father of the second industrial revolution, The

Manufacturing Engineering, AuG 2001 by Olexa, Russ

John Parsons has been an SME Fellow since 1986, and an Honorary Member since 1998. In 1975, SME honored Parsons with an Engineering Citation as the person whose "conceptualization of numerical control marked the beginning of the second industrial revolution." In 1998, the retired founder and president of the John T. Parsons Co., Traverse City, MI, was honored for his 70-year history in manufacturing and his contributions to the automotive and aerospace industries. Here is the story of his early life in manufacturing and his account of how NC developed.

In the late 1940s, John Parsons started a revolution that engulfed industry and continues to be of major importance in just about every person's life.

His invention cut manufacturing costs, added to society's comfort, strengthened the national defense, and today supports a standard of living envied by the non-industrial world. The Society of Manufacturing Engnieers calls him the Father of the Second Industrial Revolution, and his work has truly made him that.

As Parsons explains it, necessity was the mother of invention when he tried to solve a problem with the help of an employee, Chief Engineer Frank Stulen, and eventually patented numberical machine tool control (NC), the forerunner of today's digital computer-control systems. But before he pattened the system, there was controversy and intrigue.

Who is John Parsons, this self-taught engineer, and what were the events that Ied to the development of NC? In an exclusive interview with Manufacturing Ingineering, he discussed his early life, and the events that led to this revolutionary invention. Comments in italics are those of this editor.

Russ Olexa: How did your life in manufacturing begin?

John Parsons: My dad came to Detroit in 1911 annd started a stamping company, called Parsons Manufacturing Co., in a small factory on Detroit's 21st street. In the 1930s he expanded several times, and had a larger facility located in the back-- end of the Ford Highland Park plant with about 34.000 ft^sup 2^. His main business was stamping automobile door hinges, door hardware, and window lifts. Within ten years he built that business to 565 employees.

I started working in my dad's factory in 1927 at age 14 as an assembler, and then I worked as an apprentice in the toolroom. After awhile I was doing die repair and try-outs. In 1931, the company's gross sales were $28,000. In 1940 we had grown to $700,000, which was pretty good growth.

RO: How fast did you progress in the company?

Parsons: By the time I was 20, I was general manager of our automotive division. I was handling sales, which kept increasing. My wife, Betty, and I were married in 1940 and then WW2 came along. I had some physical problems that were not properly diagnosed, and I wasn't going to make it good soldier. I was determined to get into war work, and that happened when I saw an ad in the paper looking for people to bid on a defense project to make landmines, and I submitted a bid. When they opened them, I was shocked. I was low bidder on a high-explosive mine by 11%, and on a practice mine by 22%, I told my father I must have made a terrible mistake because we got the job. He said, "Don't worry about it, we'll look it over." Well, I hadn't made a mistake. I just knew what I was doing. By manufacturing 240,000 landmines a month in our Detroit plant in 1941, we became the largest producer in the country.

Later, we bid on entire bomb casings, which included 100, 250, 500, 1000, and 2000-lb onces. We made a sample bomb and got the contract for 10,000 a month. We had to build a whole new plant, and that's what brought me to Traverse City, MI in 1942. We had just gotten into production, and then the government started adjusting production schedules.

After negotiations, I ended Lip building 15,000 a month.

Once we were into production, the Army decided to cancel the program. So I had to go to Washington and lied out what was going on, because I had a plant, and nothing was in it except production of the bomb casings. I found out they were going to need fragmentation bombs. I designed and engineered a complete fragmentation bomb, put it on a little hand truck, and dragged it around the War Dept. to get a contract and got one.

RO: How did you become involved in aerospace work?

Parsons: In 1942 Bill Stout, the chief engineer for the Ford Tri-Motor airplane, and I got acquainted. He told me that no airplane with a take-off or landing speed of less than 540 mph would be successful. Then the Detorit Free Press reported that Stout had seen this new invention, the helicopter, the airplane of the future. I called Stout and reminded him what he had said about a 50-mph landing speed. He said, "John, this is something different. Look into it." So I put in a call that day to Igor Sikorsky, of Sikorsky Helicopters. I ended up talking to the chief test pilot, Les Morris. He said if I was ever in the area to see them. Well I made sure I'd be in the area, Bridgeprot, CT, in three or four days.