When the Storekeeper issues the articles, he first enters upon the requisition blank the date issued, and then passes it to his assistant, who notes the issue on the Stock Ledger Card, and then places it on file. The Storekeeper will enter on the invoice the rate and value of the articles issued, and the date of issue, and will sign it under the foreman's signature. He will send it, with the articles issued, to the foreman, who will in turn make it a part of his report of material used.
When the work on an order is completed, such serviceable stock and material as may remain will be returned to the Storekeeper, together with a Returned Material Card of the form shown in Fig. 25. The Storekeeper will enter upon it the value of the material returned, credit it to the department from which it came, and sign the receipt in the lower left-hand corner. The card will then be returned to the foreman as his authority for deducting the amount from the material account in the order in question.
Follow-Up Methods for Tracing Orders in the Shop. The Sub-Production orders having been put into the departments, the first one will order the material for starting the work. For instance, the first step may be upon iron castings. Theoretically all stock and material come from the Store-Room. Therefore we might say that upon a strict construction of this general rule the castings should be furnished by the Foundry and sent to the Store-Room, from which they might be drawn upon requisitions the same as any other material. Practically this would be not only a troublesome but an expensive method, requiring a great deal of unnecessary handling and transportation. The problem is much more practically solved by considering the Foundry as one of the manufacturing departments receiving its raw material (namely, pig iron) through storeroom accounts, and thus "constructively" from the storeroom, while physically it is in the foundry yard. This answers the demands of a theoretical as well as a practical view of the case.
Therefore the first sub-production order will go to the iron foundry, which will make the castings and deliver them to such departments as are required to do the first work upon them, as directed upon the order. The sub-production order which this department has received, directs to what department they shall be sent when completed; and so on, until they have gone through the last department and are sent to the Finished Parts Store-Room.
This arrangement is all right as far as it goes. If every man attended strictly to his business and pushed work along as rapidly as possible, and every foreman sent his work along to the next department as soon as his department had completed its work, this plan might work fairly well. Unfortunately, however, these conditions seldom or never exist; and there must be ways and means devised to keep the work moving and to be able to trace and locate the work upon any order at any time when information is desired upon it or its state of progress.
To accomplish this, there is a Transfer Office, located as conveniently as may be for all departments, and serving as a sort of "clearing house" for all departments in transacting inter-departmental business so far as it relates to the transfer of the work in progress. By this method, departments send all their work by way of the Transfer Office, where proper records are kept of all such transfers, so that at any moment the Transfer Clerk can locate any piece of work in progress in the plant.
Fig. 26. Transfer Card.
The operation of this method is as follows: The sub-production orders are sent to the Transfer Clerk, who fills out two Transfer Cards, as shown in Fig. 26, one of which he sends with the order to the first department that is to do work on the order, and the other he retains. This card provides spaces for the various departments, which are designated by numbers. Following these are spaces for entering the dates of transfers, the entries being made with a rubber stamp. After these spaces are columns for the number of pieces of work received and the number of pieces delivered.