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121 method study
Gen Mgtthe systematic recording, examination, and analysis of existing and proposed ways of conducting work tasks in order to discover the most efficient and economical methods of performing them. The basic procedure followed in method study is as follows: select the area to be studied; record the data; examine the data; develop alternative approaches; install the new method; maintain the new method. Method study forms part of work study and is normally conducted prior to work measurement. The technique was initially developed to evaluate manufacturing processes but has been used more widely to evaluate alternative courses of action. It is based on research into motion study conducted by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth during the 1920s and 1930s. -
122 return on investment
Fina ratio of the profit made in a financial year as a percentage of an investmentAbbr. ROIEXAMPLEThe most basic expression of ROI can be found by dividing a company’s net profit (also called net earnings) by the total investment (total debt plus total equity), then multiplying by 100 to arrive at a percentage:Net profit/Total investment × 100 = ROIIf, say, net profit is $30 and total investment is $250, the ROI is:30/250 = 0.12 × 100 = 12%A more complex variation of ROI is an equation known as the Du Pont formula:(Net profit after taxes/ Total assets) = (Net profit after taxes/ Sales) × Sales/Total assetsIf, for example, net profit after taxes is $30, total assets are $250, and sales are $500, then:30/ 250 = 30/ 500 × 500/250 =12% = 6% × 2 = 12%Champions of this formula, which was developed by the Du Pont Company in the 1920s, say that it helps reveal how a company has both deployed its assets and controlled its costs, and how it can achieve the same percentage return in different ways.For shareholders, the variation of the basic ROI formula used by investors is:Net income + (current value – original value) /original value × 100 = ROIIf, for example, somebody invests $5,000 in a company and a year later has earned $100 in dividends, while the value of the shares is $5,200, the return on investment would be:100 + (5,200 – 5,000)/ 5,000 × 100 (100 + 200)/ 5,000 × 100 = 300/ 5,000 = 0.06 × 100 = 6% ROIIt is vital to understand exactly what a return on investment measures, for example assets, equity, or sales. Without this understanding, comparisons may be misleading. It is also important to establish whether the net profit figure used is before or after provision for taxes. -
123 statistical process control
Opsa means of monitoring a process to assist in identifying causes of variation with the aim of improving process performance. Statistical process control consists of three elements: data gathering; determining control limits; and variation reduction. The tools used include process flow charts, tally charts, histograms, graphs, fishbone charts, and control charts. The thinking behind SPC has been attributed to Walter Shewhart in the 1920s.Abbr. SPCThe ultimate business dictionary > statistical process control
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124 trait theory
Gen Mgtthe belief that all leaders display the same key personality traits. Trait theory developed from the great man theory of leadership as researchers attempted to identify universally applicable characteristics that distinguish leaders from other people. During the 1920s and 1930s, theorists compiled lists of traits, but these were often contradictory and no single trait was consistently identified with good leadership. -
125 Berliner, Emile
SUBJECT AREA: Recording[br]b. 20 May 1851 Hannover, Germanyd. 3 August 1929 Montreal, Canada[br]German (naturalized American) inventor, developer of the disc record and lateral mechanical replay.[br]After arriving in the USA in 1870 and becoming an American citizen, Berliner worked as a dry-goods clerk in Washington, DC, and for a period studied electricity at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York. He invented an improved microphone and set up his own experimental laboratory in Washington, DC. He developed a microphone for telephone use and sold the rights to the Bell Telephone Company. Subsequently he was put in charge of their laboratory, remaining in that position for eight years. In 1881 Berliner, with his brothers Joseph and Jacob, founded the J.Berliner Telephonfabrik in Hanover, the first factory in Europe specializing in telephone equipment.Inspired by the development work performed by T.A. Edison and in the Volta Laboratory (see C.S. Tainter), he analysed the existing processes for recording and