Auckland Industrial Laboratories Display

Press, Volume C, Issue 29503, 3 May 1961, Page 17

Auckland Industrial Laboratories Display

'The Press" Special Service

AUCKLAND, May 2. Instruments for measuring the twisting of a spinning crankshaft, or the tiny heartbeat of an unborn child, or the ■ gas pressures inside the stomach of a cow suffering from bloat are only a few of those on display at the open week of the Auckland Industrial Development Laboratories, a branch of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The instruments are designed and built in Auckland. Others measure the amount of oxygen in the blood, or the amount of pollution in the air, or the efficiency of fuel usage.

The laboratories, set up 15 years ago to help to solve industrial problems, have a professional staff of 10 scientists and engineers. Research is carried out in mechanical engineering, electronics, metallurgy, physics, medical instrumentation and fuel usage.

The policy is to make Industry self-sufficient, the laboratories carrying out only work which industry cannot do for itself.

Once processes and techniques are past the experimental stage firms are encouraged to get the facilities to carry out their own work. Specialised assistance is

given by the laboratories to industrial groups such as the Auckland Fuel Users’ Research Group, the Auckland Institute of Foundrymen and the Auckland Corrosion Group.

In time these groups will probably become fullyfledged research associations, financed partly by the Gov. ernment and partly by the industry concerned. Invited guests who visited the laboratories were impressed by the quality and variety of the work carried out.

“We think it necessary that the public and Auckland industry in particular should know what we are doing and what science can offer to assist progress and increase efficiency," said the director of the laboratories (Mr J. B. Brooke).

“This is the only branch of the department set up primarily to help the manufacturing industry. which has grown rapidly in the last decade.’’ The average factory in New Zealand employed 19 workers and about 62 per cent, of the firms had fewer than 10 workers—insufficient in each case to support a central or research scientist.

Thus some sort of group approach to industrial problems was necessary.