Part 6

TOOL DEPARTMENT TRAINING SHOP

A new Tool Department Training Shop is just being started for the purpose of training operators on lathes, milling machines, planers, grinders, etc. At first we tried to train this kind of help in the Apprentice Shop, but because of the fact that the kind of instruction was so vastly different, it has been decided impractical. In the one case, we wish to give very complete, broad instructions, and in the other, the desire is to train for one kind of work only in the least possible time.

MANUFACTURING TOOL SHOPS

We have two shops working night and day offering facilities for the training of unskilled people in certain lines of tool work. These people are taken in totally without experience, and placed under the tutelage of our best mechanics, and trained quickly as specialists. Within a remarkably short time they are capable of producing all sorts of tools used in the production of guns and ammunition, thus relieving the general tool shop of a great volume of work which would otherwise require the services of skilled tool makers. From the forces in these shops we are able to recruit the more advanced men for gauge, jig and fixture work. We consider these shops one of the best examples possible of training upon a productive basis.

Aside from the regular training courses as outlined, there are many instructors throughout the shops whose duty it is to explain the best ways of doing the various tasks to which employees are assigned. It has been our intent throughout, in choosing instructors, to select those who are real teachers, having the necessary patience and human understanding required to successfully do work of this kind.

The regular source through which we train toolmakers is the Apprentice Shop. This shop has an enrollment of 125 boys, who are trained in a three-year course to become expert all-round mechanics.

In addition to this, two of our largest shops, of 250 men each, have during the past year and a half conducted special training courses for green men on the more elementary work of toolmaking. The purpose of these courses is to train men who have had no mechanical experience to the point where they can be used to free more expert men from all routine and simple work. These men are started on a lathe grinder or milling machine. Those men who show special aptitude are taught how to use two or more machines, while the rest are trained to operate only a single type. By means of our special course of instruction it is possible to train new men in a period of a week to four weeks, depending on the man and on the kind of work for which he is being trained. During the last year and a half over 500 men have been trained in this way. Recently 60 men were trained in one month. The best of these are advanced to more difficult work, and some of them even become third class toolmakers.

In addition to this work, we have been training girls since last March to do machine work. These girls have hitherto been sent directly to the Apprentice Shop and there given a week’s training on a lathe or a milling machine on repetition work. After this they were transferred to one of the regular shops where they have done extremely good work.

In addition to the training of expert toolmakers and mechanics for the Tool Department, we are also training mechanics for the Gun and Cartridge Departments. Each of these departments has a school or training department containing representative machines and in these schools men are given a course of instruction lasting from one to two months. This prepares them to go out into the shops and take care of a group of machines, keeping them in repair, supplied with proper tools, and generally in good running order.

Third, since the above was still not sufficient to fill our requirements, it was decided to start a regular training shop in which to train machinists and toolmakers, as well as gauge-makers. These men were to be trained in the use of three or four machines; the lathe, miller, planer, shaper and grinder. They were to do the more simple work on these machines, but still, work that was not repetition. In just three weeks after the plan had been accepted, the space was secured, and the equipment of 30 machines, tools, and everything which goes with a complete shop, including overhead shafting, was installed. Moreover, a complete set of drawings representing 40 typical operations was made and blue-printed, and these will serve as a plan of instruction. On Monday morning, three weeks after the plan was approved, the shop, with a complete personnel of foremen and instructors, began operation. It is planned to turn men out in from three to five weeks.

In all our work the emphasis is on production. Training wherever possible is given on actual production work. This not only makes possible training of a very practical nature, but also helps to lessen the cost of the instruction.

(Signed) L. O. PETHICK, Personnel Superintendent.

—TOOL TRAINING SHOP—]

—CUTTING TOOL SHOP—]

BROWN & SHARPE MANUFACTURING COMPANY

Providence, R. I.

In our own experience, without doubt, much more attention has been given by foremen and fellow-workmen to the supervision of women’s work than has been given to the average male employee in the past, the assumption being that a woman, having less mechanical background and intuition than a man, required more training and more specific instructions. This has been the reason advanced by some foremen in explaining why women were doing better work and had “broken in” more quickly than men, and they have added, “If we had given the same kind of attention to each new man employed, he would have done just as well as the girl”; this is, after all, an admission on the part of the foreman that he had not in the past helped all he could, and an indirect compliment to the girl having much significance. It may be noted, however, that at the time when such comparisons were made the average man who could be secured was of an unsatisfactory and irresponsible class, as so few trained or competent men were available for positions in the industries, while, on the other hand, in hiring girls a selection from a large number of applicants could be made, so that it was possible to obtain a much better average having the qualities to make successful workers.

Experience has shown that there are advantages in having both men and women in the same department, as it tends to hold the same standard of workmanship and speed for women as for men, while it is believed that having a separate department for women may establish a separate and lower standard, the tendency being to make more allowance for women because of sex. The results seem to show that it is not at all necessary that separate standards should be established and that in some lines of work even more can be expected of women than of men because of their nimble fingers and quickness of motion. As to questions of discipline, where the two sexes are employed in the same work-room, little or no difficulty is experienced under capable foremanship.