reproducing sound and in 1887 developed a process for transferring lateral undulations scratched in soot into an etched groove that would make a needle and diaphragm vibrate. Using what may be regarded as a combination of the Phonautograph of Léon Scott de Martinville and the photo-engraving suggested by Charles Cros, in May 1887 he thus demonstrated the practicability of the laterally recorded groove. He termed the apparatus "Gramophone". In November 1887 he applied the principle to a glass disc and obtained an inwardly spiralling, modulated groove in copper and zinc. In March 1888 he took the radical step of scratching the lateral vibrations directly onto a rotating zinc disc, the surface of which was protected, and the subsequent etching created the groove. Using well-known principles of printing-plate manufacture, he developed processes for duplication by making a negative mould from which positive copies could be pressed in a thermoplastic compound. Toy gramophones were manufactured in Germany from 1889 and from 1892–3 Berliner manufactured both records and gramophones in the USA. The gramophones were hand-cranked at first, but from 1896 were based on a new design by E.R. Johnson. In 1897–8 Berliner spread his activities to England and Germany, setting up a European pressing plant in the telephone factory in Hanover, and in 1899 a Canadian company was formed. Various court cases over patents removed Berliner from direct running of the reconstructed companies, but he retained a major economic interest in E.R. Johnson's Victor Talking Machine Company. In later years Berliner became interested in aeronautics, in particular the autogiro principle. Applied acoustics was a continued interest, and a tile for controlling the acoustics of large halls was successfully developed in the 1920s.[br]Bibliography16 May 1888, Journal of the Franklin Institute 125 (6) (Lecture of 16 May 1888) (Berliner's early appreciation of his own work).1914, Three Addresses, privately printed (a history of sound recording). US patent no. 372,786 (basic photo-engraving principle).US patent no. 382,790 (scratching and etching).US patent no. 534,543 (hand-cranked gramophone).Further ReadingR.Gelatt, 1977, The Fabulous Phonograph, London: Cassell (a well-researched history of reproducible sound which places Berliner's contribution in its correct perspective). J.R.Smart, 1985, "Emile Berliner and nineteenth-century disc recordings", in WonderfulInventions, ed. Iris Newson, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, pp. 346–59 (provides a reliable account).O.Read and W.L.Welch, 1959, From Tin Foil to Stereo, Indianapolis: Howard W.Sams, pp. 119–35 (provides a vivid account, albeit with less precision).GB-N -
126 Birdseye, Clarence
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 9 December 1886 Brooklyn, New York, USAd. 7 October 1956 USA[br]American inventor of the fast-freezing method of food preservation.[br]Clarence Birdseye went to high school at Montclair in New Jersey, and from there to Amherst College between 1906 and 1910. He became a field naturalist on the US Department of Agriculture's survey of 1910 to 1912, and during the following five years worked as a fur trader. He was the Purchasing Agent for the US Navy Corps between 1917 and 1919, and acted as Assistant to the President of the US Fisherman's Association between 1920 and 1922.Birdseye was a keen fisherman, and during his time in Labrador learnt how to fast-freeze his catch in the wind. He formed the Birdseye Seafood Company in 1923 and pioneered the development of quick-freezing methods for the preservation of dressed seafood. His first company went bankrupt, but he quickly formed the General Seafoods Corporation. He filed his first patent in 1924 for the plate freezer, and in the late 1920s developed the double belt freezer. In 1929 Birdseye's company was bought out for $22 million, Birdseye himself receiving $1 million. He was an active member of the American Fisherman's Society, the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Mammalogists and the Institute of Food Technologists.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsNutrition Foundation Stephen M.Babcock Award 1949.Further ReadingW.H.Clark and J.Moynahan, Famous Leaders of Industry (gives a brief account of Birdseye's life).1982, Frozen Food Age (August) (an account of the development of the industry he created).AP -
127 Boeing, William Edward
