Word: tichauer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...article on Erwin Tichauer and "A Better Mousetrap" [May 2] was very interesting. However, I hope the ideas described in the article are not representative of Mr. Tichauer's best thinking. There are problems with his ideas...
...Fifty years ago," says Tichauer, "men like Gilbreth produced many solutions, but there were no problems. Today we've got the problems." Even where the problems are now resolutely faced, he claims, they are often approached from the wrong direction. He contends that too often equipment is manufactured today for a person who, in his opinion, does not exist: the average man. The human frame comes in a dismaying range of sizes and configurations, and industry must reach at least a reasonable compromise with this unavoidable fact...
...contrast, nearly everything surrounding America's astronauts has been handcrafted to fit not only their dimensions but their shortcomings in the hostile environment of space. Earth-bound man is also surrounded by a hostile and ill-fitting mechanical environment, and Tichauer sees no reason why the ordinary tool user and factory hand should not rate the kind of consideration shown to men in space...
Finger Dexterity. By now, Tichauer is so accustomed to the uninformed mistakes of machinery makers that he can readily redesign almost any device used by modern man. He would, for example, move the control of an electric skillet farther away from the heat and replace the dial, which requires great finger dexterity, with something even an arthritic old lady could manage...
...Tichauer shows little interest in the marketing and profit potentials of his designs. In any event, many of them are unpatentable-a fact that may help explain why the industries that consult him sometimes treat his suggestions as trade secrets. As Tichauer himself says: "Efficiency is the by-product of comfort. The enterprise that manufactures no sore backs, shoulders, wrists or behinds is at a competitive advantage over one with suffering workers." But Tichauer's basic humanitarianism shows through his practicality. "I don't design," he insists. "I fertilize. And I prevent sore elbows." He seems quite content...