Glenn has picked a good topic. As 99Panhard says, it’s a very broad field, with many aspects to choose from. I can’t suggest a single relevant source on the subject, but I am aware of numerous sources of information. However, my sources concentrate mainly on British production in WW1, so will find little favour here.
One excellent source which gives contemporary views of WW1 production is the volumes of the magazine
The Engineer (generously made available online by the owner of Grace’s Guide).
The Engineer (Bound Volumes)
If you go to the index of any of the wartime volumes of The Engineer, you will find a wide range of topics relating to war production and products of both allies and enemies. For example, references to the development of concrete boats, arc welding, substitutions for materials in short supply, etc.
Engineering was a similar magazine, but WW1-era volumes aren’t yet available on Grace’s Guide. I’ve just been flicking through a hard copy 1918 volume, and finding all sorts of snippets, e.g. a report of a gathering of most US makers of drop-forged wrenches, who agreed to make their wrenches to ‘war finish’, without polishing, and without packaging or advertising boards. Getting manufacturers to cut back on standards of finish wasn't easy.
In looking through those volumes, a surprising finding is how many aspects of business life carried on relatively normally. It was total war, but productive effort was by no means totally devoted to the war. When
Engineering did discuss war-specific matters, they sometimes supplied a surprising amount of detail. In 1918 they had an article on the Cunard shell factory, complete with drawings of machine tools adapted for shell production. Incidentally, all the photos of machines in action in the article have women operators, and the machine shops were designed for a workforce of 80 – 90% females.
One major outcome of WW1 was the liberation of women. They gained unprecedented income and independence as a result of doing men’s work. A facet of this change was major industrial unrest due to workmen having their role diluted by women and unskilled workers.
In the book 'The Classic Slum' by Robert Roberts, referring to his father’s boasts that he had to manipulate a micrometer and work to thousandths of an inch, he writes: 'We were much impressed until one evening in 1917 a teenage sister running a capstan in the ironworks remarked indifferently that she, too, used a ‘mike’ to even finer limits. There was, she said, 'nothing too it'. The old man fell silent. Thus did status crumble! Before the end of the war more than 642,000 women had gone into government factories and engineering works of some sort, with millions more, men and women, doing manual work of almost every kind and developing new skills…..'
One lesson that the British learned for WW2 was to avoid the problems of letting or making essential workers go forth as cannon fodder.
Death and destruction aside, it seems that it wasn’t until 1918 that the British government officially outlawed the payment of royalties to enemy holders of patents!
John Ruth mentioned an example of official incompetence. I've been reading an account of the development of the WW1 Rolls-Royce Eagle and Falcon, and the half-hearted support given to them by the authorities. In fact R-R hadn’t previously built aircraft engines, and had initially been pressed to build Renault aero engines, but they would have nothing to do with them. I then went to another of the excellent R-R Heritage Trust books to see if it had anything relevant to this thread. The book was
An Account of Partnership – Industry, Government and the Aero Engine – The Memoirs of George Purvis Bulman. Bulman spoke highly (and briefly) of the R-R engines, and of the Liberty engine, but focuses attention on a dreadful engine - the ABC Dragonfly - which government officials, on the basis of paper claims, decided should be put into mass production. It was hopeless, and a dangerous waste of time and effort, but Bulman does say that the affair taught lessons helpful to him in WW2 (when he had the onerous technical responsibility for British aero engine production on behalf of the government). He undoubtedly played a major role in avoiding many of the problems of misdirected effort in WW2. This is of no help to the O.P. but I like to take the opportunity to plug good books.
Another example of misguided thinking concerns the development of engines for the first tanks in WW1. Harry Ricardo and H Glyde wrote that tanks were initially given such low priority that the engine designers were allowed to use aluminium only for pistons and induction pipes, while the use of high tensile steel was banned entirely! (The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine by Ricardo and Glyde, 1941).
