The biological nature of the hatching process establishes a require- 

 ment for additional inputs of laJjor. Hatching is a 24 hour a day, 21 day 

 process which is primarily accomplished by automated means. Although 

 the incubators and hatchers used are equipped with various controls, 

 this equipment is suljject to malfunctions and requires some degree of 

 human surveillance. However, this is not a full-time operation for a 

 worker, and he can perform some other operation concurrently. 



Management generally schedules the majority of the production 

 operations during the morning and afternoon hours. A crew generally 

 performs these operations in a consecutive sequence and the surveillance 

 operation as well. In order to minimize the total labor requirement, 

 such operations as box fabrication, egg traying, and maintenance are 

 scheduled for evening and weekend hours. A worker is in the hatchery 

 during these hours to perform these operations and the surveillance. 

 However, there is a limit to the extent that production operations can be 

 spread over each day. Small scale hatcheries do not have sufficient work 

 to spread out and consequently have to have labor inputs specifically 

 for surveillance. As scale increases, operations can lie spread over an in- 

 creasing proportion of each day thereby diminishing the requirement 

 for specialized surveillance lalior. 



Labor requirements were synthetically determined for the hatching 

 process at several output levels for each model hatchery. The require- 

 ments are for seven day periods since each consecutive seven day period 

 has identical labor input requirements for a given chick output. Produc- 

 tion operations were generally scheduled in a consecutive sequence. The 

 labor inputs for each of the 11 production operations were determined 

 by budgeting with the labor productivity standards. For those operations 

 that can be performed by several methods, each was tested in the models 

 to determine which one minimized the total labor input without dis- 

 rupting the operating schedule. 



Labor inputs are categorized under one of two headings. The man- 

 hours required to perform the production and service operations and 

 time expended in performing these operations concurrently with sur- 

 veillance are summarized under the heading of variable labor inputs. 

 Labor inputs required specifically for surveillance arc summarized under 

 the heading of surveillance. This separation of lal)or inpurs is necessary 

 to determine the relationship l)etween them with changes in volume for 

 any particular model and with changes in scale. 



The analysis was repeated for a hatching-debeaking process and a 

 hatching-debeaking-vaccination process. The objective was to determine 

 what effect service operations have on labor requirements and chick 

 costs. 



Table 3 summarizes the synthesized labor productivities and crew 

 sizes for the 11 production and two service operations, delieaking and 

 vaccination, for each model with operations at 100 percent of capacity. 

 Eggs are trayed by hand in hatchery A, and a vacuum lift machine is 

 used in each of the other models. Trays are washed by hand in hatch- 

 eriesA through D, and a mechanical tray washer is used in each of the 

 others. Chick removal from hatching trays, counting, and boxing and 

 debeaking are accomplished as separate operations in hatchery A but 

 are incorporated into a single operation in the remaining models. 



11 



