IN THE current issue of READER’S DIGEST there appears a condensed article titled ‘Limber Up Your Imagination.” Of course, we all know about the creative imagination of Edison, Bell, Franklin, and the like, but how many of us think about imagination in such commonplace things as selling Surplus Machinery?
We do not know who the first person was who had the idea of buying and reselling industrial equipment, nor do we know definitely who the originator of rebuilding machinery for resale was, but we do know that they had the germ of an idea which was to grow into an industry of no small extent.
The most successful concerns in this field of endeavor are piloted by men who are primarily technicians and engineers. Their main attribute is the imagination to visualize a machine or a complete installation in a plant making an entirely different product, or operating under conditions foreign to that for which it was originally intended.
To our knowledge, the outstanding example of change-over is that of one firm which dismantled the largest munitions plant ever built and converted literally hundreds of processing operations into scores of peace-time plants.
Now we are faced with a reverse situation of converting peace-time industries to war preparedness programs. It is going to take a lot of imagination and ingenuity to make these urgent conversions and the specialist in converting machinery and equipment is already doing his job. Change-over operations requiring the reallocation of thousands of machines in the hands of experienced, imaginative men offer the short cut we so urgently require.
