Mr. POTVIN. Well, let me ask this. I think the direct question gets to the heart of the matter. That is that at such time as you have achieved this technology breakthrough so you can go from metal to clay, as the statement of present intent only, would it be Ford's position that they would be willing to sit down and discuss the possibility of either giving them the tape or-it may well be that some of the shops will say, "We prefer to fix our own." But if they want the tape, would they have access to it?

Mr. BOGART. There will certainly be a way for them to get the information.

Mr. POTVIN. Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Now, with regard to this in-house figure of approximately 15 percent, is the composition of that percentage of changing? By that, I mean are you gradually taking over the more complicated end of this work, or is the composition roughly the same as it has been for several years?

Mr. BOGART. I think the composition is roughly the same. We are not taking over the more complicated work. We have hangups in using numerical control. This is the computer-aided machine. One of the hangups is in inner panels. Another hangup is very complicated outer panels. Those are still machined by conventional means. There are even panels in significant numbers that we can see for the long term that will still be conventionally machined. We do not think that we can see now an economical way to eliminate all conventional machining.

Mr. POTVIN. We have had a lot of talk here about the technological revolution and so forth in this industry, computer tapes and so forth. But what you are saying is that a substantial percentage of this business will never be advanced that far?

Mr. BOGART. We must make invention in order to do it, sir, and I cannot tell you when the invention might come. It is a laudable ambition because of the flexibility that it gives to us. There are many minor technical values to us. I guess if we had what we really wanted to do, we would like to be able to do this across the board. But it seems to be a long way away.

Mr. WERTHEIMER. Mr. Chairman.

We will have testimony this afternoon which states that, within a decade or perhaps two decades, more than half of all types of tooling for the automotive and certain other industries will be numerically controlled. Would you basically agree with this?

Mr. BOGART. Is this limited to the automotive industry?

Mr. WERTHEIMER. The automotive and certain other industries. Mr. BOGART. I will speak to the automotive industry. I suspect that the figure is in the order of 50 percent. I do not know whether it is 35 or whether it is 65, because we must invent in order to bring that about. We have to go beyond the dreaming stage and move from concept into accomplished hardware. The mathematics of the situation are very complicated, because if we were going to machine the automobile in terms of circles, where we could completely describe it in terms of the locus of all points equidistant from the center point of a circle, I think we could do a lot of things right today. But if you examine the fenders, the rear decks, and some of the unique contours we have going sideways over the doors, you will see that they are nongeometric. So our problems are simply that.

We have other interesting problems that relate to this. That we must be extremely precise on the dies for our outer surface, because our customers and the sophisticated user, if he buys a black car, for instance, and looks across it with light reflected from it, can see any imperfections. So this cannot be done by approximation. It has to be done to an exact, smooth contour. And the mathematics have been very horrendous.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Addabbo?

Mr. ADDABBO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bogart, on page 4, you say:

In past years, we have also purchased very small amounts of dies from one of our affiliated companies

Et cetera. What would you consider a very small amount in dollars? Mr. BOGART. I have not the exact figures in front of me, but it is in percentages well below the 0.1 percent kind of numbers. In just getting a feel of it, we felt that this did not significantly affect any of the testimony that we are placing before you, sir.

Mr. ADDABBO. In talking of the independent companies you deal with, how independent are they? Do you have any indirect control over those companies in the way of officers or stockholders or mutual stockholders of the companies?

Mr. BOGART. No, sir.

Mr. ADDABBO. You spoke of computerization. Is Ford itself developing its own computers?

Mr. BOGART. I want to be sure I understand the question.

Mr. ADDABBO. In other words, we are talking of the future possibility of computerized machines and possibly even tool and diemaking. Is Ford developing their own type of computer?

Mr. BOGART Really, as far as computers are concerned, we are using commercially available kinds of computers, those that one can get on the open market. The suppliers will run from very small producers into very large producers. Now, the complicated mathematics that I have described does require a significant size computer. Some of the smaller producers have not yet given us such a computer.

I think the heart of your question, sir, is are we doing the work that provides the mathematical solution for the surfaces. Yes: we are doing that ourselves.

