Don

I didn't take your original comment as slighting my knowledge in any way.  I see myself as a comparative youngster in this world, but I am also continually reminded at how short-sighted we are with regard to looking in the rear view mirror.

In fact, one of my biggest problems with the construction industry is the apparently compulsive need of many design professionals to reinvent solutions which were developed decades or even centuries ago, and to revisit problems for which solutions have existed for many years.  Lessons are just not learned often enough.  And the knowledge isn't passed around enough.  Which is one of the other reasons (see text below) I really enjoy what BP has to offer.

I like your anecdote about Henry Ford inventing 'just-in-time' manufacturing in the 1920s.

I believe you, but if I were being a typical cynical Australian (which is where I usually find myself), then I would be wondering whether those rose-tinted glasses didn't actually have a stars and stripes pattern embedded in them.

But of course, that is one of the great things about BP - perceptions and visions of the world around us are challenged every day ... I love it!

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong ... cos somebody else will if you don't!

Cheers

david

>>> "Donald B. White" <[log in to unmask]> 4 January 2000  2:47pm >>>
I didn't intend any slighting of your knowledge--and as I suggested, I
think there has been an exchange ot glass technologies in recent years. I
also find (as must also happen with old building technology) that people
don't realise how old some ideas are. One of my favorites is that
just-in-time manufacturing was invented by Henry Ford in the 1920s (he was
unable to perfect its implementation by the limitations of transportation
at the time)--in fact, the best-selling cars in Japan in the 1920s were the
Fords built in his Yokohama assembly plant, which the Japanese studied
closely before forcing it to close down. Their protectionist policies were
a direct result of the fear they would have no domestic auto industry of
their own. 

Don