“Service: Labor or effort for the benefit of another.” So preaches Webster and so practices the S.I.E.
Without the “helping hand,” life would be worthless. The particular aim of this organization is to help put the wagon of business on the highway of commerce by coordinating every shoulder behind the wheel.
During 1922, the service of the S.I.E. materially expanded because many members willingly assumed their share of responsibility. When occasion arose, they spent time in order that information needed by another member might be dug out.
Their tasks have been made easier by the change in attitude of business firms toward the giving out of information. Ten years ago, the interior of a plant was a Forbidden City to the explorer after truth. This is so no longer; facilities are provided on all sides and manufacturers, with but few exceptions, are only too glad to impart their knowledge and experience knowing the time may come when, in turn, they may require and obtain similar favors.
Now, the S.I.E. is the clearing house for information covering almost every phase of industry. Some problem arises; a member communicates with Headquarters, his question is relayed to other members or firms competent to reply, the data are returned, and the tabulated results are passed along to the original enquirer. Thus, one more important contribution is made to the science of industrial engineering which could not have come about except through the combined effort of member and society. In this manner, the S.I.E. lives up to the main article of its Constitution, the solution of problems by exchange of view and coordination of effort.
With so much investigation going on in so many plants and industrial associations, a great deal of work is unnecessarily done. A firm will collect valuable data which, having served its original purpose, is then buried in a file. Later, a similar problem arises elsewhere where such information would be exceedingly useful, but nothing is known about it, and the ground is covered all over again. The S.I.E. is attempting to abolish such wasteful duplication by collecting the results of these efforts into a reference index for the benefit of others.
But this vast field for cooperative service is barely scratched. Chiefly needed for its development are more members, because more members mean a broader field of operations and greater resources for the extension of the work of the Society. Everybody should do his utmost to make known the advantages of membership in a society which, indeed, is incorporated not for profit but simply and solely to enhance the efficiency and prosperity of American industry.
