INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
Fisher Opens New Plant Moves instrument manufacturing operations from Pittsburgh to Indiana, Pa· X*ISHER S C I E N T I F I C expects to h a v e its
new instrument plant at Indiana, Pa., u p to full production this spring. T h e $1.4 million plant triples t h e company's manufacturing facilities. Fisher dedicated the plant last weekend, marked it as t h e n e w headquarters for the firm's instrument manufacturing division. Chemical and Petroleum Industries (Icjimed More Than 4 0 % of With t h e n e w plant running, Fisher will no longer make instruments at its Construction and Expansion AlorMjll. S. Waterways Last Year. Pittsburgh plant. Instrument sales are Here's Where Most of the Activity Took Place: on t h e upswing (C&EN, March 2 , page 2 9 ) , a n d the old plant could not Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Ohio River handle the company's long-range needs. San Francisco BayDelaware River Indiana, 4 5 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, is a chronic unemployment Savannah River Gulf Intracoastal Waterway area in b a d need of industry. Local Tennessee River Houston Ship Channel townspeople a n d bankers, plus t h e Warrior Tombigbee WaterKanawha River Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority, offered to finance half of t h e way Mississippi River venture. Fisher took u p t h e deal a n d started to build the plant early last year AH Told, 63 Inland Waterways Had205 Separate Chemical or with its own engineers doing the design Petroleum Facilities Abuilding work. - includes plants, warehouses, terminals, and loading T h e plant was finished in November, facilities that were completed, planned, or started. and Fisher began to move its engineering, design, a n d production staffs to t h e n e w site. However, the company kept its development labs in Pittsburgh. T h e Indiana plant will make more than 500 instruments designed b y Chemical a n d petroleum industries lead others in Fisher. These range from gas chromatography a n d zone refining apparatus plant development aiomg inland waterways to atomic models. There is over A N 1958, a year marked by a 3 1 % rœason companies are going to t h e wa- 115,000 square feet of floor space, a n d Fisher hopes to double this area within drop in industrial construction, there tertrays for induis trial sites is to take adwas more plant development along the vantage of low cost barge transporta- the next decade. banks of U. S. inland waterways than tion. Fur the crlieaiical and petroleum during the previous year (C&EN, iaidiiLStries, xvhicri are setting the pace in Monsanto, Ltd·, Reports construction (more than March 2, page 2 7 ) . T h e rise was waterway c slight—488 waterside plants built or 4k0 h of t h e total for all i n d u s t i y ) , T h e board of directors of Monsanto expanded in 1958, 486 in 1 9 5 7 - b u t it tlhere's the added advantage of water Chemicals, Ltd., London, h a s declared goes to show that it will take more than availability—water for t h e washing a n d an S1/*'/* second interim dividend a recession to stem this trend by indus- cooling processes involved. (less income tax) on t h e company's try to seek out a n d build on waterside For the immediate future, Carr exordinary shares. This amounts to about sites. (Biggest year for waterside rpects a " n e w s p u r t " in plant develop5.1 cents p e r 70-cent share, and brings plant development w a s 1956, when m e n t , with still more plants and facilithe 1958 total payment to 13.5 r /r, t h e 565 plants were built or expanded. ) ties going u p along waterways. Fed- same amount paid in 1957. T h e British company, which is conCommenting on these figures (which eral and private estimates indicate a trolled ( b u t not wholly owned) b y come from a survey conducted b y the s h a r p increase i n 1959 in the number of American Waterways Operators, Inc.), contract a w a r d s for all types of com- stateside Monsanto, didn't d o as well Braxton B. Carr, president of t h e Na- mercial a n d industrial projects; and b y last year as it did in 1957. Consolidated net profit after taxation was $2.8 tional Association of the Barge and 3.960 there should b e a jump in actual million (including subsidiaries), down Towing Vessel Industry, says t h a t the construction.
Watersides Snub Recession
MARCH
9,
1959
C&EN
25
