Last month our number one columnist, Hig, who is quite a philosopher, rang the bell in Higgledy-Piggledy with his comments titled, “Change, Change, Change.”
It certainly is true, as Hig says, that we are “living in an age of change—an age which promises further acceleration of the idea. We can no longer assume that the demands and needs of tomorrow will be the same as those of today. The manufacturer who assembles an organization of flexible equipment and flexible minds will go far into the future. His less discriminating and discerning competitors will be unable to cope with this condition of change.”
In our observations of the changes in the surplus equipment field, we are constantly impressed with the progress that has been made in the expansion of facilities, particularly in those organizations which seem to set the pace for the industry. For example, we have just visited one of the largest machine tool rebuilding plants in the country. From a humble beginning this operation has grown so that the plant covers ten acres and is equipped with personnel and facilities comparable to many large manufacturing enterprises.
The owner, a man with foresight and ingenuity, always recognized the value of keeping in tune with the progressive changes in the machine tool industry. From a one-man repair shop operation, this plant is now equipped to handle the largest machine tools that were ever built! Tremendous planers and boring mills which weigh as much as 100 tons are brought in for rejuvenation. Many of these machines represent thousands of dollars in capital investment and might have been discarded as obsolete if it were not for rebuilders with the know-how to rebuild or recondition them to pass the most critical inspection.
We also recently called on plants equipped for the modernization of electrical power plant equipment. Many of these companies we have watched through the years, and without exception have found that where “flexibility” was the watchword, the firm has grown and prospered. By keeping alert, small motor rewinding shops have grown to be specialists in the modernization of heavy power plant equipment; their shops can revamp motors and generators even in the 1000 HP class to meet the constantly changing demands in the electrical equipment field.
It is heartening to look upon the progress made by firms in the surplus equipment field that have never permitted stagnation to set in nor self-satisfaction to govern their thinking. People, business methods, in fact, everything, moves either forward or backward. To stagnate is to die.