Mr. ADDABBO. You are not going to the small companies to find out if they can develop this at all?

Mr. BOGART. We have one supplier that has chosen to do his own work. He has made very fine progress in supplying dies to us made by this process.

Now he actually uses them on his own presses.

Mr. POTVIN. He does all his own software work?

Mr. BOGART. Yes, sir; he does.

Mr. ADDABBO. Only for Ford?

Mr. BOGART. No, sir. It is available to the industry. He is a contract metal stamping operator.

Mr. ADDABBO. In this particular field, as far as automotive is concerned, are you using any Government-leased machinery or tools? Mr. BOGART. We are not, sir.

Mr. ADDABBO. No further questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Burton?

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Bogart, I would like to commend you on a fine statement and on being a very responsive witness.

I just have one little point of inquiry here. You mention on page 4 of your statement that you purchased molds from Canada in 1969 in the amount of $3 million and most of this expenditure was for taillamp lens molds. This is not a very important point, but I just wonder why Canada is more proficient in producing taillamp lens molds than we are?

Mr. BOGART. We have a unique supplier with not only an established proprietary position through practice, but also with something of a patentable position. He has brought to us a technique of making these molds that others have not yet been able to equal.

Mr. BURTON. I see. That answers it.

Will you have any idea of the approximate number of independent suppliers that were used in 1969 as compared to 1959, for example? Mr. BOGART. I can only answer that in broad generalities from this one standpoint: We have been buying the same types of dies-in other words, the same sizes of roofs and the rear quarter that forms the rear wheel housings and doors, front fenders, and the same number of supporting dies on the inside, like floor pans, inner sections for the doors, and all of the mechanical support parts. The die shops have remained approximately the same size. So we may be using a few more die suppliers, but I do not think any fewer. But I think it is inconsequential as far as changes go.

Mr. ADDABBO. Will you yield?

Mr. HUNGATE. I will yield.

Mr. ADDABBO. Are there any parts of dies that you were buying 10 years ago that you are not buying today?

Mr. BOGART. No, sir.

Mr. HUNGATE. Would the same be true as to 1949 ?

Mr. BOGART. I think broadly.

Mr. HUNGATE. Now, in the chart on special tools costs, under percents, for example, manufactured in-house in 1965 would be 6 percent; in 1969 it would be 7.4 percent. The 7.4 percent as related to the 6 would represent about a 25-percent increase in the amount of in-house there. I wonder in what fields, what areas, that increase is taking place.

Mr. BOGART. I do not have that figure at my fingertips, sir.

Mr. HUNGATE. What I am trying to think is what particular-I am trying to put flesh on bones. What parts of the automobile or what parts of tools that this in-house production has been increased where this would have happened. It would not have been the tail lenses as we went into before.

Mr. BOGART. No: it would not.

Mr. HUNGATE. But it must be some part of the car or some area in which it seemed wise to increase it.

Mr. BOGART. I do not recall. I can get that information and forward it to the committee if they would like it.'

1 See p. 121.

Mr. HUNGATE. I would appreciate it, sir.

Would you know offhand of any particular area where you have previously in the past, plus the 20 years of individual suppliers, in which that would no longer be true? As I say, I am just trying to get a concrete example so I can visualize it.

Mr. BOGART. No, I cannot; because in the other tools that we make, we do not have major capability, as you can see, in comparing the purchases outside. In the figures that we are looking at here, we have roughly 5 percent, and it gets up, as you say, to 7 percent. But we do not have toolrooms on the inside that do make the major portion of any of the tools in our other operations. We make dies in our Canton forge plant so the dies that are made in our Canton forge plant are shown in this particular total. Any small dies that we might make in any of four other divisions would fall into this general category. I cannot identify the difference between the 9.6 and the 13.2.

Mr. HUNGATE. Pardon me. Maybe I misstated myself.

No; that was the question.

