Shop Management

SHOP MANAGEMENT 67 The writer, however, while still a young man, had all lingering doubt as to the value of a drafting room dispelled by seeing the chief engineer, the fore- man of the machine shop, the foreman of the foundry, and one or two workmen, in one of our large and successful engineering establishments of the old school, stand over the cylinder of an engine which was being built, with chalk and dividers, and discuss for more than an hour the proper size and location of the studs for fastening on the cylinder head. This was simplicity, but not economy. About the same time he became thoroughly convinced of the necessity and economy of a planning department with time study, and with written instruction cards and returns. He saw over and over again a work- man shut down his machine and hunt up the fore- man to inquire, perhaps, what work to put into his machine next, and then chase around the shop to find it or to have a special tool or templet looked up or made. He saw workmen carefully nursing their jobs by the hour and doing next to nothing to avoid making a record, and he was even more forci- bly convinced of the necessity for a change while he was still working as a machinist by being ordered by the other men to slow down to half speed under penalty of being thrown over the fence. No one now doubts the economy of the drafting room, and the writer predicts that in a very few years from now no one will doubt the economy and neces- sity of the study of unit times and of the planning department. Another point of analogy between modern engi-