Parts standardizationIn 1813, for the first time in the U.S., a requirement for standardization in factory production became part of a federal government contract which specified interchangeable parts. Twenty thousand pistols were ordered from the contractor, Col. Simeon North of Berlin, Conn. to be made such that "component parts of the pistols are to correspond so exactly that any limb or part of one pistol may be fitted to any other pistol of the 20,000." The contract price was $7 per pistol, to be delivered over a five year period. Since 1810, Col. North had already owned a pistol factory in Middletown, Conn., and produced the pistols at the rate of about 10,000 per year. |