Mr. BOGART. I cannot quite identify why the $4 million at that point. Mr. SMITH. According to what I read in the newspaper, there has been a substantial increase in production of automobiles this year. Of course, I assume that your industry, like all other industries, is not able to predict exactly the number that can be sold and they may go a little faster than the market will absorb, or you may not go fast enough. But if I am to understand your answer correctly, if you do happen to go too fast and then have to slack off, this slack would not come in the in-house capacity, because you own that and you would want to keep that busy, is that correct?

Mr. BOGART. I think that you have asked me if the programs that we have here are a reflection of our sales of automobiles. Tool and die expenditures and auto volumes are not directly comparable, because once we make a set of dies, we can make a wide range of volumes. We can go obviously much below what we have planned, to zero, or we can go beyond what we have planned by just running the dies more often. So it is not related to the number of vehicles that we produce. It is, however, related to the number of models that we produce.

Mr. SMITH. Is your in-house capacity that you build related to the total number of models produced-number of automobiles produced? Mr. BOGART. No; I think it is more related to the number of models and the changeovers that we have. Every time that we have to have a brandnew die for a line, whether it be a change in an existing line or the introduction of a brandnew car, we need new dies for that job. But whether we sell 400,000 or 500,000 only means that we have to figure a way of keeping the presses going.

Mr. SMITH. Just increase the number of units?

Mr. BOGART. That is right, sir.

Mr. SMITH. Well, now, when you acquire a larger dollar value as you have indicated here you have and will, to keep up with the expansion in your sales or production of models, do you do that by purchase of new machines or by outright purchase, or how do you do that?

Mr. BOGART. We have not purchased independent tool and die people to take over our business. We have, however, been caused to add a stamping plant. To make the actual number of pieces used on the

automobile, we have included a certain amount of tool and die capability, roughly equivalent to the percentage that we previously had; we try to hold that percentage just about even.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Potvin?

Mr. POTVIN. Mr. Chairman.

Ford makes, as an example, three small cars-the Falcon, the Mustang, and the Maverick. Without meaning to be unkind, there is much to suggest that some of the internal portions are the same. I say this preparatory to the following question: With the proliferation of models and styles, is not the percentage of outer dies taken as a percentage of the whole number of dies; has it not been increasing in recent years? That is to say, although you, of course, had to have new skin dies for, say, the Maverick, this would not mean that on all of the inner body dies, the panels and the widgets and so on, that you had new dies for those as well, does it?

Mr. BOGART. A great portion of them were new dies.

Mr. POTVIN. Some were not?

Mr. BOGART. We can probably find a few parts that were not. The numbers run something like this: Fifteen percent of the dies are outer skins and the other 85 percent are hidden.

Mr. POTVIN. Well, let us say when you go on a new item such as the Maverick, you start in with this 15-85 arithmetic. Obviously, that 15 you would have to do. As to the remaining 85 percent, would you not utilize quite a number of the existing pieces?

Mr. BOGART. I cannot qualify it by numbers. There may have been some pieces that have been used.

Mr. POTVIN. Consider the next two or three model programs. What percentage of the total hours for all tooling would likely utilize the use of numerical equipment?

Mr. BOGART. I would like to hear that question to be sure that I understand it.

Mr. POTVIN. About what percentage of the total hours for all tooling in the next two or three model programs would you consider as requiring or likely to utilize numerical equipment?

Mr. BOGART. The total construction hours? The percentage is well under 1 percent. Because the machining of the die in the die machining process is only a small portion of the total operation. When we finish the machining operation, the evidence of the tool-known as the crest-— is still in the die. And we must have an artisan finish that down to the finished shape, not only to get the shape, but also to make it a die that will function in production.

In addition to that, this process, which we call tryout, at the tail end, is to be sure that we in fact can make a production piece and we have presses in our toolroom, just as our vendors have presses, designed to receive the dies and to prove to their satisfaction and to ours as well that the dies are made to the blueprint, that they can produce a quality acceptable to our assembly plant, and are ready for finished fitting when we put them into our lines in our metal stamping plants.

Mr. POTVIN. Now, could you take an item of your choice, such as, say, a large hood or a fender die, and tell the subcommittee how long it would take from start to finish to make it, first the conventional way and then secondly to make it the numerical method, and then, lastly,