WE DOUBT if there is an alert metal-working manufacturer anywhere in the U.S.A, who doesn’t know by now that rebuilders of machinery have been granted a priority rating of A-1-C. This award further emphasizes the idea we have been expounding to industrialists everywhere for the past eighteen years or so—the Surplus and Rebuilt Machinery Industry has earned for itself, by its own efforts, an important place in the American scheme of things.
We cannot but feel that the close cooperation of our own Industry with the various governmental agencies has had a very beneficial effect. The Office of Production Management alone, with its staff of technical experts, many of whom were recruited from within our ranks, has done a job of inestimable value. Assisting manufacturers of planes, tanks and munitions in securing the tools necessary for production, and doing this job with a minimum of loss in production hours, has certainly been no sinecure. It is a job which we in the Industry may well be proud to remember.
In a recent statement, Donald Nelson, head of the Priorities Division, requested the users of comfort goods to utilize present obsolete models as a measure of economy. While the encouragement of this practice may sound rather strange to the general public it is certainly no novelty to industrials. During the present year alone, approximately 33,000 used machine tools were purchased by manufacturers from dealers and rebuilders. In more than 90% of the cases these tools were used for defense production.
And remember that dealers still have machines in stock today, and will still be digging them out for sale tomorrow.
