DIVISION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. 29 



print room was retained, but makes only from thirty to forty prints per day. 

 This work is done by an employee who has other duties in addition. Other 

 blue prints are made in the blue print room at the Navy Yard. The equip- 

 ment of the old room consists of a continuous motion machine with a mercury 

 vapor tube light, and an older cylinder arc light machine. 



The blue print room at the Navy Yard includes two continuous motion 

 electric machines with multiple arc lights, one machine being fitted with a 

 washer and drier. 



We have also in this room a photostat machine and a lithoprint outfit for 

 reproducing tracings, both of which are of immense value to an organization 

 such as ours. 



Blue prints made for issue are mailed direct from the blue print room to 

 address given on print order. Each order is numbered consecutively and the 

 number of each order filled is reported daily and checked off so as to prevent 

 confusion. 



Blue prints made for the Bureau are sent direct to the branch ordering 

 them. 



The form for ordering blue prints is as shown on page 30. 



Planning Boards. — Planning boards are fitted in the office, in the design 

 branch and in the scientific and computing branch. The other rooms have 

 no boards as the individual jobs done in these rooms are short and do not 

 involve distribution of labor among several employees. 



The boards in the rooms contain hooks under the names of the several 

 employees on which the plan cards are hung, and hooks, (a) for jobs to be 

 planned, and (6) for jobs completed. 



The plan board in the office contains hooks for the various assistants 

 and for the branches, but does not go so far as the individual in the room. 



Method of Work.^— The products of the Division enumerated above 

 nearly always result from the receipt of a letter; for example, if the Secretary 

 of the Navy wants a ship designed he writes a letter; if a contractor wants 

 action on a plan, or if a superintending constructor wants instructions, we 

 receive a letter. 



It therefore is of primary importance to get the contents of this letter, 

 which is the commercial manufacturing company's purchasers' order, to- 

 gether with the instructions on it, to what the manufacturing company would 

 call the shop, in the form of a shop order, in the minimum time. 



This letter is opened in the office of the chief clerk of the Bureau, entered 

 in the main correspondence files and routed flat by means of a route tag (see 

 page 31). The letter is dropped into an outgoing basket in the file room, 

 picked up by a messenger on a regular route, and deposited in a receiving 



