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." This fact has begun to alterAmerican industry beyond recognition.The result is an astonishing change in the actualoutpouring of goods offered to the consumer.Philip Morris, for example, sold a single major brand of cigarettes for twenty-one years.Since 1954 by contrast, it has introduced six new brands and so many options with respect tosize, filter and menthol that the smoker now has a choice among sixteen different variations.This fact would be trivial, were it not duplicated in virtually every major product field.Gasoline? Until a few years ago, the American motorist took his pick of either "regular" or"premium." Today he drives up to a Sunoco pump and is asked to choose among eightdifferent blends and mixes.Groceries? Between 1950 and 1963 the number of different soapsand detergents on the American grocery shelf increased from sixty-five to 200; frozen foodsfrom 121 to 350; baking mixes and flour from eighty-four to 200.Even the variety of petfoods increased from fifty-eight to eighty-one.One major company, Corn Products, produces a pancake syrup called Karo.Instead ofoffering the same product nationally, however, it sells two different viscosities, having foundthat Pennsylvanians, for some regional reason, prefer their syrup thicker than otherAmericans.In the field of office décor and furniture, the same process is at work."There areten times the new styles and colors there were a decade ago," says John A.Saunders,president of General Fireproofing Company, a major manufacturer in the field."Everyarchitect wants his own shade of green." Companies, in other words, are discovering widevariations in consumer wants and are adapting their production lines to accommodate them.Two economic factors encourage this trend: first, consumers have more money to lavish ontheir specialized wants; second, and even more important, as technology becomes moresophisticated, the cost of introducing variations declines.This is the point that our social critics most of whom are technologically naive failto understand: it is only primitive technology that imposes standardization.Automation, incontrast, frees the path to endless, blinding, mind-numbing diversity."The rigid uniformity and long runs of identical products which characterize ourtraditional mass production plants are becoming less important" reports industrial engineerBoris Yavitz."Numerically controlled machines can readily shift from one product model orsize to another by a simple change of programs.Short product runs become economicallyfeasible." According to Professor Van Court Hare, Jr., of the Columbia University GraduateSchool of Business, "Automated equipment.permits the production of a wide variety ofproducts in short runs at almost 'mass production' costs." Many engineers and businessexperts foresee the day when diversity will cost no more than uniformity. The finding that pre-automation technology yields standardization, while advancedtechnology permits diversity is borne out by even a casual look at that controversialAmerican innovation, the supermarket.Like gas stations and airports, supermarkets tend tolook alike whether they are in Milan or Milwaukee.By wiping out thousands of little "momand pop" stores they have without doubt contributed to uniformity in the architecturalenvironment.Yet the array of goods they offer the consumer is incomparably more diversethan any corner store could afford to stock.Thus at the very moment that they encouragearchitectural sameness, they foster gastronomic diversity.The reason for this contrast is simple: Food and food packaging technology is far moreadvanced than construction techniques.Indeed, construction has scarcely reached the level ofmass production; it remains, in large measure, a pre-industrial craft.Strangled by localbuilding codes and conservative trade unions, the industry's rate of technological advance isfar below that of other industries.The more advanced the technology, the cheaper it is tointroduce variation in output [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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." This fact has begun to alterAmerican industry beyond recognition.The result is an astonishing change in the actualoutpouring of goods offered to the consumer.Philip Morris, for example, sold a single major brand of cigarettes for twenty-one years.Since 1954 by contrast, it has introduced six new brands and so many options with respect tosize, filter and menthol that the smoker now has a choice among sixteen different variations.This fact would be trivial, were it not duplicated in virtually every major product field.Gasoline? Until a few years ago, the American motorist took his pick of either "regular" or"premium." Today he drives up to a Sunoco pump and is asked to choose among eightdifferent blends and mixes.Groceries? Between 1950 and 1963 the number of different soapsand detergents on the American grocery shelf increased from sixty-five to 200; frozen foodsfrom 121 to 350; baking mixes and flour from eighty-four to 200.Even the variety of petfoods increased from fifty-eight to eighty-one.One major company, Corn Products, produces a pancake syrup called Karo.Instead ofoffering the same product nationally, however, it sells two different viscosities, having foundthat Pennsylvanians, for some regional reason, prefer their syrup thicker than otherAmericans.In the field of office décor and furniture, the same process is at work."There areten times the new styles and colors there were a decade ago," says John A.Saunders,president of General Fireproofing Company, a major manufacturer in the field."Everyarchitect wants his own shade of green." Companies, in other words, are discovering widevariations in consumer wants and are adapting their production lines to accommodate them.Two economic factors encourage this trend: first, consumers have more money to lavish ontheir specialized wants; second, and even more important, as technology becomes moresophisticated, the cost of introducing variations declines.This is the point that our social critics most of whom are technologically naive failto understand: it is only primitive technology that imposes standardization.Automation, incontrast, frees the path to endless, blinding, mind-numbing diversity."The rigid uniformity and long runs of identical products which characterize ourtraditional mass production plants are becoming less important" reports industrial engineerBoris Yavitz."Numerically controlled machines can readily shift from one product model orsize to another by a simple change of programs.Short product runs become economicallyfeasible." According to Professor Van Court Hare, Jr., of the Columbia University GraduateSchool of Business, "Automated equipment.permits the production of a wide variety ofproducts in short runs at almost 'mass production' costs." Many engineers and businessexperts foresee the day when diversity will cost no more than uniformity. The finding that pre-automation technology yields standardization, while advancedtechnology permits diversity is borne out by even a casual look at that controversialAmerican innovation, the supermarket.Like gas stations and airports, supermarkets tend tolook alike whether they are in Milan or Milwaukee.By wiping out thousands of little "momand pop" stores they have without doubt contributed to uniformity in the architecturalenvironment.Yet the array of goods they offer the consumer is incomparably more diversethan any corner store could afford to stock.Thus at the very moment that they encouragearchitectural sameness, they foster gastronomic diversity.The reason for this contrast is simple: Food and food packaging technology is far moreadvanced than construction techniques.Indeed, construction has scarcely reached the level ofmass production; it remains, in large measure, a pre-industrial craft.Strangled by localbuilding codes and conservative trade unions, the industry's rate of technological advance isfar below that of other industries.The more advanced the technology, the cheaper it is tointroduce variation in output [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]