Referring to the plan given in Fig. 1, it will be seen that the Administration Building is placed in substantially the center of the front line of the plant. The first and second floors of such a building are usually devoted to administrative, commercial, and accounting purposes. The upper floor is usually occupied by the Engineering Department and drafting room.
The three Manufacturing Buildings numbered 1, 2, and 3 are devoted to the various operations of making the parts of which the machinery product is composed. These parts are then sent to the Erecting Building (No. 4).
The system of shop transportation consists primarily of shop tracks and cars, and is extended to the yard, being so designed as to connect all buildings of the plant with one another and with the yard. It also reaches the railroad tracks at numerous points. Overhead traveling cranes cover the manufacturing buildings, and extend into the erecting building far enough to form a connection with the large traveling crane serving it, by which the large parts of machines are carried from place to place as may be required by the erecting men. This crane serves to load the finished machines upon the railroad cars, when they are to be shipped, the railroad track being extended within the building for this purpose, as shown in Fig. 1.
The Tool Room is given as central a location as possible, and would naturally be near the junction of building No. 2 with the erecting building.
The Experimental Room has no particular place, but is frequently so placed as to be away from the active manufacturing operations, with which it is liable to interfere if too closely related.
The general Store-Room for purchased material may be in the erecting building, but is frequently located, for convenience of communication, nearer the general offices—as for instance, in front of building No. 1.
The smaller parts are stored in a Finished Parts Store-Room, usually located in this building. Thence they are issued to the Assembling Department as required.
The Pattern Shop building will often be composed of three floors. On the ground floor will be the Carpenter Shop and flask making and repairing work. On the second floor will be the pattern-making shop, and on the third floor will be the pattern storage rooms. A large elevator serves all three floors.
The Paint Shop is sometimes located in one of the manufacturing buildings or the erecting building; but as the painting of machine parts and complete machines is generally done in any one of the departments where the work may be, and the paint shop is hardly more than a storeroom for paints, a due consideration of the question of fire protection would indicate that it had better be placed in a small building entirely detached from all manufacturing buildings.
The Power House, in the former method of transmitting power by shafting and belting, was located as nearly as possible in the center of the space over which power was to be distributed. Since the advent of electricity and its common use for transmitting power, the question of the location of the power house is relieved from this condition; it may be located at the point most convenient to railroad facilities for receiving fuel, or for obtaining the necessary water for boilers, for fire purposes, etc.