CHAPTER XXIX

room.

THE TOOL AND STOCK ROOM

The lack of information in reference to it. Only special portions of the subject heretofore taken up. Disconnected parts of systems. The need of a complete system. The tool Here it should be treated in reference to other departments. Its two sections, the tool-making and the tool-keeping rooms. Equipment of the first section. General plans of the room. Auxiliary tool-distributing rooms. The tool room foreman. Question of ordering tools. Relation of the tool room to the general shop routine. Time keeping. The time card. Foreman's orders. Stock and material accounts. Material and cost card. Work on the regular product. Cost keeping of this work. The tool room design. Building partitions. Tool-keeping room. General arrangement. Shelving. The double check system of issuing and recovering tools. The check board. Storing and issuing files. Tracing the tools. General rules. Operation of the check board. Errand boys. Permanent issue of tools. Standard sets of tools. System of caring for jigs and fixtures. Card system for locating, issuing, and recovering them. Stock room arrangement. Shelves, drawers, boxes, etc. Location of different articles. Special equipment for tool and stock rooms. Stock room supplies. Accounting system. Card system. Stock ledger cards. Consumable supplies. Finished parts. Storeroom.

THE studious mechanic, ever on the alert for new and up-to-date information relating to the equipment, arrangement, organization, and management of the modern machine shop or manufacturing plant, must have noticed, and with some surprise, the lack of discussion in the technical publications on the subject of the tool room, as well as the stock and storerooms, that in so many shops are intimately connected with all shop routine. Such discussions as we have had heretofore have usually been on particular features, such as tool racks, tool trays, tool checks, steel racks, drawer racks, tool check systems, and so on, but in none of them have we been favored with a complete system for the management of the tool room and the stock room.

Again, we find many descriptions and illustrations of tools, jigs, and fixtures, always interesting and valuable, often indispensable for their particular sphere of usefulness in the shop, but seldom do we see plans or descriptions of how or where to keep them in the best condition and ready for use. It is no doubt true that in many shops these expensive accessories are often left on benches or under them, or on wall shelves in the rooms where they are used, subject to dirt, dust, rust, and the possibility of accidental injury.

We find many disconnected parts of systems for use in the stock or storeroom; how stock shall be ordered; how it shall be accounted for when it is received; how it shall be issued; how it shall be followed up to know what is on hand, what needed, etc., but never a complete system of management giving the details from the time stock is wanted until it is finally expended and accounted for.

It is proposed, in this article, to take up these matters in regular order, and to describe and illustrate, as fully as is here possible, the regular routine from the inception of a requirement until its final realization.

First to be considered is the tool room. This should be located apart from the general machine shop, as a too intimate connection does not seem desirable in practice, while it is self-evident that it should be convenient to the superintendent's office, drafting room, and pattern shop, and that it should be well lighted, comfortably warmed and ventilated. This room is properly divided into two sections, the first being the room where tools are made and kept in proper repair, and the second, the room where they are stored, repaired, issued to the machine shop as required, and received from the shop when no longer needed there.

The second section may consist of two parts, in one of which lathe and planer tools, milling cutters, drills, taps, reamers, files, jigs, fixtures, gages, and similar articles are kept, while the other part may contain the articles of stock and consumable supplies usually found in the ordinary stock room, such as machine, cap, and set screws, oil cups, metals, the smaller bar and sheet stock, bolts, rivets, nut blanks, oil, waste, emery, emery cloth, etc. It will be much more convenient in many ways to keep these two classes separate for storage purposes as well as for accounting and issuing.

It is assumed that the machinist portion of the tool department, or the tool-making room is equipped with modern machine tools sufficient in number, variety, and efficiency to turn out all the tools, jigs, fixtures, gages, etc., that may be needed. This equipment may consist of a 24 in. x 5 ft. planer, a universal milling machine, an index milling machine, a 10-in. shaper, a sensitive drill, a 25-in. upright drill, two 18 in. x 8 ft. tool room lathes, one each 24 in. x 10 ft., 20 in. x 10 ft., 16 in. x 6 ft., engine lathes, a 12 in. x 6 ft. speed lathe, a 6 in. x 18 in. surface grinder, a 4 in. x 30 in. grinder for cylindrical work, a disc grinder, three tool grinders, and two twist drill grinders. Also, the necessary large and small surface plates, straight edges, and similar tools and accessories that may be necessary for the production of good tool work.

