Business English Part 85

2. It saves laundry bills.

3. Summary of (1) and (2). The investment required is not large. Special plans for payment.

4. The machine is durable.

5. Summary of the above. The following figures show that during the time that has elapsed since (1) was received the machine might have been paid for out of the money spent for laundry bills.

PART III--BUSINESS PRACTICE

CHAPTER XVI

MANUFACTURE

THE following chapters will furnish exercises in composition, both oral and written, based upon the various phases of business. They are intended to show the application of the principles underlying manufacturing, buying, and selling. Of course, we cannot expect to go into great detail in any one of the divisions. That must be reserved for future study, perhaps reserved until the time that you enter a particular business. We must remember that our first consideration is the study of English, the problem of clear-cut expression. Underlying clear-cut expression is clear-cut thinking. It cannot be repeated too often that without a definite thought there can be no definite wording of the thought. To say, "I know, but I don't know how to tell it," shows a lazy brain. Learn to exercise your thinking powers so that you can force them to stay upon a subject until you have thought it out carefully and can express it. All of the oral exercises in the following chapters require careful preparation. This does not mean that they should be written out before the recitation, but it does mean that they must be carefully thought out. The preparation need not take a particular form. The main thing is that you know exactly the points that you wish to make before you begin to speak. If the exercise calls for a paragraph, have clearly in mind the plan by which you expect to expand your thought. Perhaps you expect to begin with, or to lead up to, a topic sentence. Remember that this may be done in several ways. Choose whichever plan seems best. If the exercise does not call for a particular form, such as a paragraph or a debate, you are left free to develop your thought in the way that you think fits your subject best and to the length which you think it demands.

There are many different kinds of businesses. We shall not attempt to consider any except the most common and fundamental. Some, like farming or mining, consist in bringing forth certain products from the ground.

Such products are called raw materials, of which an example is wheat.

Some raw materials are sold and used unchanged, but most of them go through the process of manufacture in order to be directly usable. The miller is an example of a manufacturer, because from wheat he makes flour. In this chapter we shall study the principles underlying manufacture.

The exercises do not by any means exhaust the subject. Each one is to be considered as a nucleus about which others are to be grouped. If you live in a manufacturing district, other subjects will easily suggest themselves. If you have studied Industrial History or Commercial Geography, you probably have in mind a number of topics for discussion.

If you know but little about raw materials, read some of the books suggested in Exercise 257. At all events let your work be definite.

Whatever statements you make be able to substantiate by an ill.u.s.tration of something that you have seen or heard or read.

=Exercise 250--Manufacture=

Almost all the things we eat, wear, and use every day are manufactured articles. Each one of them requires its own particular process in the making, involving the necessity in most cases of complex and expensive machinery, of expert workmen, and of still more expert management. Take, for example, the shoes we wear, in the manufacture of which an amazing number of complicated machines and of expert workmen is necessary.

According to the United States Department of Labor, men's rough shoes go through eighty-four distinct processes performed by skilled workmen and automatic machines. No less amazing is the amount of work turned out by these machines. It has been estimated that the McKay machine, which attaches the soles to the uppers, sews up in about one hour and a half one hundred pairs, an amount which it would take ninety-eight hours, or about eleven whole working days, to sew by hand.

Each manufacturing business has peculiarities, machinery, methods, and even a language of its own; sometimes men must spend years in the study of the technicalities of certain manufacturing businesses before they become expert in them. It is evident that we cannot take up any one of them here except in so far as the principles of one apply to all, and these can be set down only very briefly.

The first essential to successful manufacturing is correct buying. In fact, in some businesses this is so essential that the buyer gets a larger salary than the manager himself. We can see the reason for this when we consider that a good buyer must understand not only the materials that he buys, but also the manufacturing processes, so that, knowing the process through which the raw materials will go in his particular business, he will buy those materials that will make the most profitable manufactured articles.

The next essential, and in most cases the most important one from the manufacturing standpoint, is a management capable of producing the best product at the least cost. The managers decide what shall be produced and how; they hire the workmen and decide what each shall do; they decide what shall be done by hand and what by machinery; and they choose the machines. Sometimes they go even so far as to determine exactly the method in which each task shall be done, and whenever they see that it would be advantageous to install a machine, they do so. Pursuing this policy, a Chicago yeast concern not long ago put in three machines for wrapping the small yeast cakes, eliminating the services of 140 girls and cutting the cost of wrapping to three-fifths of what it had been. In the steel business the early success of Andrew Carnegie and the famous Bill Jones was largely due to the fact that on several occasions they did not hesitate to break up half a million dollars' worth of machinery and replace it with newer and more efficient kinds.

The third essential to manufacturing success is aggressive marketing of the product. From the standpoint of money success this is probably the most important consideration; so important is it, in fact, that it will be more fully discussed in the chapter following.

=Exercise 251--Manufactured Articles=

_Oral_

1. Define the word _industry_. When is a business called an industry? (Consult an unabridged dictionary.)

2. _a._ Name several raw materials.

_b._ Name some industries whose business it is to produce raw materials.

3. Name some companies or industries whose business it is, or whose princ.i.p.al function it is, to manufacture from raw materials.

4. Name some companies or groups of companies that make articles more useful by transporting them to places where they are needed.

5. Name some wholesale houses. In what does their business consist?

6. Name several kinds of retail businesses. In what does their business consist?

7. Name some companies that manufacture only one article.

8. Name some companies that manufacture more than one article, but all of the same cla.s.s. This is the largest group.

9. Name some companies that manufacture several different kinds of articles.

10. Name some companies which, in manufacturing one product, make a secondary or by-product.

11. Name a number of by-products and what they are by-products of.

_Oral or Written_

In each of the following emphasize the labor involved, not the machinery used; prepare outlines:

1. Select any manufactured article that you have seen on a grocer's shelves, and trace it through (2), (3), (4), (5), and (6) above, from the raw material until the product is in the housekeeper's hands. If possible make your information exact by visiting a factory in which the article is made. The information contained in advertis.e.m.e.nts of well-known articles may help you.

2. Trace the labor that is necessary to put a loaf of bread on the table.

3. Trace the changes that the mineral undergoes to be suitable for the making of edged tools, such as knives or axes.

4. Trace the changes that cotton must undergo before it is suitable for wearing as a dress or a pair of stockings.

5. Trace the changes that wool undergoes before it can be worn as a sweater or a winter coat.

6. Trace the changes that the skins of animals undergo before they can be worn as a m.u.f.f.

7. Trace the changes that silk undergoes before it can be worn as a neck-tie.

8. Trace the changes that hemp undergoes before it can be used as a rope.

9. Trace the changes that hides undergo before they can be worn as shoes.

10. Trace wood from the tree to a piece of fine furniture or to the case of a musical instrument.

11. Trace the steps in the process of making maple sugar.