Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

42 EFFICIENCY METHODS “ specification sheet,” with the processes and depart- ments responsible for them detailed, is passed over to the costing department. The staff there are then in a position to enter in their records the full pro- cesses which should be charged to each item of the order. A simple sub-divisory arrangement is used to enable each separate part and its manufacture to be charged, wherever possible, in a separate manner ; while it is at the same time possible to obtain the total cost of the complete product quickly. Provided with these blank process records the costing staff is in a position to detect errors in charging with considerable speed and accuracy. If, for instance, the specification sheet states that a certain part requires to be turned, milled, hardened and ground before fitting, a cost clerk without any technical knowledge can enter these processes on his costing sheets, and knows then that until each of these four items has had some cost charged to it, to that particular job number, his recorded cost is incomplete. This certainty eliminates a great cause of error. If a more detailed method of costing of this kind is introduced into an organization of the old- fashioned type it will call for immediate recon- struction of the statistical methods used. The cost of the work performed by machine-tools often bears no close relation at all to the wages of the machine- minder which are charged to the work. As an instance of this, the case of automatic gear-cutting work may be cited, where the workman’s time may