You should pop your corn in a separate room from the place in which the cooking is done. The heat from the poppers—even with the windows open in summer—is very uncomfortable and the escaping gas and burning dust makes the air very unhealthy. Have your poppers so arranged that the bad air will rise and escape without disturbing the workers. Ordinary windows are not enough. Put a ventilator over the poppers. Place a hood, or canopy over your stoves connected by pipe to outdoors, so that when any syrup or molasses gets on the stove and creates a smoke, it will pass off without making the workers uncomfortable.
The arrangement of your factory space as to the location of the doors, windows, stairs and elevator will effect your placing machinery.
Whether you use individual motor drive, or shaft driven machines, will effect the arranging of your plant.
What you intend to manufacture and what machines you buy will also determine how you use your floor space to the best advantage.
Individual motor drive enables you to locate your machines to better manufacturing advantages.
As your business changes in what you make, as you increase or change your goods and as you add more machines, you can more easily move machines to keep the best manufacturing arrangement.
As to cost of operation, it is hard to say under modern conditions whether one way is cheaper than another. With separate motor to each machine, you have no overhead shafts and belts to drop oil and dust and compel you to locate by them. You are not liable to have your plant idle because the one motor is out of order, or one belt has parted, you can keep making something if one machine is out of order, for all the others will be running.
POP-CORN POPPER
Many manufacturers make a stand for their popper out of three-quarter inch gas pipe, which is fireproof, clean, simple and cheap. It is best to have three pipes for the popper to rest on, one across near the front and two across near the back. These two project to the right twelve inches for the shelf for mill (Stock No. [2001-1]). By the use of elbows, tees, flanges and piping you can make a stand to rest on the floor or hang from the ceiling and bring the popper to the right height for your barrels. When hung from the ceiling it leaves the floor clear, and in every way is to be preferred if you make the construction rigid. Determine the height of the barrel you are to use under your Knott Rotary Sifter (Stock No. [112]) and have the top of the stand for popper twelve and one-half inches higher than that.
Use an iron box or barrel under the popper to catch the unpopped kernels. In that way you risk no fire should a blazing kernel fall into it. A blaze in pop-corn is easily smothered by stirring up the corn.