Development of Machine Shop Practice

摘要

Machine shop practice as it has been developed in Watertown Arsenal may be described as jobbing shop practice with one eye on mass production. Watertown Arsenal is essentially a job shop as many varieties of Ordnance materiel are manufactured and the quantities are relatively small. In some recent (1938) cases, however, the quantities required are large compared with previous orders but not large enough, except in one or two cases, to warrant the use of single purpose tools in the manufacture of any of the components. The problem, then, becomes one of the adapting general purpose machine tools to the production of parts in larger quantities. The solution adopted by the machine shops at this arsenal is described under the following topics: Use of fixtures; Use of special set-ups; Redesign of parts to simplify manufacture, and Use of single-purpose machines.