Company Plant Research Articles

COMMISSION ON INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: A CASE STUDY

HOOVER is a household name. On March 2, 1970, the company's plant at Merthyr Tydfil—which concentrates on producing washing machines—was referred to the Commission on Industrial Relations (CIR) by the Secretary of State for Employment.

Project pattern: A methodology for determining relevance in complex decision-making

Numerical planning techniques are rapidly gaining in popularity, urged on by the tremendously increasing complexity of modern decision-making at high government and industrial levels. One of the most promising methodologies, originally intended as an advanced development planning aid, has been developed by Honeywell, Inc. Project PATTERN (Planning Assistance Through Technical Evaluation of Relevance Numbers), staffed from several company divisions by experts representing the corporate technical knowledge, produced a two-volume “scenario” which provides the descriptive material on which value judgments are made and a comprehensive “relevance tree” which records the collective value judgments of the company's representatives on thousands of individual decisions and shows how present-day technology deficiencies are ultimately related to our national objectives of military and scientific preeminence. The “relevance tree,” along with the assigned numerical values on the relevance of each of its elements, has been programmed on computers at several of the company's plants throughout the country to aid in local advanced development program decision-making within the charter of each plant. Provision is made for continually revising the judgments and updating the technology tree.

Coal vs. Natural Gas at Wabamun

Abstract A brief history is given of Calgary Power Limited since the company startedsupplying power and energy in 1911 from its Horseshoe Falls Hydro Electric Plant. This paper deals primarily with the company's thermal plant on Lake Wabamun, which was designed to burn coal as fuel. However, while the Wabamun Steam Plant was still in the planning stage, the company was offered gasdelivery at 10½ c per million BTU's and in sufficient quantity to satisfygrowing requirements,.This gas supply was exhausted in 1961. The plant's thirdunit of 150,000 KW capacity will use coal for fuel. Comparative costs of usinggas and coal are outlined. This paper deals with the use of natural gas and coal at the Wabamun Steam Plant of Calgary Power Ltd. The plant is located some 45 miles west of Edmontonon the Canadian National Railway main line. First the manner in which the Company has been providing its power andenergy requirements over the years should be reviewed, since this has animportant bearing on the whole subject. The term "power" is used to denote therate of generation or use of electricity and is expressed in kilowatts (KW).The term "energy" is used to denote the quantity of electricity generated orused in any given period of time and is expressed in kilowatt hours (KWH)."Load factor" (L.F.) is an important term and is defined as the ratio of the KWH actually generated in a certain period of time to the KWH that could havebeen generated in the same period, had the units been operating continuously atfull load. Thus a 10,000 KW generator operating at full load, that is at 100%load factor, for one hour, will generate 10,000 KWH, but at 50% L.F. willgenerate only 5,000 KWH.

Labor Law. Collective Bargaining. Demand by Union Representing Employees at One of Company's Plants for Contract Termination Date in Common with Those at Other Plants of Employer Is within Scope of Mandatory Bargaining

Labor Law. Collective Bargaining. Demand by Union Representing Employees at One of Company's Plants for Contract Termination Date in Common with Those at Other Plants of Employer Is within Scope of Mandatory Bargaining

Electronic frequency changer used as nonsynchronous tie between A-C power systems

EARLY in 1943 a 6,667-kw electronic frequency changer, using mercury-arc rectifiers, was installed in the Gary Sheet and Tin Mill of the United States Steel Corporation, at Gary, Ind., to provide a nonsynchronous tie between the 25-cycle and 60-cycle power systems, for the controlled interchange of power in either direction.1 All the 25-cycle power is generated in the steel company's plants in the Chicago district. The 60-cycle system is supplied by the steel company's generating equipment and by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company. The generating capacity of each system is over 200,000 kw.

