Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT 31 opposite of this instance is that of a large engineering shop which undertakes the making of a great variety of appliances on special orders. Here the actual amount of planning will be much greater. Superficially it seems that one might go on to say that the time-study activity should be much less, but, as we shall see later, when different operations are analyzed, the same constituent movements appear over and over again, and are thus worth close study and record. It will be found generally that a planning depart- ment is likely to absorb more workers during the period of its installation, and the establishment of standards, than will'be’necessary when the apparatus has begun to work. ■ We shall now describe briefly the procedure of an ordinary planning department, leaving out the activities which only in particular works are com- bined with it. We may begin with the planning clerk, who will be the first assistant to the head of the department. He must be a semi-technical man, fully conversant with factory conditions and methods. He receives from the drawing-office a document which is variously known as a “ specifica- tion,” “ part list,” " bill of material,” or some similar title. This sets out in detail the necessary parts required for a certain order that is to be executed, the drawings to which these parts are to be made, the kind and amount of material required, and the processes through which the various pieces have to pass before completion. Of course, as a rule