The Need for Water Works Reequipment

Abstract

TECHNOLOGICAL improvements in the water works field not only are contributing to the improvement of the quality of water delivered to consumers, but are also providing new equipment which allows more economical production and distribution. Improvements in methods and equipment are being made each year. Immense strides have been taken in the last twenty years, yet many American water works have not discarded old, inefficient equipment to reequip their plants with modern facilities. American industry generally follows a rigorous reequipment policy. Only the concerns which quickly throw inefficient machinery can survive in a freely competitive industry. There has been a willingness of American industry to stick its neck out to replace physically good, but obsolete, machinery with more efficient units. American industry, in that one respect, imitates the turtle, which makes progress only when its neck is out. In how many water works plants are there progressive reequipment policies? A publication ( 1 ) issued in 1948 by th Machinery and Allied Products Institute appraises an important reason why American competitive industry has outstripped British industry. Possibly some American water works could profit by seeing whether the following lessons learned from British industry might not apply, nearly word for word, to sizable parts of their plants :