5. Other the job tickets discussed in the preceding article assist greatly in securing accurate time records, it is clear that they are not proof against errors, especially in the hands of ignorant or careless workmen. For this reason, provision is sometimes made for stamping the time of starting and the time of finishing each job by means of a time-clock instead of having the workman check them off by hand. This is illustrated in Figure 16, on the upper left side of the card. In such cases the time of starting the work is stamped on the card by the assistant to the foreman, and when the operation is completed the workman presents the card to the assistant, who stamps the time of completion' and issues a new card with a new starting time stamped thereon. Another device, a form of time clock which prints elapsed time, has also been used to facilitate the operation of time recording. There are a number of such devices now in use, some of which have proved to be very practical. These differ ing methods in no way affect the essential principles involved, being of the nature of mechanical aids only.
One fundamental principle should be carefully observed, whatever may be the system of time recording, namely: Every piece of direct produc tion should have a distinctive order number assigned to it, and every kind of indirect work should have a permanent or standing-order number which remains fixed until changed by the cost keeper. No work of any kind should be performed that is not authorized by the proper officials and covered by a production order or a standing-order number.
6. Summarizing time and labor returns.—All work cards are usually approved by the proper foremen and are then forwarded to the timekeeper, who checks the daily total of each man's card with his clock or checkboard record. These should of course agree. If the worker is on day pay this total forms the basis of his daily wage. If, however, he is on piece or premium work, the proper additional data must be added to the payroll, tho the total time recorded must check as before. The exact method of record ing premium and bonus earnings will necessarily vary with the character of the work and the pay system in use, but in any case there should be an exact balance between the payroll and the labor values recorded on the cost sheets. As has been shown, it may not always be necessary for all men to hand in a work card, because their duties are simple and constant, and a record of the time expended is sufficient to evaluate their services and distribute their cost. As a gen eral principle, however, it is good policy to have every man whose name is on the weekly payroll hand in a work card, so that the two systems of recording time will exactly balance.
After the timekeeper has taken the data for the payroll, the work cards are forwarded to the cost keeper, whe sorts the cards by order numbers and charges up on the cost ledger the costs on each card against the order number which it bears. This work is greatly facilitated by making the work cards of different colors so that they can be sorted rapidly. The charges made to the several order numbers are summarized periodically and carried forward to the general ledger in condensed form. They form the
basis of various kinds of reports, which will be dis cussed in a succeeding chapter. These detail and summarized time charges contain valuable informa tion that can be compiled and compared and the information thus gained may be of great ben efit to the manufacturing superintendent. The gen eral method of analyzing this information and pre senting it in the form of condensed reports is fully discussed in Chapter XVIII. The methods of re cording time, discussed in the preceding section, are comprehensive, and applicable even in very complex manufacturing. It will be clear, also, that as the enterprise considered approaches more closely the continuous type of manufacturing, the methods for recording the time expended become correspondingly simpler.
7. Other items of labor costs.—In the foregoing discussion it has been assumed that there is no time lost between jobs and that the time of finishing one job is the time of beginning another. Such close connection is not always made, however, and if much time intervenes between jobs, care should be taken that such time is not charged against production or ders, tho this actually is often done; in fact, such procedure is even advocated by some writers. Cer tainly such loose time accounting will vitiate any sys tem of cost accounting; lost time of this nature should be charged to an expense account provided for that purpose. Other items of lost time, such as time paid for without return, as in cases of accident, temporary stopping of machinery, etc., should be similarly handled. A careful record should be kept of these items and they should be analyzed with a view to minimizing such losses. Many managers would be surprised to know how much time is lost in this man ner simply because it is never brought before them in a collected form.
It might be said in passing that time losses be tween jobs can be greatly lessened by planning the work in advance, a procedure that is entirely in keep ing with modern ideas of management. A bricklayer cannot lay bricks unless he has them at hand. Even when the workman is on piecework, and is the ap parent loser thru lost time, it should be remembered that the factory loses by any reduction in output, since profits depend on quantity produced, as much as they do on profits per piece. Every effort should be made, therefore, to have work moved from opera tion to operation promptly and quickly, and all work, if possible, should be studied in advance, to insure the best and most direct sequence of opera tions.
It should be noted, also, that the discussion of time saving applies not only to direct labor but even more particularly to indirect labor. As will be shown later, the indirect labor may be, and often is, a large part of the wage cost. The time-saving principles and time-recording methods that are found useful in connection with the man at the machine, will also be found advantageous in connection with the clerk in the office or the helper in the yard.