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1 October 1881 Detroit, Michigan, USAd. 28 September 1956 USA[br]American aircraft designer, creator of one of the most successful aircraft manufacturing companies in the world.[br]In 1915 William E.Boeing and his friend Commander Conrad Westervelt decided that they could improve on the aeroplanes then being produced in the United States. Boeing was a prominent Seattle businessman with interests in land and timber, while Westervelt was an officer in the US Navy. They bought a Martin Model T float-plane in order to gain some experience and then produced their own design, the B \& W, which first flew in June 1916. Westervelt was transferred to the East, leaving Boeing to continue the production of the B \& W floatplanes, for which purpose he set up the Pacific Aero Products Company. On 26 April 1917 this became the Boeing Airplane Company, which prospered following the US involvement in the First World War.In March 1919 Boeing and Edward Hubbard inaugurated the world's first international airmail service between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Boeing Company then had to face the slump in aircraft manufacturing after the war: they survived, and by 1922 they had started producing a successful series of fighters while continuing to develop their flying-boat and floatplane designs. Boeing set up the Boeing Air Transport Corporation to tender for lucrative airmail contracts and then produced aircraft which could out-perform those of his rivals. The company went from strength to strength and by the end of the 1920s a huge conglomerate had been built up: the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. They produced an advanced high-speed monoplane mailplane, the model 200 Monomail in 1930, which saw the birth of a new era of Boeing designs.The Wall Street crash of 1929 and legislation in 1934, which banned any company from both building aeroplanes and running an airline, were setbacks which the Boeing Airplane Company overcame, moving ahead to become world leaders. William E.Boeing decided that it was time he retired, but he returned to work during the Second World War.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsGuggenheim Medal 1934.Further ReadingC.Chant, 1982, Boeing: The World's Greatest Planemakers, Hadley Wood, England (describes William E.Boeing's part in the founding and building up of the Boeing Company).P.M.Bowers, 1990, Boeing Aircraft since 1916, 3rd edn, London (covers Boeing's aircraft).Boeing Company, 1977, Pedigree of Champions: Boeing since 1916, Seattle.JDS -
128 Bosch, Carl
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 27 August 1874 Cologne, Germanyd. 26 April 1940 Heidelberg, Germany[br]German industrial chemist who developed the industrial synthesis of ammonia.[br]Bosch spent a year as a metalworker before studying chemistry at Leipzig University, obtaining his doctorate in 1898. The following year, he entered Badische Soda-, Anilin Fabrik (BASF), the leading German manufacturer of dyestuflfs. Between 1902 and 1907 he spent much time investigating processes for nitrogen fixation. In 1908 Fritz Haber told BASF of his laboratory-scale synthesis of ammonia from its constituent elements, and in the following year Bosch was assigned to developing it to the industrial scale. Leading a large team of chemists and engineers, Bosch designed the massive pressure converter and other features of the process and was the first to use the water gas shift reaction to produce the large quantities of hydrogen that were required. By 1913 Bosch had completed the largest chemical engineering plant at BASF's works at Oppau, and soon it was producing 36,000 tons of ammonium sulphate a year. Bosch enlarged the Oppau plant and went on to construct a larger plant at Leuna.In 1914 Bosch was appointed a Director of BASF. At the end of the First World War he became Technical Adviser to the German delegation at the peace conference. During the 1920s BASF returned to its position of pre-eminence in high-pressure technology, thanks largely to Bosch's leadership. Although increasingly absorbed in administrative matters, Bosch was able to support the synthesis of methane and the hydrogenation of coal tar and lignite to make petrol. In 1925 BASF merged with other companies to form the giant IG Farbenindustrie AG, of which Bosch became Chairman of the Managing Board. His achievements received international recognition in 1931 when he was awarded, with F. Bergius, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for high-pressure synthesis.[br]Bibliography1932, Über die Entwicklung der chemischen Hochdruckindustrie bei der Aufbau der neuen Ammoniakindustrie.Further ReadingK.Holdermann, 1953, Carl Bosch, Leben und Werk.See also biographical memoir in Chemische Berichte 190 (1957), pp. xix–xxxix.LRD
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