Laboratory Companies

I am delighted to express my appreciation to the attendees of more than 80 short courses from 1971 through 1995 at government laboratories, companies, and open locations, " ey helped shape this second edition by their questions and comments, as did the more than twenty university classes I taught over the years. 

Arriving for his first day at the old tobacco warehouse that housed Kettering s firm, Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, Midgley recalled, I was trying to open the door that looked like the front door of the building, but which was locked. As I strained and pulled at it, a rather lanky individual called out to me, Hey, bud, the architects just stuck that door on to look right to fool people. You get in on the side. Follow me. ... 

Knowledge engineering is the technology behind construction of expert systems, or knowledge systems, or expert support systems. Such systems are designed to advise, inform and solve problems. They can perform at the level of experts, and in some cases exceed expert performance. They do so not because they are "smarter but because they represent the collective expertise of the builders of the systems. They are more systematic and thorough. And they can be replicated and used throughout a laboratory, company or industry at low cost. 

Commercial development of beryllium in the United States was begun in 1916 by Hugh S. Cooper with the production of the first significant metallic beryllium ingot. This was followed by formation of the Brush Laboratories Company, which started its development work under the direction of Dr. C.B. Sawyer in 1921. In Germany, the Siemens-Halske Konzein began commercial development work in 1923. 

Shortly after the invention of the self-starter, engineers at Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) found that ethanol or grain alcohol could be used to reduce knock. The problem with grain alcohol was that anyone could make it. In 1921, Thomas Midgley was working at... 

A Collaborative Laboratories Company, 50 East Loop Rd Stony Brook, NY, 11790-3350, USA (Tel 631-689-0200 FAX 631-689-2890 E-mail csbi collabo.com, Internet http //www. collabo. com/csbi. htm)... 

March the 41st Chemical Laboratory Company, the fid Chemical Composite Company, the remainder of the 21st Chemical Decontamination Company, and the fid and fyd Chemical Processing Companies in May and the 24th and 2jth Chemical Decontamination Companies in June 194. See Brophy and Fisher, Organizing for War, app. H, and see below, ch. VII. 

Still another reason for the decline of the theater headquarters CWS sections was that the intelligence activity, largely managed by the British, had never assumed much importance in the American group. Furthermore, since facilities were lacking for a technical activity and since liaison with the British on technical matters was carried on by the European theater CWS, there was no need for a large technical organization in NATOUSA—MTOUSA. The theater chemical laboratory company did not experience, as did chemical laboratory companies in most other theaters, frequent calls for development work. 

The needs of gas warfare readiness, therefore, set the pattern for prewar CWS planning for service units. The prescribed standard for a wartime situation, in which the existence or at least the imminence of gas warfare was taken for granted, called for the assignment of a chemical depot company, decontamination company, laboratory company, impregnating company (as the processing company was then called), and maintenance company to each field army, with additional... 

Seven Chemical Warfare Service laboratory companies saw service overseas between 1941 and 1945. The essential mission of the laboratory company in the field was to analyze and evaluate enemy chemical materiel and to maintain technical surveillance over CWS supplies. These functions made it a major source of technical intelligence, both as to enemy capabilities for chemical warfare and the storage life of CWS ammunition and protective items. At first conceived of as a more or less mobile entity capable of following an army in the field, it was in practice treated as a semifixed installation of a theater communications zone, a status better suited to its more than ten tons of laboratory equipment. 

In Brisbane the company settled down to work as a unit of Base Section 3, U.S. Army Forces in Australia. By the end of February the laboratory equipment had been set up in permanent quarters and organized technical work was under way. At first a substantial number of laboratory personnel were detailed for general duty with base section headquarters, but these demands slackened after the first few months and by midyear the company was able to pursue its mission at approximately full strength. It had become in the interim the 42d Chemical Laboratory Company by redesignation effective April 12, 1942, and had moved to new quarters in buildings formerly occupied by a Brisbane hospital. ... 

The 43d Chemical Laboratory Company, activated at Edgewood Arsenal on 26 August 1942, was ordered to Hawaii in December of 1943. Upon its arrival it was assigned to theater headquarters (Central Pacific Area) and stationed at Schofield Barracks, where the theater chemical officer, Colonel Unmacht, had laboratory facilities (manned by 8th Chemical Depot Company personnel) already in operation. The 43d took over the existing laboratory functions, added its own equipment, and set to work. The immediate tasks were predominantly within the intelligence portion of the mission—the study and descrip-... 

The 8th assisted the 43d Laboratory Company in manufacturing the first batches of the stabilized flame thrower fuel (napalm plus activated silica gel) developed by the latter unit in 1945. In the summer of that year the Hawaiian Chemical Warfare Depot built its own unit for the activation of the silica gel. The 8th had this unit operating at a rate of one ton per day during the last weeks of the war. Between May and August of 1945 the depot manufactured a total of 226,343 gallons of fuel." ... 

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