The most efficient way of handling the return of used grain bags would 

 generally be one under which the producer counted, bundled, and tagged 

 bundles of bags, and the grain truck picked them up for assembly at a 

 central point or delivery to the bag plant. Such a procedure, provided pro- 

 ducers did not cause extra work by incomplete identification of bundles, as 

 was reported in some cases, would minimize route time involved. It would 

 also utilize the return trip of the truck in a productive way. It would fur- 

 ther eliminate many route miles over which the grain truck and the bag 

 plant truck would otherwise both travel. However, under such a system it 

 would be necessary that both the producer and the grain dealer receive 

 equitable compensation for their services. One possible exception to the 

 preceding arrangement might occur where the grain dealer, for other rea- 

 sons, finds it feasible to dump bags for the producer. Here it would be just 

 as economical for the grain dealer to handle the counting, bundling, tagging, 

 and accounting. Considerations relative to the dumping of bags by the 

 grain dealer were discussed previously. 



One other type of situation which causes inefficiency in delivery route 

 operation is catering to small orders. The time attendant to travel, position, 

 unloading, and collecting are oftentimes incurred on a sale of less dollar 

 value than a bag of grain. Some examples of small orders observed were 

 as follows: 12 lbs. oyster shells; 25 lbs. chick feed; towels, cleaner, filter 

 disks; one package of vegetable seeds; 5 lbs. dog food; 3 cans of dog food 

 — 47c. Many of the people making such purchases are old customers; some 

 may seasonally or in the future buy larger quantities. In any event, cater- 

 ing to small orders is costly and more sizeable orders must bear a share 

 of this cost. Such small orders could best be bought at the store. 



Formulating Route Time 



The man minutes per route, necessary to calculate the labor cost of 

 delivery, can be expressed by the following equation: 



Rt = N [(M.m) + (P.p) + (S.c) + (Q-u)] + N[|Bi.d(T)] 

 In the preceding equation, the symbols are indicative of the following: 



Rt — route time in aggregate man minutes 

 N — number of men on truck 

 M — route miles round trip 

 m ■ — average miles per hour expressed as 60 



m 

 P — number of separate settings of truck 

 p — average time per setting in minutes 

 S — number of stops on route 

 c — average collection time per stop in minutes 

 Q — number of 100 pound units 



u — - average unloading time in minutes per 100 pound unit 

 T — total man minutes in preceding bracket 

 d — average percentage of route delay time 



There are presented in Table 17 a series of factors for use in the 

 examples which follow the table and Figure 9. Data in Table 17 were de- 

 rived from Tables 14 and 15 and from examination of the individual ob- 

 servations upon which those tables were based. 



35 



