WALTER J . MURPIIY, EDITOR
What
Sells
Chemicals?
0
upon a time the saying was “salesmen are born and not made.” At least in the field of chemical sales this observation does not find the support it once had. VCTewere very interested in some of the remarks made in this direction at the Symposium on Education of Chemists for Sales, Sales Development, and Market Research at the 127th national ACS meeting in Cincinnati. And if you’ve perused the April and May issues of I&EC, you’ll find in the CCDA story “The Case History Method as a Tool” and the Symposium on Know-How Economics some good evidence as to why we’re interested. Market developments and sales of chemicals require know-how, and this know-how is expensively acquired, and in many cases can be satisfactorily acquired only by persons with a technical background. Early this spring a conference on “The Functions and Training of the Chemical Engineer in Europe” was held in London. A sentence in the British publication Chemical Trade Journal and Chemical Engineer, quoting Karl Winnacker, chairman of the board of Farbwerke-Hoechst A.-G., arrested our attention-“TVhen the chemist and the engineer have been restricted within too narrow limits, it has been left to a salesman with an open mind to effect the biggest technical improvements.” We don’t know whether American chemical industry in general will agree with this statement, but we do know that all the above begin to point to something. What is it? It is this simple. When we talk about cross fertilization of disciplines nowadays, we should realize that there may also be cross fertilization within disciplines-and so we have the fact that in chemical science there is no longer a distinct line of demarcation between the chemist and chemical engineer. And the line between either of them in strictly technical work as contrasted with sales or technical service is becoming $ornewhat fuzzy, too. Today a salesman in the chemical industry has to have something more than an open mind to compete with the chemist and chemical engineer engaged in strictly technical work in effecting technical improvements. He needs t o be a chemist or chemical engineer himself. But he needs also to have some acquaintance with subjects in the areas of communication, economics, logic, advertising, or industrial organization. Some students hope to enter chemical sales directly from undergraduate work; many companies are placing young technical graduates directly in sales and sales service. In this day of an increasing buyers’ market in chemicals, perhaps more should be done by both educational institutions and industry to attract graduates into selling and/or product development. XCE
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A
Equipment Standardization HEN
conferring with E. E. Dorresten of The Bechtel
w corp. on this month’s Report to Management, we asked him to answer a number of specific questions. One dealt with lune 1955
the subject of standardization of parts and equipment, a question occupying considerable industrial attention today. We were delighted to see in the report of the stand taken by the Chemical Industry Advisory Board of the American Standards Association [IND.ENG.CHEM.,47, 7 6 A (April 1955)] essentially the same thoughts expressed by Mr. Dorresten. (You will find these and additional specific information on the present status of standardization on page 35 A.) It is certainly clear that standardization of dimensions, not of design, is the objective of proponents in industry and among manufacturers. We heartily recommend expressions of opinion by our readers to the CIAB, and to the Manufacturing Chemists’ Association. which has been invited to play an important part in the program under development.
Definition for Disaster Planning recent indication has come to us that chemical indusS try management does not seem uniformly aware that the Department of Commerce published in late 1953 a booklet OME
entitled “Emergency and Disaster Planning for Chemical and Allied Industries.” Seither, says the report, has chemical industry done much in the way of preattack planning. Well, we aren’t sure about industry’s knowledge of the booklet, but from prior experience we’ll bet they’ve done the planning, under another name. We know that when the present managing editor of I&EC wrote a feature story, “Disaster Control,” some years ago for C&EN, the attitude of those chemical companies which had disaster control plans toward Civil Defense was quite clear--“We will be glad to cooperate with Civil Defense; our plant program will simply need a change or addition here and there to conform to CD recommendations.” We believe that with many chemical companies it is merely a question of definition. Looking again a t the booklet, we note that while to a question “Have you a preattack plan” they might say “No,” if they were asked “Have you a plan for emergency shutdown, for evacuation and care of employees, for fire control,” they would say, ‘ T e certainly do.” Surely the plans which DOW’Splant a t Freeport has used successfully when hurricanes threaten or strike are perfectly usable in case of enemy attack. Where multiplant agreements have been made in areas of heavy industrial organization, coordinated planning has shown itself to be quite feasible. There are some phases of multiplant planning covered in the Department of Commerce booklet which may not be considered in single plant dieaster programs, and we recommend that chemical companies not familiar with the Department of Commerce booklet obtain it, or a t least read the highlights in the December 28, 1953, issue of C&EN. We have a firm feeling, however, that the intereet of the chemical industry in planning for the best means of coping with disaster-whether it be peacetime or wartime-is not lagging as-seriously as is rumored.
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
71 A
