Part 12

In some departments it has been found necessary to put slightly more women on the same operations than men formerly employed to obtain the same production, but as the women gain experience, their production increases rapidly and the quality is as good, if not better. The women have proven themselves very apt in picking up the smaller class of assembling on account of their nimble fingers and care in handling stock.

We use our regular production to train the students, and as it must pass 100 per cent. inspection, we emphasize quality and not quantity.

We find the best class of workers comes from those between twenty-one and forty years of age, with, of course, exceptions.

We not only teach the new employees the mechanical operations, but also give them “Health and Safety” lectures, and show them pictures of many ways one can become injured if they do not use precaution while working around machinery. They are also instructed in the use of time and instruction tickets.

Our Inspectors are selected from the factory, preference being given to those who are experts on their particular class of work.

It is our opinion that the Training School is the proper way to teach the inexperienced help in order that they may learn the work quickly and get on a production basis in a short time instead of hiring and placing help right in the shop and letting them pick it up with what assistance and instruction they can from their fellow workmen.

In the Training School the most efficient workers can be reorganized in a short time, and the less efficient ones can be given special attention, and usually we can bring them to a degree of efficiency not possible under the old method.

We try to find out in the training school where the student’s strong point is, whether on machine operation or bench work, and are enabled in this way to place them in a job they are particularly suited for, thus keeping the problem out of the factory. If they show a proper degree of interest, they are given all possible encouragement.

We have had to materially increase the size of our school, and with the hearty co-operation we are receiving from the heads of the different departments, we believe the employment of women on our work is proving a success in every way.

Another point that we think is good is that the school itself is nearly self-sustaining.

The accompanying photo, number one, will give an idea of the size of our school, and also the various classes of work we train them on.

Number two shows a gang of hand mills “manned” by women. These girls have all been through our Training School and are now working on a piece basis and doing it successfully.

(Signed) WM. A. HARTMAN.

PACKARD MOTOR CAR COMPANY

Detroit, Mich.

In the spring of 1914 labor conditions were somewhat disturbed in Detroit. We lost a good many of our expert varnish rubbers, and we could not get skilled men to replace them, and we tried to break in men on the varnish rubbing deck, but found that too much work was spoiled by the green men, and the experienced men did not have time or inclination to properly instruct those who were unskilled. This led to the establishment of a school for training varnish rubbers and was the beginning of our efforts to train unskilled workers. The result of this experience was so highly successful that we carried it to all of the other branches of body manufacture, and a school for training unskilled help became a permanent part of our institution.

We were able to teach women how to trim automobile bodies, and they learned in an average of less than ninety days. Their work was of a very high order, and we were very much gratified with what they accomplished. Very often we found that we were able to train men to an exceedingly high degree of skill in less than sixty days. All men were not so apt. Some of them could not be placed in the skilled class even after three months of training.

As the war activities took workers we turned our school into training quarters for mechanics. For instructors we aim to use the best workers in a particular class that we have, providing that they have the natural ability to instruct others. Some men lack the ability to impart their knowledge to others. This type of man does not make a good instructor. A man should not only be an expert in his trade, but he should have the natural ability to impart his knowledge in order to become a good instructor.

In teaching some of the women we find that some women pick up very quickly some particular trade and when they become experts we in turn make them instructors. We have not yet developed any toolmakers. We have developed men to tool room work, such as turning, grinding, etc., but this is not really toolmaking.

We believe that it is possible to turn out good toolmakers and we are turning our energies to this end.

(Signed) F. F. BEALL, Vice-President of Manufacturing.

NORTH AMERICAN MOTORS CO.

Pottstown, Pa.

Our production is about half of what it should be, due to lack of skilled help, in other words, due to lack of machinists. We have not had much trouble in getting green men and we have had no trouble in training these green men to do the operations on the shell both accurately and quickly, but we have had trouble in getting men to maintain the tools or to equip for these operators.

Facing this condition and being unable to obtain machinists, we decided to train men to do machinists’ and toolmakers’ work.

Our scheme as outlined is as follows: We are taking operators who have had experience of a year or more in our shop and are putting them into the school under a good mechanic who fortunately is a teacher also. After a few weeks in the school we are putting them into the tool room as operators, that is, they will be on work where they will get work of a repeating nature and they will stay on the same class of work for a considerable period of time, depending on the man and how fast our other pupils come on, the idea being then to take the first man back again to the school and teach him to operate some other machine tool, then send him back in the tool room, where, after he has operated on the second type of tool for a certain length of time, he would then be of more use, as the tool room foreman could then place him on either one of two machines. For the more attentive and interested men we would continue this scheme and thus teach them the operations of all machines and tools used in the tool room. We have also provided for a certain line of bench training.

Within the next few weeks we hope to be able to take some of our machine tools from the shell shop and put them into this school and we will then train our operators in this school with the idea in mind, as stated in our previous letter, of teaching them the proper care of a machine tool, as we consider this of vital importance. In fact, the writer would say that from observation in other plants and experience here that it is his opinion that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, causes for lack of production in machine shops now on shell work is due to machine breakage, this coming from several causes, among the foremost being the lack of knowledge on the operators’ part.

When the idea of the school was first brought up there was some feeling among the skilled mechanics that the men trained in the school would replace them to the detriment of the mechanic, but this idea has passed or is passing away very rapidly and we find a considerable interest shown by the mechanics in the things that we are teaching. Two of our good machinists who are on maintenance or repair work have asked to be allowed to go to the school so that they may become better workers and get a training on finer work. Others have shown similar interest and we have tentatively agreed to start an evening school this fall for mechanics, our proposal being to work in conjunction with the Y. M. C. A. for shop drawing and the reading of drawings and to use our own shop for special instruction on machine tools.