BUSINESS EFFICIENCY.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1925, Page 7

BUSINESS EFFICIENCY.

INDUSTRIAL INVESTIGATIONS. WASTE IN MODERN METHODS. Industrial investigators in the United States are. engaged in a definite campaign against wasteful methods in industrial undertakings. According to an official report, the average small plant or locomotive makes use of only an infinitesimal percentage of the heat units thrown into it.

Out of an average ton of coal exploited in the United States, 6001 b are lost in mining, 1261 b are consumed between the underground working and the boiler room, 4461 b are lost in gases going up the stack, 1021 b are lost by radiation and in the ashpit, 6501 b are lost in converting heat energy, and only 761 b are left \or application to useful work. In regard to machine efficiency,. “In some plants (says Mr. Harrington Emerson, one of the pioneers of scientific engineering in America) it is not over 4 per cent, of the guaranteed capacity. We have again and again found that machines were not in operation over half the time of a nine-hour day. When in operation they were not efficient.” In efficiency methods of cost accountancy every idle machine is a deadweight addition to the overhead charges. An illustration of. inefficiencies which are obvious to the trained eye are described in an account of Mr. Emerson’s visit to a railroad shop. “I see a man shaping a small piece of steel about the size of a visiting card. I do not know what it. is for, but in 90 seconds 1 notice that the moving tool is cutting air three inches and metal one inch. Efficiency of stitoke is therefore about one-third of what it ought to be, therefore efficiency of speed is 33 per cent. His tool is diamond-pointed and i his feed l-64th inch. He should have used a round-nosed tool and the feed should have been l-16th inch, so that the efficiency of feed is 25 per cent. His depth of cut is as thin as he can make it. so he takes three so-called roughing wilts and then a finishing cut, whe® one deep roughing cut and a broad, scraping, Slashing out would have answered. Hia efficiency on depth of cut is not over 50 per cent. The time efficiency of the whole job is therefore 30 x 33 x 25 x 50 equals 1.25 per cent.—but a little over 1 per cent. These are visible inefficiencies, and I surmise a number of others that I du not see.’*