_THE ARRANGEMENT OF ENGINEERING ESTABLISHMENTS._
The first and, perhaps, the most important matter of all in
founding engineering works is that of arrangement. As a commercial
consideration affecting the cost of manipulation, and the expense
of handling material, the arrangement of an establishment may
determine, in a large degree, the profits that may be earned, and,
as explained in a previous place, upon this matter of profits
depends the success of such works.
Aside from the cost or difficulty of obtaining ground sufficient to
carry out plans for engineering establishments, the diversity of
their arrangement met with, even in those of modern construction,
is no doubt owing to a want of reasoning from general premises.
There is always a strong tendency to accommodate local conditions,
and not unfrequently the details of shop manipulation are quite
overlooked, or are not understood by those who arrange buildings.
The similarity of the operations carried on in all works directed
to the manufacture of machinery, and the kind of knowledge that is
required in planning and conducting such works, would lead us to
suppose that at least as much system would exist in machine shops
as in other manufacturing establishments, which is certainly not
the case. There is, however, this difference to be considered:
that whereas many kinds of establishments can be arranged at
the beginning for a specific amount of business, machine shops
generally grow up around a nucleus, and are gradually extended as
their reputation and the demands for their productions increase;
besides, the variety of operations required in an engineering
establishment, and change from one class of work to another, are
apt to lead to a confusion in arrangement, which is too often
promoted, or at least not prevented, by insufficient estimates of
the cost of handling and moving material.
Materials consumed in an engineering establishment consist
mainly of iron, fuel, sand, and lumber. These articles, or their
products, during the processes of manipulation, are continually
approaching the erecting shop, from which finished machinery is
sent out after its completion. This constitutes the erecting
shop, as a kind of focal centre of a works, which should be the
base of a general plan of arrangement. This established, and the
foundry, smithy, finishing, and pattern shops regarded as feeding
departments to the erecting shop, it follows that the connections
between the erecting shop and other departments should be as short
as possible, and such as to allow free passage for material and
ready communication between managers and workmen in the different
rooms. These conditions would suggest a central room for erecting,
with the various departments for casting, forging, and finishing,
radiating from the erecting shop like the spokes of a wheel, or,
what is nearly the same, branching off at right angles on either
side and at one end of a hollow square, leaving the fourth side of
the erecting room to front on a street or road, permitting free
exit for machinery when completed.
The material when in its crude state not only consists of various
things, such as iron, sand, coal, and lumber, that must be kept
separate, but the bulk of such materials is much greater than their
finished product. It is therefore quite natural to receive such
material on the outside or "periphery" of the works where there is
the most room for entrances and for the separate storing of such
supplies. Such an arrangement is of course only possible where
there can be access to a considerable part of the boundary of a
works, yet there are but few cases where a shop cannot be arranged
in general upon the plan suggested. By receiving material on the
outside, and delivering the finished product from the centre,
communications between the departments of an establishment are the
shortest that it is possible to have; by observing the plans of
the best establishments of modern arrangement, especially those in
Europe, it may be seen that this system is approximated in many of
them, especially in establishments devoted to the manufacture of
some special class of work.
Handling and moving material is the principal matter to be
considered in the arrangement of engineering works. The
constructive manipulation can be watched, estimated, and faults
detected by comparison, but handling, like the designs for
machinery, is a more obscure matter, and may be greatly at fault
without its defects being apparent to any but those who are highly
skilled, and have had their attention especially directed to the
matter.
Presuming an engineering establishment to consist of one-storey
buildings, and the main operations to be conducted on the ground
level, the only vertical lifting to be performed will be in the
erecting room, where the parts of machines are assembled. This room
should be reached in every part by over-head travelling cranes,
that cannot only be used in turning, moving, and placing the
work, but in loading it upon cars or waggons. One result of the
employment of over-head travelling cranes, often overlooked, is
a saving of floor-room; in ordinary fitting, from one-third more
to twice the number of workmen will find room in an erecting shop
if a travelling-crane is employed, the difference being that, in
moving pieces they may pass over the top of other pieces instead
of requiring long open passages on the floor. So marked is this
saving of room effected by over-head cranes, that in England, where
they are generally employed, handling is not only less expensive
and quicker, but the area of erecting floors is usually one-half as
much as in America, where travelling-cranes are not employed.
Castings, forgings, and general supplies for erecting can be easily
brought to the erecting shop from the other departments on trucks
without the aid of motive power; so that the erecting and foundry
cranes will do the entire lifting duty required in any but very
large establishments.
The auxiliary departments, if disposed about an erecting shop in
the centre, should be so arranged that material which has to pass
through two or more departments can do so in the order of the
processes, and without having to cross the erecting shop. Casting,
boring, planing, drilling, and fitting, for example, should follow
each other, and the different departments be arranged accordingly;
whenever a casting is moved twice over the same course, it shows
fault of arrangement and useless expense. The same rule applies to
all kinds of material.
A great share of the handling about an engineering establishment is
avoided, if material can be stored and received on a higher level
than the working floors; if, for instance, coal, iron, and sand is
received from railway cars at an elevation sufficient to allow it
to be deposited where it is stored by gravity, it is equivalent
to saving the power and expense required to raise the material to
such a height, or move it and pile it up, which amounts to the
same thing in the end. It is not proposed to follow the details of
shop arrangement, farther than to furnish a clue to some of the
general principles that should be regarded in devising plans of
arrangement. Such principles are much more to be relied upon than
even experience in suggesting the arrangement of shops, because
all experience must be gained in connection with special local
conditions, which often warp and prejudice the judgment, and lead
to error in forming plans under circumstances different from those
where the experience was gained.
(1.) How may the arrangement of an establishment affect
its earnings?--(2.) Why is the arrangement of engineering
establishments generally irregular?--(3.) Why should an
erecting shop be a base of arrangement in engineering
establishments?--(4.) What are the principal materials consumed
in engineering works?--(5.) Why is not special experience a safe
guide in forming plans of shop arrangement?