A Survey of Group Technology Adoption in the American Midwest

This paper presents results of a hierarchical, fixed-question survey that sought responses about flexible machining cells, flexible labor cells, and concurrent changes in plant operations among nonelectrical machinery manufacturers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. General results indicate that the majority of firms in the American Midwest do not possess flexible manufacturing capability. Of those that do possess this capability, most adopted flexible labor cells prior to adopting flexible machining cells. These cells are small, employing relatively few workers and producing a limited line of products. While the adoption process has been plagued with training, scheduling, and integration problems, most plant managers are pleased with the performance of their flexible manufacturing cells. Management has been reluctant to break out of traditional relationships with suppliers, to trim levels of management and to explore strategic alliances with competitors. Survey results are disaggregated by year, size, positon-in-organization, and by union affiliation.     

A recording penetrometer to measure the strength of soil in relation to the stresses exerted by a walking cow

A penetrometer has been designed for field use to simulate the stresses exerted on the ground by the hoof of a walking cow, and to measure the resulting deformation of the soil. The extent of deformation produced by the penetrometer in two intact topsoils under pasture was found to be small and independent of water content, whilst significant correlations between soil strength and water content were obtained using a cone penetrometer and a hand-held shear vane. The results imply that the deep hoofprints associated with poached pasture are not produced immediately upon treading wet soil, but only after a progressive loss of soil strength due to repeated treading. Thus the rate of loss, which is deduced to be a measure of the susceptibility of pasture to poaching, cannot be estimated directly from a single measure of soil strength.     

THE EFFECT OF SOIL COMPOSITION AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS ON THE SHRINKAGE OF SOME CLAYEY BRITISH SOILS

The shrinkage potential of natural clods from a variety of clayey soils was measured and related to their physical, chemical and mineralogical properties. It is shown that the most important factors affecting shrinkage are initial bulk density, clay content, organic carbon content and cation exchange capacity of the peroxidised clay, and mica-smectite content on a whole soil basis. Multiple regression equations involving the initial bulk density, clay content, organic carbon and cation exchange capacity accounted for 87 and 82 per cent of the variation in total shrinkage of topsoils and subsoils respectively. Because of restrictions on shrinkage imposed by factors such as climate, crops, ground-water and moisture release characteristics of soils, soils with a high shrinkage potential may not behave very differently to soils with a much lower potential. On these grounds it is concluded that the shrinkage criteria used in US Taxonomy are not applicable in Britain.