There will be certain men assigned to certain regular work, as in the case previously quoted under the head of the Time-Keeper's Notebook, where there were two pipemen for each drill outfit. If these men spend their entire day of eight hours doing nothing but looking after the water supply for the drills, a punch mark would be made above the number of each of them on the card and opposite the figure 8, which represents the hours worked. To the left of the eight, and in the same line, and also in the vertical column opposite the word Drills, another punch mark will be made. Again, opposite the letter C, which is the key for the classification of drills, and in the column assigned to each man, and below his name, another punch mark will be made. This gives the workman full time, showing that he worked eight hours on drill water supply and nothing else. Suppose the foreman worked three hours on the general water system, three hours on the pumping station, and two hours directing the repair of the water tank. There would then be on the record a punch mark in his column opposite 3, 6, and 8; at the left of 3 in the column headed G, another punch will appear; at the left of 6 in the column E, another punch will be found, and still another at the left of 8 in the column F. In the column under the foreman's name, punch marks would be made opposite E, F, and G, showing that he worked on these three classifications.
In the same way, the time and occupation of each man under this foreman can be indicated, no matter how many changes he may make in his work during the day. The time, however, is recorded only to the nearest hour.
Fig. 6. Pipe and Steamfitter's Card, Showing Method of Taking Time, and of Simultaneous Automatic Distribution.
Provision is made in the lower left-hand corner, for the punching of the date; and along the lower edge is the place for the recording of the number of hours used in thawing the pipes, etc., and in providing protection for them. This latter record was found necessary, because the work on which these cards were used was done in an extremely cold locality and continued throughout the entire year.
When the records are made in the field and are sent in to the office to be transferred to permanent records, it is not necessary for the man who made the record to be at hand to interpret his notes, as there is absolutely no opportunity given him to allow his note taking to vary in the least from day to day, the record being absolutely automatic.
PROCESS COST SUBDIVISION
While the object of the regular distribution of cost is the obtaining of unit-costs, there is another cost analysis which may be called a refinement of the cost-keeping system, and which, if properly used, can bring about a marked reduction in all costs. While this will be discussed more fully in the chapter upon Reduction of Cost, it is a form of time-keeping, and so will be touched upon here. On more or less rough construction work, it seems rather absurd to attempt to reduce the various processes of any operation to such a fineness that they may be timed to minutes and even to seconds. Conditions vary so greatly, the character of the work being done changes so much from time to time, and the personnel of the organization is sometimes shifted so much, that it seems impossible to reduce performance to any satisfactory basis which may be used as a standard. Nevertheless, without attempting to reach such a basis, careful watching and timing of the different parts of the work will result in much better performance and increased profits, as can be clearly shown.