It is also assumed that adjoining this room is the room wherein tools, jigs, gages, fixtures, files, etc., used in the shop are kept, and in connection with these, in the same room, or one opening from it, is kept such stock as

machine, cap, and set screws, round, square, and hexagon tool and machine steel, brass, copper, and steel wire, sheet brass, copper, steel, and fiber, rough bolts, nut blanks, washers, and all similar articles of stock usually found in the machine shop storeroom, as well as belting, oil, waste, and similar consumable supplies.

For convenience of administration all these may be under the charge of the tool room foreman, while the special work of caring for, issuing, and receiving tools and the issuing of stock may be taken care of by a tool and stockkeeper and a young man, and perhaps a boy. There should always be two persons conversant with the location of every item of tools and stock in these rooms, so that the regular work may not be impeded in case of the illness or unavoidable absence of the man in charge.

The engraving, Fig. 190, presents a plan of these rooms, laid out in the

most convenient manner, showing the location of the machine tools in the tool-making room and the various sections of shelving, racks, bins, counters, benches, etc., in the tool storeroom and the stock room, all designed and arranged with a view to efficiency and economy of operation, as well as the economical use of the floor space. This design is a variation of the one shown in Chapter XVIII and is designed as a secondary or alternate study to that one. It will be found useful to those about to organize the tool and stock rooms of a machine shop or factory in a practical and economical manner, and at the same time not sacrifice the important factor of efficiency.

In addition to this general tool room there may be other distributing

points, as the offices of the several foremen, or auxiliary tool rooms at remote points on the ground floor, or on other floors in case the shop is constructed with several floors. At these points, lathe and planer tools, twist drills, and similar tools may be had by the workmen without sending to the general tool room for them. If this is the case the regular routine of issue by the general tool room will be preserved as though the issues were made directly from it. To carry tools to these auxiliary tool rooms a device similar to the cash or bundle carriers in department stores should be used, while for carrying tools to and from other floors a conveyor consisting of two chains running over pulleys at the upper and lower floors, and provided with pivoted boxes, located between them, is very economical and efficient, and in successful use in some of the largest shops and factories.

The foreman of the tool room is supposed to have a small office, that he may have a proper place for keeping the records of the work of the department, as well as a private room for convenience in making such sketches, plain drawings, or details as he may find necessary in carrying out the plans for tool making, these not being always worked out in sufficient detail by the drafting room force, or such as he may wish to devise himself for special work, and to develop as the necessities for them may arise.

On general principles all drawings are supposed to be made in the drafting room, and by the regular draftsmen, yet there are times when the initiative in these matters may, with proper authority, be taken by the foremen of the tool room and the experimental room. In such cases the regular finished drawings of record should be made in the drafting room according to the regular rules of that department. In fact, it should be a rule habitually enforced in the whole establishment, that except for urgent reasons, or special orders from competent authority, the regular routine for transacting business should be insisted upon, and that "short cuts to avoid red tape" should be frowned upon and discountenanced.

When in the regular course of shop work, tools, jigs, fixtures, gages, etc., are required, the superintendent will issue a written order, of which he retains in his order book a carbon copy. These orders will be serially numbered, in duplicate (for general work in the shop in triplicate), and this individual order number will designate this particular work all the way through such departments as do any work upon it.

As the plan of organization I have advocated provides for two assistant superintendents, the first having under his jurisdiction the drafting room, pattern shop, tool room, experimental room, stock room, power house, iron foundry, forge shop, carpenter shop, paint shop, shipping room, and yard gang, while the second assistant superintendent has charge of the strictly manufacturing departments, an order for tools will go to the first assistant,

who in turn will write in a carbon copy book a similar order for the foremen concerned in the work, furnishing a copy to the chief draftsman and to the foremen of the tool room, pattern shop, foundry, and forge shop, for the necessary drawings, patterns, castings, and forgings, respectively, and see that they are gotten out and furnished to the tool room foreman.

When the drawings are complete the chief draftsman will notify the first assistant, who, if he desires the job to go on at once, will direct him to send the proper drawings to the pattern shop and forge shop. In making these drawings, and in all subsequent work, the value of time and material will be charged on a material and a cost card of the form shown in Figs. 191 and 192.

The time account kept by the workmen is on a job time card which, in addition to the regular day time card, is registered in a recording time clock, a separate card being used for each job, and the aggregate amount of time so registered equaling the amount shown by the day time card. One of these cards is shown in Fig. 193, which is adaptable to the International card recorder time clock. At the end of the week these cards go to the office, the time clerk receiving the day time cards, and the cost clerk the job time cards.

The foreman of the tool room will make written orders in a carbon copying book to the different men doing the machine work in substantially