available chemists. Our best guess, based on training, expe- the engineers. rience and temperament as disclosed by the candidate, is given OPERATION a trial in the organization and is given reasonable time to adjust
or eliminate himself by a process of natural selection. Many chemists who think they are research men are not qualified either by training, ability, or temperament to handle research problems. Yet these same men may be or may develop into
We believe that the place to start and finish a real chemical engineering problem is in the research laboratory. For this reason our engineers work with and rank with our research chemists. Personal contact and discussion during the laboratory
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development and close co6peration in the planning of a semicommercial unit have avoided many misunderstandings and failures. Our experimental units have for their purpose much more than the checking of the laboratory results obtained by the research chemist. These units are scaled to a size which will permit of a continuous operation over a considerable period of time, in order definitely to establish engineering data for use in the design of commercial units, and to determine capacity, quality of product, and materials of construction. They must also produce a sufficient quantity of the product to enable it to be sold and, finally, to determine if it meets the supreme commercial test, that is, to stay sold. We operate these experimental units from six months to two years, depending upon conditions, changes required, market tests, etc. During this period, the operation is under the close observation of the research chemists who established the basic data for the process, the engineers who cooperated and designed, and, if possible, the mechanics who built the apparatus. Even the plant organization which may ultimately be expected to erect and operate the commercial units, and the sales department which has to sell the prQduct and make it stay sold, are kept in contact with the work. Incidental to this experimental operation, all questions of quality, specifications, market requirements, containers, and natural sales units, are determined. The purchasing office becomes familiar with the problems involved in locating, specifying, and buying raw materials, the apparent hopelessness of the problem of costs and accountirig in the operation becomes clarified for the auditors, and, finally, the clerks, stenographers, and office boys add the new names to their vocabulary, and discuss the prospects of the new process with assurance. Innumerable other elements such as I. C. C. regulations, insurance risk, workman hazards, keeping qualities, etc., are determined so that when commercial units are finally undertaken, all the elements from design to sale of products are settled and behind us. Concentration on research problems, based on the needs and requirements of the organization and its policy for development, requires courage and persistence, but it must be regarded as necessary in industrial work. An industrial research laboratory has a different objective from that of the academic institution. We endeavor to achieve constructive results within a limited field, and in a reasonable time, which aim a t the building of a plant and the production of a product a t a profit. The academic investigator, on the other hand, may choose his problem from the unlimited field and for the purpose of making a contribution to science or of qualifying for a degree. The objective of the industrial investigator is a process and a plant t o which he can point with the pride of achievement, whereas the objective of the academic investigator is a contribution to science and publications to which he can with equal fairness point with the pride of authorship. The former measures his success by the amount of factory noise and smoke his work creates, while the latter may mode$tly acknowledge the cheers of his peers, or may measure his success by the amount of printer’s ink he has caused to be consumed. Such a research organization as outlined was established in the fall of 1916 in the industrial outskirts of Baltimore. We selected as a building site a large potato patch and surrounded it with a high fence enclosing several acres. Here we developed what might be called a research plant. We were inflicted with neither neighbors nor architects. The lighting, heating, ven tilation, and drainage were planned by and for chemists, with the result that we have an abundance of each. Architecturally, it is below par, but it is what it was built for. By the beginning of the year this plant was in full operation, manned by chemists specially qualified by analytical, organic,
