Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/215

 Keeping Track of Piece Work

An automatic timekeeper calculates the time each workman spends on a job, and needs no verifying

��AN ingenious machine has been in- vented which automatically calcu- lates the time spent by any workman on any job. The machine prints this time on a card in addition to the times of starting and stopping.

Each workman uses a card for each job. He stamps it at the machine when he starts and again when he finishes. Each card shows the starting and stop- ping time of each job and the elapsed time spe'nt on it. Hence the cards can be used in d e t erm i n i n g many vital factors in the cost of modern factory production in- cluding the labor cost of the prod- uct; the produc- tive and non-pro- ductive hours ; the machine time, and the time actually spent on the job.

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� ��A sample card. It shows that workman No. 75 worked 3.2 hoiirs in the morning and 2.7 hours in the afternoon on Order No. 92, on operation 63

��to determine the payroll efficiency records and data for piece work prices.

The machine itself consists of a small cylindrical barrel about eight inches in diameter and six inches high. It has a clock on its upper face with two handles, one on either side. These are used for printing the various times on the cards. In operation, the card is first inserted in a slot on top of the machine and the right-hand lever is pushed away from the operator. This prints the date and the time of day, a printed arrow indicating the minutes and a wedge the hours as shown on one of the cards re- produced on this page. Then by pulling the right lever toward the operator before the card is removed, two dials which form a part of the record are printed. One indi- cates hours, the other tenths of hours.

���The calculagraph, showing the two levers by means of which the cards are printed. At right of the picture it is shown in use in a factory where each job foreman reports by telephone to the timekeep>er in the central office the record of each job

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