Efficiency of Truck Loading 



Most stores and warehouses visited did not experience excessive delays 

 in loading from unsystematic piling of the various kinds of grain-feed 

 handled. Admittedly, the loading of a truck with a number of different 

 items is somewhat less efficient than where one or two items are involved, 

 but this is a problem common to all retail units and, hence, one which is 

 difficult of microscopic study for purposes of observing differences in per- 

 formance. 



It was possible to secure sufficient observations to compare roughly 

 the efficiency of loading bagged feed with different numbers of men. In 

 general (Table 11) retail units do not utilize additional men efficiently in 

 loading. While the elapsed time in loading a truck may be reduced, there 

 is a general tendency for the man minutes per 100 pounds to increase as 

 additional men are added. There are some variations from this pattern, as 

 can be observed in Table 12. Here, an attempt was made to compile the data 

 for "loading mostly by carrying bags" to measure the effect of not only 

 number of men, but also number of bags and number of orders. These data 

 suggested the following: 



(1) For a relatively small number of bags and few orders, one man 

 was most efficient in loading. 



(2) As the number of bags loaded increased, one man became less 

 efficient, and on larger orders two men were most efficient. 



(3) In all unit intervals related to number of bags, two men were 

 more efficient than three; three than four. 



(4) As the complexity of loading increased (as measured by number 

 of orders) efficiency steadily fell where one, two, or three men were used. 

 Four men appeared most inefficient where there were very few or very many 

 orders in the load. 



Table 11. Comparative Efficiency in Loading Grain Delivery Trucks by Various Methods 



1 Bags hand trucked, opened, dumped into overhead bulk bin; spouted into bulk truck bin; or 

 bags hand trucked, opened, dumped into bulk truck bin. 



28 