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physical, or biochemical training, and brought together from Maine to California with a liberal allowance for intermediate points. The chemists were reinforced with engineers, assistants, mechanics, and bottle washers. The specific problem placed before this organization was the development of uses of alcohol and the utilization of the byproducts of the alcohol industry. The work of the laboratory was soon interrupted by war problems, and the entire time of the organization was devoted for over a year to the development and improvement of processes for the production of acetic acid, acetone, methyl acetate, ethylene, and solvents for airplane dopes. The acetone process, which at one time supplied 60 per cent of the war requirements for acetone, was discontinued at the signing of the armistice. Methyl acetate and solvents for airplane dopes were no longer in demand and the process for the direct production of acetic acid was abandoned in favor of the by-product acid. Ethylene has since achieved considerable commercial development as a gas for cutting and welding and as a standard chemical. Thus, at the end of 1918 we were like many other research organizations-going strong, but not in the right direction. While the surveyors were staking out the site for the laboratory, a competent group of chemists was building up our equipment on the “state of the art.” Every literature or patent reference, directly or indirectly related to our problems, in every country and language, was studied, translated if necessary, abstracted, classified, indexed, and made available to the laboratory staff. This file now includes over forty thousand references kept strictly up to date. These searchers are in constant contact with the laboratory, supplying them with advance information, helping over the humps, and bringing up the rear on patents. The department has since been expanded into a general information service for the entire business, including contemporary progress, commercial development, statistics, foreign relations, etc. Having passed the research, engineering, and construction stages of a new development, we now come to the problem of developing and coordinating, in their proper order and to the proper extent, our operating organization. Good operating chemists and engineers are in a class by themselves. Patience, caution, and conservatism are not natural to a chemist who has been trained to visualize the invisible, to theorize, and to experiment. Too much imagination and inventiveness are qualities which if applied to a production operation will eventually wreck it. We prefer men who are hardheaded, poker-faced, unimaginative citizens, possessed of a n obsession to make the wheels go round. A good operating man will study every detail of his operation with a view to increasing its efficiency and output. This includes the efficiency and dependability of his operators. Each man, woman, or boy in his subunits is studied to determine his or her fitness for the job. They must be made to fit the job or the job made to fit them. This leaves no room on the inside for misfits. The operating chemist’s problems are production, incessant production, quality and costs, including the costs of his losses of equipment, materials, and time. If he has a burning desire t o investigate something about a going process, let him take his problem to the research laboratory and keep it there till he gets the answer. Let him remember that the business of the plant is to produce and the business of the research laboratory is to experiment and develop, but that it takes a wiser man than he is to make the two function together and avoid the clutches of the sheriff. OFFICEAND ACCOUNTXNG
Plant offices are often neglected, in spite of the fact that they are capable of being made one of the most necessary and important elements in a plant organization. They should be the con-
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necting link between all internal units of the organization and between the organization as a whole and the public. Some office organizations, if allowed to drift, seem to have a genius for developing a high nuisance value and getting themselves disliked both inside and outside the plant. The exercise of a little common sense and some of the same care on the office personnel and its functions as that used on thedevelopment of research or operation, will make an office staff what it should be-the pivotal point around which the whole finished organization will smoothly and noiselessly rotate. We believe that accountants, in addition to holding post-mortems on past performances, should supply live figures and facts designed to assist, direct, and control going operations; that their costs need not be a blind assemblage of figures, but that they should reflect a working knowledge of the operation and what the costs ought to be-at least enough knowledge to enable them to get the decimal point in the right place. This policy means that the office becomes a working part of our research engineering construction operating organization, and not the “short-hour aristocrats” of the plant. Orders, billing, and correspondence come in for their share of systematic attention, and the “foreign relations” of the organization are handled with a minimum of “alibi building” and “buck passing.” Purchasing agents, in addition to their usual prerogatives of brow-beating salesmen, are expected to function as advance agents for research and engineering, to know the stocks of materials and supplies in the plant, and to anticipate balance and look forward. Their job does not end with writing an order and dropping it in the mail, but they are expected to know when and where the goods will be delivered, see to it that they are delivered, that the stuff delivered is what was purchased and, more important, what is wanted, and, finally, to see that the man who wants the stuff knows it is in and where it is to be found. This may look like a big contract but it can be done and is being done wherever purchasing offices function according to our plan. SALES AND
PROMOTION
