Bite-sized extracts

In mid-November 1955, American Machinist presented its "1956 Production Planbook." The 548-page issue, titled "How to Work Non-Ferrous Metals," was the second such publication, and included "nuggets of knowledge" carefully extracted from a year's worth of articles. Today, many of these nuggets seemed to have passed into the realm of conventional wisdom. For example, "Maintenance costs can be controlled by work measurement, using standard minutes, just as readily as can production costs." Also, "Numerical control will permit machines to produce complex shapes directly from information supplied by an electronic director."