Since its beginnings in 1886 until its untimely demise in 2002, Arthur D. Little, Inc. (ADL) was considered the premier research, development and engineering consulting firm in the world. Literally, hundreds of products and inventions for companies and Government entities arose out of its laboratories.
This blog is an attempt to tell the stories behind these products and inventions, told by the ADL staff members who were involved in the development, or have a close knowledge of the details.
My name is Irving Arons and I was a member of the staff of the Product Technology Section of ADL from March 1969 until my retirement from the firm in March 1994. During my tenure at the company, more than half of my career was spent either working on developing products in the laboratory or leading laboratory-based projects that were sponsored by companies and Government entities such as NASA. (The latter half of my career was spent as a specialist in ophthalmics and medical lasers as the leader of the Ophthalmic and Medical Laser Consulting Group, preparing research reports for companies in those fields. These reports and other published writings in these fields can be found in my other blog, Irv Arons’ Journal on the web.)
I have prepared and posted several writeups on laboratory projects I was involved with and invite my ADL alumni colleagues to share their product and invention stories on these pages. If you have any questions on any of the posted materials, please contact me, using the email link Irv Arons. I will do my best to amswer your queries as quickly as possible.
This blog is an attempt to tell the stories behind these products and inventions, told by the ADL staff members who were involved in the development, or have a close knowledge of the details.
My name is Irving Arons and I was a member of the staff of the Product Technology Section of ADL from March 1969 until my retirement from the firm in March 1994. During my tenure at the company, more than half of my career was spent either working on developing products in the laboratory or leading laboratory-based projects that were sponsored by companies and Government entities such as NASA. (The latter half of my career was spent as a specialist in ophthalmics and medical lasers as the leader of the Ophthalmic and Medical Laser Consulting Group, preparing research reports for companies in those fields. These reports and other published writings in these fields can be found in my other blog, Irv Arons’ Journal on the web.)
I have prepared and posted several writeups on laboratory projects I was involved with and invite my ADL alumni colleagues to share their product and invention stories on these pages. If you have any questions on any of the posted materials, please contact me, using the email link Irv Arons. I will do my best to amswer your queries as quickly as possible.
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6 comments:
What a wonderful Blog!
I'm so grateful you linked to it throough the Linkedin ADL Alumni Group, and I'm sure many more of your ex-colleagues will visit and wonder at the ingenjuity we were all associated with one way or another. I hope you will allow Management consultants to share some of our 'inventions' here too.
Thank you again for creating and sharing these wonderful stories of achievement.
Dave Stringer
Dave,
Thanks for the compliment.
Originally, I was hoping to just post laboratory-based inventions and products, but I am willing to consider any "inventions" that came out of ADL.
Irv Arons
Great blog for ADLers!... Thanks for your idea & effort!
Dear Irv,
What a great surprise and pleasure to come across ADL Chronicles.
Warren Lothrop, VP of R&D before your time there, persuaded me to be their 'artist in resident'. You may remember some of my mural designs etc. and my work on the lobby displays. I left c. 1982, after many years — to give more time to painting.
That original silk purse! ADL asked me to shepherd it through its renovation — and I handmade the box it was displayed in. I had been wondering what became of it.
Hope all is well with you!
Lillian Habinowski
I just found your blog. Thank you!
Kathy Thrun
Hi Irv,
I was reading the post on Plastic Pencils and wonder: If plastic pencils save trees, does it produce more toxic by using more plastics? Are the plastics used biodegradeble? How many trees are spared with this replacement?
Thanks for coming up with this blog and looking forward to hear from you!
Chew
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