INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
August, 1924
hand corner of the card, and each card carries an accurate but brief description of the equipment. Similarly, the reverse side of the card (Fig. 2a) bears its cost, which is each year reduced by the amount of depreciation or amortization proper to it. In the cases in which these cards are kept, they are held in little celluloid pockets in such a way as to leave visible a t all times U. S. INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL GO.
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that part of the card below the heavy black line near the bottom, showing the number,#name, location, and plant of the item described. The cards can be turned over for inspectjon of the reverse side without removing them from the file. I n this way a complete inventory of each part of the plant is easily available for ready reference a t all times. When a piece of apparatus is transferred from one plant to another, sold, or sent to the scrap heap, a card such as that shown in Fig. 3 is made out and placed in the filing system over the card describing the apparatus. The cancellation card is blue-
859
others are white-and attracts attention immediately in the filing cabinet. If the apparatus in question is sold, its selling price is noted on the cancellation card, and if transferred to another department or plant, a proper entry upon the cancellation card is made to show its new location, its new use, the reason for the transfer, and its value under the new circumstances. The spare property section of this file is a very valuable means of keeping before the plant superintendents all available spare plant equipment, thus avoiding unnecessary new purchases. The system of filing deserves comment. It consists of comparatively fireproof, multi-unit cabinets containing shallow drawers in which the cards are filed in a horizontal position. The cards in their celluloid pockets are removable in groups, or any individual card may be removed conveniently for the entry of additional information thereon. The master property files of all plants are kept by the property account department of the engineering office, under the supervision of the chief engineer. A duplicate file is kept in the executive offices of the company, and each plant has a copy of that part of the file covering its own property, including buildings and equipment. All changes of property are reported by the plants to the engineering office, where card record revisions are made and sent out to the other files and to the auditing department as required. Detailed property accounts such as this are of great value in determining insurance values in different locations, not only in case of fire, but also for the purpose of coverage, determining investments in various operations, studying and establishing proper rates of depreciation for chemical equipment especially, avoiding too high concentration of values and consequently too great risks in certain locations, giving a quick means of appraisal of all or any portion of a plant, and serving as a basis for calculating replacement values on any given ratio of construction costs.
A Great Chemical Organizer T H E new president of the Society of Chemical Industry, supplies required for the British and Allied forces, and finally chairman of War Office Committee V (Medical Supplies). W. J. U. Woolcock, is a born organizer and diplomatist. A member of the English Bar, Liberal member for Central He was as much as any one the author of the Dyestuffs Act, and of Part I of the Safeguarding of Industries Act. He was in Hackney from 1918-1923, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Munitions and later to the Postmaster General, the House of Commons when both measures were passed, and the past secretary of the Pharmaceutical Society, a member of the part he took behind the scenes in getting them through in a Dyestuff 6, Licensing Committee and chairman fierce race against time has only been equaled by of the Dyestuffs Development Committee, orhis efforts since to develop both industries. His ganizer of the Chemical Section a t the British latest success has been the organization of the Empire Exhibition, and finally-and most imChemical Section a t Wembley, admittedly one of portant of all-general manager for the past six most representative and educational features of years, with yet another four to run, of the Associthe exhibition. ation of British Chemical Manufacturers, he has But the great work of Mr. Woolcock’s career had an unusually wide and varied experience of has been the development of the Association of administrative duties requiring great tact and British Chemical Manufacturers, with which he judgment in the handling of business affairs and is still connected. Under his hands the detached still more in the handling of men. So far there and scattered units of the industry have been is no failure to record against him-only a sucwelded into a real federation and power, and he is already seeing the realization of one great cession of brilliant successes. Everything he takes up “goes,” apparently of itself, but really ambition-the transformation of Great Britain because of the thorough business qualities he puts in chemical matters from a nation of importers into the work, his instinctive sense of the common and distributors into a nation of producers. He line people will follow, and the deceptive ease has established a new center for British chemical with which he urges or coaxes his colleagues into industry and brought before all its members a action. Rarely does one find so much driving new group of ambitions. force concealed under so nonchalant a manner. An accomplished speaker in either the parWelcoming criticism, flattering the critic by liamentary or the legal manner, a writer who can meeting him half way, giving full weight to all photo b y ~ ~ f ~ y e t t eknock off an article or draft a manifesto with objections, he rarely, if ever, surrenders the vital W. J. U. WOOLCOCK the ease of a practiced journalist, an organizer who has some wizard‘s gift of getting people of objective on which he has set his mind. I n the chemical industry Mr. Woolcock is preeminently the diverse temperaments to work together for common objects, a organizer of the day. His first conspicuous success along this companion who in his busiest days has always a spare moment line was in connection with the h’ational Insurance Act. When for a joke or the latest story or a word of helpful advice, Mr. the war broke out all the Pharmaceutical Society’s resources were Woolcock has become one of the personalitiis of the chemical inplaced at the service of the Government, and it was Mr. Wool- dustry. His election t o the chair of the society is the industry’s cock’s duty to see that ample supplies of essential drugs and best tribute to his work and character. I t would be strange, medicines were assured. Later he became Assistant Director indeed, if he failed to do something worthily to commemorate of Army Contracts, responsible for the purchase of the enormous the term of office on which he now enters.--[ F. E. HAMER]
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