Moving Metal

Bill Gimbel was a born problem-solver and a creative engineer. Pictured here is a conveyor design patented by Gimbel and Carl B. Larson.

lishing new lines of stock, improving safety, and reducing costs. Reliance could always add new bays to the building, but that would only raise construction costs, create additional overhead expenses, and do nothing to alleviate the storage and handling problems. He believed that Reliance required a comprehensive modernization program involving not only

new equipment but also a whole new approach. An engineer and former naval officer, Gimbel was familiar with the systems approach to technical problem solving pio- neered by Bell Laboratories during World War II and then proliferated throughout the country, particularly in the Depart- ment of Defense and the newly created National Aeronautics

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