“We’re consultants to government and industry,” Wild said finally. “Want to know about production flow systems? Materials handling? Centralized processing and distribution? Automation you know isn’t necessarily the answer. First you study the operation. Then you analyze the system in terms of costs and functional elements. Maybe automation isn’t the answer at all. Maybe it’s selective automation you want. One or two small changes can turn the trick. Relocate a conveyor line. Design a special component. Too many people think automation is the answer to everything. This is a fallacy. I work with good men. They do their job and they like what they’re doing and they don’t ever squawk. Once I dated one of their daughters for a period of several some odd months. She was all jugs. I liked her. But she kept using a word I couldn’t stand. She was always using it. I tromped over to the museum. I went tromping through the park. I tromped down Rush Street. Automation is no panacea. We understand that in my father’s outfit. Systems planning is the true American artform. More than jazz for godsake. We excel at maintenance. We understand interrelationships. We make it all work, from parcel entry to in-plant distribution to truck routing and scheduling. We know exactly where to put the nail that holds the broom. A lot of countries can’t do that. They don’t know how. Practically nobody in Europe knows where to put the nail. You know that Frenchman who wrote that book, what he said? There are three great economic powers in the world. America. Russia. And America in Europe. We have to show them where to put the nail. But the Russians still lag. They lag in industrial research, in computerization, in automated systems. They lag. We know how to plan things, like overall corporate policy, like inventory management, like distribution, like site suitability. We’re experts in containerization, unit loads, electronic data processing, feasibility studies. We know how to zero in. What’s so terrible about that?”