Award for Production of Magnesium and Calcium

MR. G. D. BAGLEY, leader of the experimental engineering group of the Union Carbide and Carbon Research Division, has been awarded the Jacob F. Schoellkopf Medal for 1944 by the Western New York Section of the American Chemical Society, for "outstanding and highly significant work, particularly in the fields of the commercialization of very active metals". Largely through his chemical and engineering skill, a process has been developed which produces magnesium in high-temperature vacuum furnaces with capacities which were formerly thought to be impossible. Previously, the dolomite-ferro-silicon reaction for making metallic magnesium had always been considered a laboratory curiosity. Mr. Bagley's production methods are being carried out at the Electro Metallurgical Company's plant at Spokane, Washington, with a rated capacity of 24,000 tons a year. Mr. Bagley has also developed a method for the production of metallic calcium. Before the War, calcium came almost exclusively from France and was made in small cells at a high production cost. When this source was cut off, Mr. Bagley designed large automatic cells, which are now producing a purer product at a considerably reduced cost. Mr. Bagley, who has been with the Union Carbide and Carbon Research Laboratories since 1918, has also been wholly or partially responsible for many other highly important chemical and chemical engineering developments.

Heat Treatment at the Wright Paterson Plant

Complete change in heat treating practice and installation of new equipment for rapid quantity production were necessitated by the sudden great increase in orders for aero‐engines and pressure for greater ouput by the Wright Aeronautical Corporation. Old, slow methods had to be abandoned and superseded by a continuous, fast, line‐production system which required suitable new equipment for the purpose. The change‐over at the company's enlarged plant at Paterson, New Jersey, was completed last year.

Workington iron & steel company's coke oven plant

Workington iron & steel company's coke oven plant

Developments in the Manufacture of Copper Wire1

This paper describes a new copper rod and wire mill located at the Western Electric Company's Plant at Chicago. It includes a brief survey of the copper rolling and wire drawing art at the time the investigation was started; a summary of tests made in varying the practice In rod rolling and wire drawing; and an outline of the work done by the Western Electric Company engineers in developing and designing new types of wire drawing machinery. The rod mill is converting 225 pound wire bars into 1/4″ rod in fourteen instead of the usual eighteen passes. This is accomplished by making heavier reductions in the first four passes while the copper is hot. The new wire mill incorporates many novel features, and the wire drawing machines are more compact in design and of considerably higher speed than those in general use. The design of the wire mill was undertaken following a comprehensive survey of wire drawing processes and equipment used in this country and abroad. Part of this survey consisted of a study of the manufacture of diamond dies, it having been found that dies suitable for high speed drawing required a differently shaped “approach,” a better polish, and a shorter “land,” than those which were available for low speed work. The economies in floor space and plant investment due to the use of more compact and higher speed machinery are outlined. Some of the outstanding features in plant arrangement which contribute to more efficient operation are discussed in the concluding pages.

Electrical equipment of consolidated mining and smelting company's zinc plant

W. S. Peterson: I was employed at the plant referred to in this paper, which has rotary converters for its source of direct current. My experience at that plant, was that the rotary converters justify themselves in every way. The losses saved were roughly 5 per cent or 6 per cent of the total power used. The total power was 35,000 kw., which was maintained for 24 hours per day. You can understand that the power saved more than makes up for the increased maintenance of the rotary converter. The final result is greater economy.

Electrical Equipment Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company's Zinc Plant, Trail, B. C., Canada

THE great demand for supplies of zinc required in the manufacture of munitions, especially in the manufacture of brass shells which contain 66.6 per cent copper and 33.4 per cent zinc, led to an investigation in 1915 to ascertain the feasibility of producing metallic zinc in Canada. This resulted in the establishment of a zinc plant by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of Canada at Trail, B. C., at an initial cost of $2,500,000.

Welfare and Safety Provisions at the Welsbach Company's Plants

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTWelfare and Safety Provisions at the Welsbach Company's PlantsHoward LyonCite this: Ind. Eng. Chem. 1914, 6, 4, 336–338Publication Date (Print):April 1, 1914Publication History Published online1 May 2002Published inissue 1 April 1914https://doi.org/10.1021/ie50064a027RIGHTS & PERMISSIONSArticle Views5Altmetric-Citations-LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InReddit PDF (457 KB) Get e-Alerts

The Indiana Steel Company's Plant at Gary, Ind.

The Indiana Steel Company's Plant at Gary, Ind.