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Space Physical Conditions-Influence on Output-Floor
Insulation - Furniture

- An Efficiency Factor

- Desks

versus Tables-Correspondence Files-Index Systems-
Tariff Cabinets-Live versus Dead Issues.

The traffic manager should possess the necessary ability to lay out an office intelligently. A great many do not, however, as evidenced by the number of departments whose layout does not follow definite and systematic lines.

After making a judicious selection of equipment, appliances, and supplies, they should be so arranged in the department that their use may entail the least lost motion.

ACCESSIBILITY OF RECORDS

Not infrequently, in some of the large traffic offices, the equipment is so arranged that a man has to leave his desk on one side of the room and make a journey to the other side in order to get information for which he has frequent use. Obviously, records that are in continual demand should be placed as near as possible to the employee using them.

Fig. 5, while designed primarily as a chart dealing with general office organization, illustrates the results that follow careful planning in laying out the office

and placing the worker. Long trips from one end of the office to the other are eliminated.

COÖRDINATE WORKERS

Likewise, workers of a class should be put together. The rate clerk, the quotation clerk, and the overcharge investigator have more frequent occasion to use the tariff files than other employees, and should therefore be placed in close touch with them.

Fig. 6 shows the arrangement in the office of a Chicago traffic manager who analyzed the functional work of his subordinates and placed together those engaged in corresponding work. The general efficiency of the department can be greatly enhanced by using intelligence in regard to this feature.

SPACE

Even tho space is expensive, the traffic department should not be slighted. Sufficient room must must be furnished to accommodate numerous records of the department and to enable each worker to carry on his work without crowding and interruption.

Certain measurements have come to be well defined. For example, aisles should be three feet wide at least, and preferably three and one-half feet. Where employees work back to back, four feet should be allowed between desks. In front of filing cabinets or tariff files an aisle five feet wide enables anyone to pass even when an operator has a drawer fully extended or others are using the files. The space required for each employee, including his desk chair and aisle space, is from 110 to 125 square feet.

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