The main factory buildings are 900 feet long and 800 feet wide, four stories in height and of fire-proof construction. They are so designed that every part of the interior receives a full share of daylight.
The heating and ventilating of the factory building is accomplished in a modern, scientific manner. In the winter, warm washed air is forced through long ducts in the floor up into the room. In the summer, cool washed air is handled in the same way, thus providing a clean, healthful atmosphere the year around. By this system the air in the factory is completely changed five times per hour.
Overhead Monorail System
At the right as the visitor enters the factory, is seen the tool construction department. Here are employed approximately 1,000 expert tool makers, machinists and die sinkers. These men are engaged in making new machinery (designed in the company shops), tools, jigs, fixtures and other machine shop accessories, and repairing those in use.
Overhead are traveling cranes which have a capacity of forty tons each. These cranes facilitate the work of the tool construction department by carrying cumbersome parts of machinery to and from it for alterations and repairs.
Here the visitor is standing upon the roof of a great tunnel, in which are all the heating, water and steam pipes, and the power cables running from the power house to various parts of the shop. This tunnel is large enough to permit the easy passage of a touring car.
Standing in front of the factory office, the visitor is doubly impressed with the magnitude of the view before him. In one continuous room, containing approximately 700,000 square feet of floor space, there are, in round numbers, 8,000 machines in actual operation, representing an outlay of about $5,000,000. These machines use some 2,500 gallons of lubricating oils and 11,000 gallons of cutting fluids each day. For driving the many machines, about fifty miles of leather belting are used, giving the room the appearance of a dense forest.
The visitor who is familiar with machine shop practice will notice at once the peculiar location and setting of machinery in this shop. The machines of a class, or type, are not all located in a single group or unit. Each department contains all of the necessary machinery to complete every operation on each part or piece it produces. To illustrate, a rough forging or casting is started in a department at one point, and after passing through the machines doing the required operations, it leaves this department in a finished condition, ready to be assembled into the car.
