Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/234

 218

��Popular Science Monthly

���"Control Boards" in actual operation in a large automobile factory. Progress on thou- sands of different parts is closely followed, material is provided, and the work is checked

��"schedule tape," mounted at the top of the control board is provided, which in total length equals the number of work- days required to complete one car. It is divided into increments, or small divisions, representing the number of cars to be completed by the date indicated on the tape. This tape is moved one work-day division to the right, each day, so that its reading directly over the zero mark of the control boards specifies the sum total of the cars which should be completed on the particular day.

In the diagram, the schedule tape reads 100 at the zero line, indicating that one hundred of the three hundred and fifty cars in the lot should be completed on the day in which the schedule tape arrives at the position shown.

The numbers in the upper section of each operation cage indicate the progress of work on the numerous parts and are changed as reports of progress are re- ceived from the factory. For the various operations to be exactly according to schedule, the number posted in the cages should agree with the numbers on the schedule tape immediately above the in- dividual cages. When the numbers posted in the cages are larger than the numbers on the schedule tape immediate- ly above, it means that the progress on

��the part denoted by the particular cage is ahead of schedule, while when the posted number is the smaller, progress is behind schedule and the difiiculty can be investigated at once before there is a serious delay.

The control board not only definitely indicates the date and size of every shop order which has to be issued, but also shows exactly what progress has been made day by day on ev»^ry part entering into the mechanical construction of the automobile.

The shop management has thus a con- tinual record and can push or retard work on any part or on any operation so as to efficiently and economically maintain schedule. In a lot of but three hundred and fifty cars, this means a reliable guide and record for as many as ten million separate operations.

The control board presupposes manu- facturing under the most approved scien- tific methods. Photographs of it are taken frequently as permanent records of the progress, often competitive, made by the various departments.

Control boards are now being installed in one of the largest of the Government arsenals to govern and "speed up" as much as possible the production of im- peratively needed munitions of war.

��I

�� �