Having achieved the development of new products and processes and reached the point of production, the largest problem of all is sales. Unless proper attention has been given to the development of sales, which includes the promotion and introduction of the products to the trade, disaster awaits a budding chemical industry. Sales development is a long and tedious process. It takes time and talent for a new producer to butt into an old market, and it takes more time and more talent to introduce new products. New products must be guided through the introductory stages by the research laboratory and especially by those men most responsible for the development. This knowledge and paternal interest must be capitalized in order to furnish salesmen, even those with technical training, with the proper sales points and the necessary enthusiasm,
SEASONING General seasoning of a new Organization is the most elusive and, therefore, the most interesting problem of them all. It has many discouraging and some mysterious features. Experience and patient hammering seems to be the solution if one can live through it. General plant sense, mechanical horse sense, legal liabilities as applied to purchase, sales and employment contracts, insurance, fire risks, employees’ risks and safeguards, do not fall within the training and experience of the young plant chemist or engineer, yet it is incumbent upon the organization as a whole to understand and handle these and many similar problems. < The element of mystery is involved in such things as running a suction pipe sixty-five feet into a well, trying to push a loaded
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conveyor belt, installation of pipe sizes which add 100 to 200 per cent of friction load to the normal head load of a pump, connecting operating units directly to underground sewers, omitting safety valves from steam-jacketed equipment, trusting labor to function 100 per cent perfect. To the seasoned factory man such things are hard to account for. Whatever may be the cause of these apparent lapses, continued hammering, an occasional steam roller, and frequently some sad experiences seem slowly to wear down the list. In time they will learn to apply their physics, to think things through, to develop the “high points” in supervision so as to “just happen around” at a critical time, and finally to leave nothing to chance-to hold four aces a t all times. No organization will ever be free from seasoning problems, as long as we have the human element to deal with, but the “rate of frequency” may be used as a measure of perfection.
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(EDITOR’S NOTE: The last part of Dr. Whitaker’s address, giving a detailed description of his process for the production of ethyl acetate from acetic acid and alcohol, illustrated by curves showing some of his observations on esterification, will appear as a separate article in a subsequent issue of THISJOURNAL.)
Technical Records of Explosives Supply, 1915-1918. IX-Heat Transmission. 48 pp., 15 illustrations, 4 alignment charts. 19 X 28 cm. Ministry of Munitions and Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, London. H. M. Stationery Office, 1922. Price, 5s, 3l/ad. The right application of the laws governing the transmission of heat, and especially the flow of heat through the walls of pipes, constitutes one of the most important physical problems in chemical factory practice, since in a large number of instances heat must be supplied to initiate and to maintain chemical action, while in some instances heat must be removed in order to prevent undue acceleration in the rate of the reaction. There is an optimum temperature for each chemical operation and in good practice it is sought to maintain this condition by the control of the heat transmission. The object of this publication is to make available to the industries the results of experience gathered in the operation of the national factories during the war, this being the last of a series of nine such publications prepared from the records of the Department of Explosives Supply of the Ministry of Munitions. In the treatment the subject is divided into “Theoretical Section,” dealing with fundamental principles, criterion for turbulence, determination of coefficients of transmission, application of method of dimensions and coefficient of transmission to specific problems, and the construction of alignment charts ; “Experimental Section,” dealing with the methods of investigation and examination of experimental results as applied to acid coolers a t the Queen’s Ferry plant, lead coolers, and a superheater in a denitration plant, and to surface condensers, with consideration of water economy and efficient cooling, the effect of stirring, surface loss, and the heat interchange in a cylinder in which a heat-producing reaction takes place; and a third section devoted to a detailed study of the application of the principle of Quinan’s bubbler scrubber to the cooling of condensing water. Like its predecessors in this series, the pages bristle with data, many of which are really comprehensive comparative catalogs of factory devices, while the step-bystep solution of fundamental problems is recorded in so plain and detailed a manner that they may be followedand made use of by those having but a limited knowledge of mathematics. A copy of this book should be at hand for ready consultation in every factory and works. CHARLES E. MUNROS