Actual results have proved that the fears in the minds of some that there would be opposition on the part of foremen and workmen to the employment of women in the shop were ungrounded. A foreman remarked to a visitor: “See that girl working beside the man assembling speed indicators? She is working with him so as to learn all the requirements, and he knows that she is to have his job as soon as she has become sufficiently proficient, but he is helping her in every way possible. Of course, we shall find other work for the man; and often, with the present shortage of help, such a change of work can be in the line of promotion.” This illustrates the spirit which is practically universal throughout the shop, and which has been an important factor in bringing about the success of the plan.

While the money question—the earning power—is uppermost in the minds of the majority, many of the women show also a distinct ambition to equal or excel men in the work they do. Soon after the employment of women was begun in the gear department, a girl who was cutting sprockets on a gear-cutting machine became discouraged and said she was afraid she could not make a success of the job. Her foreman was surprised and said to her, “We have not made any complaint as to your work, have we?” “No,” she said, “but the man who worked on the night job turned out 105 pieces, while the best I could do was only 85 pieces a day.” Her foreman asked if she realized that the man on the night force was working three hours more per day than she was, and after learning this she felt less discouraged with the results she had obtained.

In the gear department where a number of girls have been “broken in” in operating gear-cutting machines, the foreman said that they had taken hold as quickly as the average man, and some of them are doing exceptionally good and intelligent work. This has partly resulted from the girls being thrown as rapidly as possible on their own resources, being taught to set up their machines, working from a blue-print, to measure their work, and do everything that had previously been required of the operator. A criticism has recently been made of some of the departments to the effect that the foremen were giving so much supervision to the women’s work that they were not thrown sufficiently on their own resources, and thus were not trained to be responsible for the work in hand. This again speaks well for the women, as showing that there is a growing appreciation of their ability to do more advanced work than had at first been expected.

In inspection work a field has been found for women in which they are making an exceptionally good showing. The chief inspector was asked whether women were learning to read the micrometer caliper. He replied that they learned to read it and read it accurately, in a very short time, and that the work passing through their hands showed much discrimination as to the points criticised. He pointed to a pile of work rejected by one of the women inspectors and said, “I have just had a man go over this work, and he has found that while the work failed to pass inspection for many reasons, they were all good reasons.” He said further that in inspecting grinding work he was surprised at the quickness with which some of his women inspectors would pick out batches of work identifying them as coming from particular workmen whose work was known to be above the average. In another department, in inspecting measuring tools, a similar condition was noted by the foreman, and he stated that one of the girl inspectors recently told him that she liked to inspect the work of Mr. Blank, because it required so few rejections. “And,” remarked the foreman, “she sized the situation up just right.” He also showed the writer the notes attached to a number of tools which had been held out by the woman inspector for corrections, these criticisms showing much discrimination on her part, and as good a degree of judgment as would have been expected from the experienced inspectors who had previously been doing the work. It is thus found that in the class of inspection work where women are employed the standard is not lowered because of their employment.

Already several women are employed in the toolmaking department. One of these employees, who was operating a lathe turning out tool-steel blanks for bits and reamers, doing her own setting up and measuring, evinced enthusiasm for machine shop work, showing, in reply to questions, that her work was opening up a new field in which she took especial interest and she remarked, “No more housework for me,” with such feeling that it was evident her interests strongly leaned in a mechanical direction. Girls in the toolmaking department are working on universal milling machines, surface grinders, etc., as well as lathes. Some of the younger girls throughout the works are employed as messengers.

(Signed) L. D. BURLINGAME.

TOOLROOM ANALYSIS

What does tool room work consist of? It can be separated into two divisions, namely, that which only the skilled toolmaker can do, such as laying out, fitting, assembling and devising special setups. The balance is machine work. Let us consider the latter and see what it consists of.

Machines. The machines used are generally the engine lathe, the horizontal and vertical millers, planers, shaper, plain, flat and universal grinders, drill press and filing machines. Hobbing and bench lathes may be added.

The Lathe. The lathe work usually consists in machining work preparatory to hardening and grinding. This may be roughly divided into turning, chucking and faceplate work. The toolmaker frequently does all of this work. Let us relieve him of this work and use our semi-skilled man to do it for him. Let one man do the turning, another the chucking and another the faceplate work. Where buttons are used the toolmaker sets them at the bench, but the lathe hand can be instructed on the set-up and the use of the warbler and indicator. The same method can be used on the milling machine in boring holes for bushings, etc. If there is not enough turning the same man can do the boring. The whole result is the toolmaker can supervise, or carry through, a number of jobs at the same time. The lathe hand saves time because he has his tools ground, his straps, parallels, etc., ready at hand and he knows his machine. It is the writer’s experience that more time is lost by the toolmaker in hunting for these accessories than it frequently takes to do the job.