THE RECORDING & COMPUTING MACHINES CO.
Reading edition
Dayton, Ohio
Several years ago we had over 200 toolmakers in our tool room engaged upon high grade jigs, fixtures, gauges, etc. The demand for toolmakers became such that the men were leaving us and it became practically impossible to get an adequate supply of this highly skilled labor.
My engineers, superintendents and myself made a study of the proposition and found that on the work that the tool room was doing it was unnecessary to employ such highly skilled labor on 70 per cent. of the work on the average. We, therefore, differentiated the work into its component elements and made a careful line of cleavage between the highly skilled work which the toolmakers were doing and the work which could be done by ordinary machinists. We then brought in men who were machinists, separating them into several necessary grades. We had sufficient work of a minor character to keep the lower grades busy practically all the time. We, therefore, taught them just how we wanted the work done.
As a result of this differentiation of the elements going to make up tool room work and the shaping of a distinct line of cleavage between the work requiring high skill and that requiring skill of a lesser grade, we were able to reduce our toolmaking force to less than fifty.
I am sure that a close study of the work done in any tool room and a division of the work same as along the lines indicated above will result in a decrease of the number of toolmakers required.
August 7, 1918.
(Signed) C. U. Carpenter.