Abstract
THE U.S. National Research Council (Washington, D.C.) has reprinted a lecture entitled “Industrial Prospecting” which was delivered before the Founder Societies of Engineers by Mr. C. F. Kettering, chairman of the Division of Engineering and Industrial Research of the National Research Council. Mr. Kettering argues that scientific advancement has not outpaced social and economic advancement, but that, on the contrary, scientific development is 15-20 years behind social and economic development. More research is needed, since research is a way of finding out what is to be done when it is impossible to keep on doing what is being done now. New industries need to be developed in order to provide more jobs. Research is industrial prospecting, and one reason why it has not been more used is that the wrong kind of book-keeping has been followed. In manufacturing, detailed costs must be determined and each individual part must be charged with the appropriate overheads, material, processing, distribution and advertising costs; but research is not manufacturing since there is nothing to sell but ideas. In industrial prospecting each individual project cannot be expected to show a profit at the end of a set time; but taking a large number of projects over a long period of time, if the results show progress it is worth carrying on; if they do not, it ought to be cut out. Industry has been criticised for having too large a capacity, but there cannot be too large a capacity until everyone has the things he needs and wants. What should really be said is that there are too few products for the factories to make. To-day new things are needed, and we have not exhausted even a small percentage of our ability to make improvements or further developments, or to increase the utility of a product.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Industrial Prospecting. Nature 137, 1025 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1371025c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1371025c0