13. Thoughtful plans make valuable records.— Not long after such a man is put in full charge it is found that the advantage gained is not alone that resulting from his superior intelligence. The com pany soon accumulates classified and recorded data which become a source of knowledge in planning the best methods, greater than that furnished by any in dividual man's experience.
14. Planning movements and operations.—It is easy to show the advantage of planning ahead in order to provide necessary materials, tools and supplies, but to make men see that it is just as necessary to plan the movements, operations, etc., ahead is more diffi cult. Where this has been done, however, further subdivisions of the work of the planning department are necessary. This work is of two general kinds, planning hate) each job is to be done, and planning when it is to be done. Concerned with the how are thc following specialists : route clerks, instruction card men and time-study men. Concerned with the when are the production clerks and the order-of-work clerks. It was soon found, however, in shops making a diversified product that still further subdivision of the work in the planning department must be made. Accordingly, we find such men as recording clerks, balance-of-stores clerks, foundry clerks, clerks who write up the numerous details, make out orders, tag§, etc., time-keeping and cost-keeping clerks, and various others.
15. Proportion of planners to doers.—The ques tion of how many of these men will be needed in the planning department depends entirely on the nature of the specific business. Some businesses will require
two or more men for each of the positions, whereas in others two or more of the functions may be put under the direction of one man. In one shop, for in stance, employing several hundred men, four clerks in the planning department handle all the work, while in another concern, employing only about one hun dred men, twenty-five clerks are necessary. The first concern manufactures a limited variety of products in large quantities from standard designs ; the sec ond concern manufactures a great variety of goods in small quantities, and with frequent necessary changes in their design. In the first case a man at a machine may run on the same job or on similar jobs for a month, whereas in the second concern each work man is employed on three or four different jobs every day. It will be seen at once, therefore, that a descrip tion of any one planning department will be incom plete, but for our purpose it is best to take the more complex form, where the duties of the various men have been clearly differentiated and put into the hands of individual persons. This will make the explana tion simpler and more comprehensible, since each function, in such a scheme, will have an individual man to carry it out.
Perhaps the organization of the department can be most easily understood if we take up the duties of each clerk as they arise in planning for a manufac turing order.' Each man in turn will receive this order and work out the plans which come under his j urisdiction.