been made for that length of time, corked up in a bottle and then "warmed over" by setting the bottle on a hot steam pipe or suspending it with a string in the hot water in which the men are to wash up before they eat their lunch. To these men the privilege of assembling in a clean dining room where a cup of hot coffee, freshly made, is served at the employer's expense is one which all shop men would enjoy. To effect this is a comparatively simple matter for any shop owner, and requires but a moderate outlay as to first cost and for maintenance, as the dishes necessary may be of a very plain and inexpensive quality and the coffee may be made by one of the men who quits his regular work a half hour before the meal hour for that purpose.

Some progressive firms have gone much further than this in organizing the Shop Dining Room and made it practically a noonday restaurant wherein the employees may get a warm lunch of well cooked and wholesome food at exactly cost price, which of course is much more reasonable than can be obtained at a restaurant which must be run for the profit there is in it.

In one such Shop Dining Room the firm have completed its arrangements until it would seem that it is well-nigh perfection in this respect. The men may be divided in squads of ten and one of their number detailed as a waiter for the week or two as arranged, another taking his place at the end of that term. This waiter is provided with a tray and an apron with three pockets, in which he carries hard rubber meal checks of different colors, each color representing a different denomination of one, two, and five cents. These meal checks are kept by the time clerk and sold to the men in lots of from twenty-five cents to one dollar.

To show the inexpensiveness of the dishes that may be served the following menu is given, and vouched for as being entirely practical and possible in any ordinary city.

Among other dishes served may be included sausages, hamburg steak, pork and beans, corn, cabbage, sauerkraut, turnips, parsnips, butter, bread, etc.

At each meal the menu for the following day is displayed and each man given a chance to select what he desires for the next day's dinner, which the waiter enters upon a printed blank used for the purpose, which he gives to the cook, who may thus know what to prepare for the next day, so as to avoid

unnecessary waste. The waiters assemble in the dining room fifteen minutes before the men quit work, don their aprons, line up and cach in turn calls off his order from the order card and pays for the same in the checks above mentioned. By the time the men arrive the food is on the table and ready for them.

By promptness in this matter they are all easily served even if the lunch time is for only a half hour.

The kitchen equipment for a shop of moderate size need not be elaborate, and one cook and one assistant can easily prepare food for two hundred men, although at meal time he will need two extra men to assist in issuing the food to the waiters.

There is no doubt that such a dining room would be of great advantage to the workmen of any establishment, and that by its organization and maintenance the physical well-being of the men would be very much improved, the mutual good feeling between the owners and their employees fostered and strengthened, and many of the ills resulting from the cold lunch practice in the shop would disappear.

The only expense of maintenance to the firm is the pay of the cook and his assistant and the fuel needed for cooking. To this must be added, however, the cost of broken dishes and similar incidentals. This, of course, does not include the first cost of installation, or an amount representing the rent of the necessary rooms.

CHAPTER XXXIII

INCREASING THE EFFICIENCY OF MACHINES

The question of efficiency. Classification of betterment work. Preparatory analysis. Classification of machine work. Planing. Shaping. Milling. Heavy turning. Medium class of turning. Gear and rack cutting. Drilling and boring. Grinding. Improving the design of machines. Increasing the efficiency of a vertical boring mill. Better tools. Arrangement of machines. A specific example of re-arrangement. Transportation facilities. Beneficial results. Systematic planning.

THE question of efficiency is one of the most important with which the engineer has to deal. In the plans which he may devise for the arrangement and the erection of manufacturing buildings; in providing these buildings with power, heating, lighting, and transportation equipment; in inventing or purchasing the machinery best adapted for turning out the proposed product; and in employing the best workmen that can be found to operate these machines, — his plans will end in partial or complete failure if he shall not have kept in mind continually as his aim and objective the condition of realizing the highest efficiency of every piece of machinery and of every individual man of the plant.

It is a positive fact, often proved by such specialists as the mechanical engineer, the production engineer, the standardizing and the efficiency engineers, that in a large majority of manufacturing plants at the present time the actual efficiency of the entire plant will fall below 50 per cent. This being the case in a large number of plants, it is our duty to ascertain the reasons for these conditions and to work out such plans for the betterment of these as may promise to produce the greatest benefit in the most economical

manner.

In considering the problem involved in this betterment work we may properly divide it into classes, which for logical consideration will be as follows:

First. The selection and adaptability of the machines used for the purposes for which they are intended.

