7 2 PRESENT SYSTEM. 



PRESENT METHOD OF DETERMINING COST. 



As far as my experience goes, this is done either by foremen 

 or clerks. 



By Foremen. 



I. Cost of labor. 



The foreman cons the time books and picks out from them the 

 items appearing to correspond to the job whose cost he is com- 

 puting. It has already been explained, page 6 1, how difficult 

 this is. 



What it really means in practice can only be appreciated by 

 one who has actually performed the work. Such questions as 

 these arise : Two firing rests having been ordered for separate 

 parties, say a month apart, and half a dozen men having worked 

 on them at different times during four months, one of the rests 

 is completed, and as it is for sale, its cost must be immediately 

 determined. How detect among the mass of entries covering 

 this long record how the work has been divided between the two 

 rests? It is impossible. 



But suppose that the work has been properly named every 

 time, when is the unfortunate foreman to stop hunting items? 

 Not until he has gone through every page of every time book 

 since the job was started. Even then, an interruption or the 

 need of his books elsewhere will upset his calculations and 

 probably drive him to an estimated account of labor, as being on 

 the whole about as accurate as the unverifiable statements of his 

 books. 



A better illustration of this difficulty may be found in the case 

 of the completion in part of an order calling for large numbers 

 of a certain article. Suppose the order be to make 1,000 halters, 

 and at the end of the month all are cut out, 100 finished, and the 

 rest in various stages of completeness in the hands of different 

 workmen. How may the cost of the 100 halters be determined? 

 Surely not from the books ; everything there is simply charged 

 to " halters." 



It may be said to keep a special account of the time taken to 

 cut out, or sew, or rivet, 10, 20, or 50 halters; and from that to 



