March 1. 1920. | 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



341 



in box trucks and toted to an adjoining room 75 feet distant, 

 wliere they were trimmed by girls and inspected. This toting 

 was obviously waste motion and was corrected by building in 

 front of the batter)' of presses, benches arranged in the form 

 of a square, the interior of which was immediately occupied by 

 the trimmers and their equipment. 



SYSTEM IN MILLING RUBBER. 



There is a variety of practice in breaking down rul)bcr and 

 mixing compounds. In some lines of manufacture five or six 

 hours is not regarded as excessive to break down Para, while 

 in other very divergent methods, considerably less than one hour 

 is considered sufficient. Then, apparently of necessity, some 

 compounded batches require a much longer time for mixing 

 than others. Time on the mill is often a point in dispute, and 

 there should be some intelligent method to control it. If you 

 are convinced that the same mill should be used for warming 

 up rubber and mixmg, the chances are you are not very keen 

 over a few extra minutes that may be taken by workmen who 

 are not controlled by written standard practice. 



A very satisfactory method will be followed in the use of 

 two mills by one man who warms up gum on one while mixing 

 a batch on the other. \ mill, say 16 by 42, with a speed of 14 

 and 18 r.p.m. can mix a compounded batch of 100 to 125 pounds 

 in five or six minutes. This would necessitate, probably, a mill 

 equipped with a mi.xing apron, for the value of such an attach- 

 ment can be easily demonstrated. Under this method, five or 

 six ininutes is sufficient time to incorporate the compound in 

 the rubber, and the batch should be immediately cut off the 

 mill. This commonplace act of cutting-off can be made a lime- 

 waster, for the number of cuts should be a matter of standard. 

 For example, one stroke of the knife across the face of the 

 roll and the batch drops from the mill — a matter of seconds — 

 but the average mill hand will take off a batch of this size in 

 six or more cuts. In many cases batches go from the mixer 

 to the refiner, or ready for the cooling shelves. In either case, 

 the batch should not be rolled up as it is cut from the mill, but 

 should be handled in slab form, the point of value being to get 

 the finished batch of? and a new one on, with the fewest 

 motions possible. It is clear that the operations of refining 

 and warming up are really continuations of the process of mix- 

 ing, hence saving time on rough mixing is good practice. 

 A SECOND FLOOR FOR STORAGE. 



In many rubber factories the compounding room has a mini- 

 mum of equipment and maximum of discomfort, and good ventila- 

 tion is not one of its virtues. .'\s a rule, it is on the main fac- 

 tory floor near the mill room and looks like Satan's back yard. 

 Materials are handled in the original package and the space 

 is cluttered with boxes, barrels, casks, carboys and bags. Labor- 

 saving devices get paralysis before crossing the threshold, and 

 the superintendent who is indifferent to such a condition must 

 have a well-developed blind spot. Taking into account the real 

 efficiency of the average man when provided with proper equip- 

 ment to handle a job, it is singular that anyone should appar- 

 ently fail to see the waste of time when a man has to dg up 

 things out of barrels and casks, the work steadily taking longer 

 and becoming physically harder the deeper he goes into a con- 

 tainer that must of necessity be emptied. Just because this 

 material is in bulk and heavy is no reason why it should not 

 be handled efficiently. There is at least one way in which this 

 can be done, namely, to introduce the use of chutes or convey- 

 ors. This means a second floor for storage of compounds, and 

 extending to the floor below, a chute for each ingredient, whence 

 the quantities required can be drawn and weighed. With stor- 

 age room equipped for handling bulk packages by power, the 

 filling of chutes, which should have capacity from a barrel to 

 a ton, would he a simple matter. If any compounds require 

 drying or sifting, apparatus for this purpose should be pro- 

 vided on the second floor. This method accomplishes two 



things. It clears the air on the main floor of dust and per- 

 mits weighing of materials with rap dity. Where, under the 

 old way, "comp" had to be laboriously shoveled from barrels 

 and taken to the scale, in the new way the scale and weighing 

 hopper, moved on a track are run underneath the chutes which 

 are opened as required. 



EXPERT WORKERS. 



Industrial engineers have always advocated training a work- 

 man so that he could perform his task in the most efficient way. 

 This is not always done, with the inevitable result of lowering 

 the quality of performance throughout the shop. The I)est fac- 

 tories are those that maintain a high standard of excellence, 

 and if a man wishes permanent employment he is compelled 

 to answer affirmatively the question, ".Are you a high-class man?" 

 There are some machines used in rubber manufacture that call 

 for a high degree of skill. Those used for cutting out soles for 

 footwear are in this class. It is an easy machine to operate, a 

 light pressure and removal of the foot starting and stopping it. 

 But the job calls for a nice adjustment of the man to the 

 machine, a sort of nervo-physical balance. It is one thing to 

 have a man operate this machine as though he were shoving 

 pig-iron into a furnace, and another to have a man who has a 

 hair-trigger control of every muscle and pushes the rubber 

 slab and cut soles in rbyhmic sequence with the rhythm of ihe 

 machine. The results are readily discernible. The man who 

 thinks of pig-iron when handling a rubber slab across the cut- 

 ting plate and tries to break through the floor when he presses 

 the treadle cuts 1,800 to 2,500 soles; the other type of man 

 3,500 to 5,000. Take each of these men at his minimum as an 

 average and you have for 30 days 54.0U0 and 105,000 respectively. 



One way to make a man an expert workman is to impress 

 him with the importance of maximum production. If he is 

 operating a sole-cutting machine and he has to stop it to sharpen 

 a knife or adjust an ill-ntting part or to get stock or wait for 

 his helper, he will soon get a wrong slant at the main idea. It 

 is a losing proposition that works both ways. 



THE FOREMAN SHOULD BE CENTRALLY LOCATED. 



In the layout and equipment of a factory department the 

 location of the foreman's office, as a rule, receives scant atten- 

 tion, with the result that it is frequently located at one end of 

 the room farthest removed from the larger number of work- 

 men. In one case, in the milling department of a rubber fac- 

 tory, one corner of the room was used for putting up com- 

 pounding materials. This room was walled in to prevent the 

 spread of dust and a portion of it, a space 3 by 10 feet against 

 a window, was used by the foreman as his office for the clerical 

 work he had to do. There were in this department 40 mixing 

 mills, a calender, four washers and large drying rooms, so it 

 was sizable enough to require constant supervision. The point 

 I wish to make is. that the foreman's office or desk should be 

 so located that his men will be under his eye at all times. When 

 this principle was emphasized to the superintendent of the mill 

 in question, his eyes were opened to the desirability of having 

 a change made. Opening out of the mill room about midway 

 in its length was a small store room. A section of the wall 

 between was removed and windows substituted in the form of a 

 bay projecting slightly into the mill room. The floor of the 

 new office was placed three feet above the mill room level, and 

 from this point of vantage all operations were under constant 

 observation. 



This same factory had its vulcanizers on the ground floor. 

 The bulk of its product was produced on the second floor and 

 had to be lowered by an elevator for curing, and hoisted after- 

 ward for inspecting and finishing. This extravagant waste of 

 time and travel had been going on for years, the management 

 being apparently "stone blind" to the loss incurred. A new 

 superintendent caused the vulcanizers to be raised to the level 

 of the second floor. 



