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Even while Du Pont expanded its nylon production, it built a $17 million plant at Camden, S.C. whose product may partially eclipse nylon itself. This fiber is Orion, a cousin of nylon but far stronger, more resistant to sunlight. The U.S. textile industry is already using it in men's summer suits and spun hose, women's dresses, auto tops and a wealth of new decorator fabrics. (But Du Pont will get stiff competition from Union Carbide's Dynel, an Orion-type fiber...
...Du Pont seeks the new frontiers, there is no limit to the legerdemain which its Wilmington wizards are constantly performing. In three years they have popped out everything from a sulphur-coated grass seed which grows greener grass, to a chemical called Erifron, which makes cotton and rayon flame resistant. They have also produced a revolutionary new insulating material called Teflon. Out of Greenewalt's old specialty, high-pressure synthesis, came some long-chain alcohols which long seemed useless, but have now made Du Pont a prime supplier of raw materials for soapless soaps (detergents). In a pilot plant...
...Price of Pioneering. Du Pont is convinced that it can stay healthy and keep growing only by plowing tremendous sums into research, thus obtain enough new products to spark its sales as old markets decline. It spent $38 million on research last year, will dedicate a new $30 million research center at Wilmington next month. "It took us ten years and $27 million to bring nylon to the production stage," says Greenewalt. "But for every nylon that hits the jackpot, there are 20 other gambles that fail to pay off. If we could not afford to carry the 19 failures...
...Du Pont can afford the gamble, not only because it is big, but because it is efficient. Du Pont has kept its prices low. In the last decade, while consumer prices rose 75%, Du Pont's increased 35.8%. Yet it has achieved such efficiency that last year it earned about 14% ($187 million) on its $1,297,000,000 sales. (In 1951's first quarter, it boosted sales 40% and net 9% over the same 1950 quarter.) With an additional $120 million in G.M. dividends, its 1950 net profit rate reached an astounding 21%. Obviously, G.M. provides...
...Even so, Du Pont could not afford the risk if it did not keep the most rigorous control on where the research dollars go. It spends only 15% to 20% of its research budget on fundamental (i.e., "pure") research which, while unpredictable, is also productive of the biggest strikes (e.g., nylon). It concentrates most heavily on applied research - the further development of processes already known - which have now brought Orion out of the same test tubes where nylon was found. The greatest problem, says Greenewalt, is to be patient enough to carry a seemingly losing proposition for five...