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Intercompany Technical Standardization in the Early American Automobile Industry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

George V. Thompson
George V. Thompson
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

Industrial historians have generally failed to note the importance of the technical standards that have been developed through intercompany agreements in the automobile industry. While they have studied the changing institutional character of American industry and have chronicled the mechanical developments of recent technology, they have undertaken but few explorations into die complex interrelationships between mechanical technology and business structure. In relating the growdi of intercompany technical standards' in the automobile industry up to about 1930, this study attempts to show the influence of changing business conditions on standardization and hence on the mechanical technology of the automobile.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , Winter 1954 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1954

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References

1 This study does not consider the various commercial standards that trade associations have sponsored in the automobile industry.

2 Brief accounts of early standardization efforts can be found in Adams, C. A., “Industrial Standardization,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, LXXXII (1919), 289–99, and inCrossRefGoogle ScholarIndustrial Standardization (New York: National Industrial Conference Board, 1929), pp. 1-15, 64–72Google Scholar.

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11 Prior to 1917 the society was known as the Society of Automobile Engineers.

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49 Ibid. p. 57.

50 It should be noted, however, that, as markets expanded, standards for accessories were less necessary, since each service station or repair center could afford to stock more varieties.

51 Many of these reasons for standardization were realized in some measure at the beginning of the S.A.E. program, though at the start standardization to relieve the parts and materials purchasing problem was the overriding consideration.

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79 Herbert Hoover's enormously influential Committee on Elimination of Waste in Industry recommended in 1921 that “a nation-wide program of industrial standardization should be encouraged by government in cooperation with industry.”-Committee on Elimination of Waste in Industry of the Federated American Engineering Societies, Waste in Industry (Washington: Federated American Engineering Societies, 1921), p. 32Google Scholar.

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81 By 1928 the S.A.E. was co-operating with the American Standards Association on twenty-three different standardization projects.- American Standards year Book 1929, p. 71.