Second. The improving or re-building of existing machines so as to increase their range of work and efficiency.

Third. The arrangement of machines with relation to each other for efficient operation.

Fourth. The transportation facilities for bringing the material to the machines, and for removing that which has been operated upon.

Fifth. An accurate record of the hours of running time, and the idle time, of the machines.

These several propositions will be taken up in order and the comments and explanations in relation to them will embody the results of the engineering experience, practice, and development of the present day.

Primarily we will consider the extent and the nature of the work to be done, before we can make any calculation on the classes or the numbers of machines that may be necessary. This will be the work of an expert mechanical engineer, who must analyze the product to be turned out as to the form and weight of the machine parts, the material of which they are to be made, and the machine operations necessary to prepare them for assembling them into the complete machines. This will be a long and arduous, as well as complex, task and one in which every new case will present differing conditions and circumstances which will call for much ability and good judgment of technical and manufacturing conditions. For these reasons it is manifestly impossible to lay down more than a few general observations upon this important question.

The following suggestions are given as representing the best machine shop practice in providing machines for the various classes of the work. The general class of work is given first, then the class of machines upon which the work is most efficiently and economically done.

First. Planing. Planers are used for long cuts on heavy work. The product may be a single piece of considerable size and weight, and proportionately long. Or, a number of like pieces which may be placed end to end on a long planer table and cuts run over them all.

Second. Shaping. The shaper is equally well adapted for work requiring shorter cuts, and work within its limits can usually be done more expeditiously than on a planer, particularly such work as is not adapted to be done with a single tool.

Third. Milling. Of milling machines there are two general types, horizontal and vertical. The horizontal machines may be of the plain or universal forms. The vertical may have one or two spindles. There are also several kinds of special machines adapted to a certain range of special purposes. The milling machine in its various forms is adapted to a very large variety of work, particularly short cuts of irregular cross section. The vertical type is now used with a high degree of efficiency and accuracy on many kinds of work that was not formerly thought possible. The comparatively recent appreciation of the efficiency of the inserted tooth cutter has much to do with this fact as well as the added usefulness and adapta

bility of the milling machine for many new uses. A form of large machine of somewhat similar construction as a planer makes wide and heavy cuts, frequently exceeding a planer in efficiency and accuracy.

Fourth. Heavy Turning. For turning very large and heavy work such as rolling mill work, crank shafts, etc., the heavy triple geared lathes are best adapted. Special lathes are built for such work as roll turning, locomotive driving wheels, and similar work. Recently the vertical boring mill has been much used on many circular castings formerly machined on the face plate of a lathe, and with much greater economy. Several boring and turning tools are used simultaneously, and the work is more advantageously handled on a horizontal table than a vertical face plate.

Fifth. Medium Class of Turning. This class of work in the form of shafts, etc., is very economically handled on the so-called "Rapid Reduction Lathes," the "Lo-swing Lathe," and similar highly developed types of the engine lathe, although much of this work is still done on the ordinary type of engine lathe, with various labor-saving attachments, gauges, and the like.

Sixth. Small Turned Cylindrical and Flat Work. This class, including a great variety of small shafts, studs, pins, collars, flanges, stuffing box glands, gear blanks, and similar machine parts are economically made in hand or automatic turret lathes, automatic screw machines, and similarly designed special machines, as well as engine lathes having special attachments for doing this class of work.

Seventh. Gear and Rack Cutting. This work is rapidly becoming of more importance in machines of modern design; so much so that there are many shops organized for the sole purpose of doing this class of work. In manufacturing concerns doing their own gear cutting automatic gear cutters, gear shapers, and gear planers are almost exclusively used, while hobbing machines for worm gears have an adjustable power feed device whereby very accurate work is turned out. Spiral gears, now so much used, are very generally cut on a universal milling machine, of which there are several of exceptionally good design and construction.

Eighth. Drilling and Boring. There has been much development in this class of work in recent years, two of the most important results having been the production of the radial drills and the multiple spindle drills. The former is much used for heavy work and that which is large and awkward to handle, as the drilling device, being movable to any desired point within a quite large radius, while the work remains in a fixed position, is capable of a very large range and various angles of operation. The multiple spindle drill is particularly adaptable to jig work where several different sized holes are to be drilled at one operation. A special design of this form of drill provides a special location of a spindle for each hole to be drilled in the same