EDITORIAL
Is the Ball Really Over? It may be only that it is time for a change of music
recent article in Fortune carried the title "Chemicals: The Ball Is Over." It suggested that invaders, rising costs, and growing competition from abroad are making the U.S. chemical industry face sterner times. A convincing case is presented. Perhaps the waltz and the foxtrot are finished, but there are yet some new tunes to play. The chemical industry that has existed and prospered since World War II is of considerably different style from that which developed between the two world wars. The vigorous recent history has been built on knowledge from research and its conversion, through technology, to a great range of products. The products have reached competitively into areas where "chemical" was a mysterious word 25 years ago. This has happened to such an extent that there has been a prediction that in 50 years there might not be an entity that could be described as the chemical industry; chemical processes would pervade all areas of manufacturing. A host of industrial research laboratories has grown and flourished on the work of keen minds, active imaginations, and acute observations. The work ranged from basic research to research directly applied. In a great deal of it, the scientists, while restricted to specific areas, brought forth new information which led to new products.
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For these, new markets were developed. Great product areas were changed by the competitive victory of synthetic chemicals over the traditional materials. We are beginning to accept the realization that through research we can find roads to products so different from those we knew a decade or two ago that we hardly dare to expect them. At the same time we are learning effective techniques of applying imagination and study to the needs for new products, and learning how to describe precisely what kind of product will find a given market. As we learn better how to integrate the most sophisticated understanding of laboratory research, market research, product development, and related studies, the efficacy of the chemical process industries in providing useful products will rise to a new level. The ball may be by no means over. The chemical industry has a great potential. It will need the imagination and the pioneering spirit to consider the present, possibly maturing system as only another phase, and to look forward to approaches which only a few years ago seemed extreme. But it can be done.
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