SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT OF A BOILER ROOM

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT OF A BOILER ROOM

You hear a great deal about scientific management these days, and I know of no place where the principals of scientific management diligently applied will bring greater results than in a boiler room. In thinking of scientific management one usually thinks of motion study and methods of obtaining more work per day from the employees, but scientific management means more than this; it means anything that will cause a dollar’s worth of time or material to yield a greater return. Having defined scientific management we will now see how it is possible to materially reduce one of the largest losses of the average manufacturing plant or central station through proper management. It has been stated on good authority that 25 per cent, of the coal burned in power plants is wasted unnecessarily. This is not usually the fault of the fireman nor his equipment, but the fault of the manager or superintendent ire not supplying the fireman with proper instruments and affording him sufficient supervision and moral support. The average concern operating a power plant hires an expensive man as an engineer, who is usually a good mchanic, but knows little about combustion. As a consequence he spends most of his time irr the engine room, giving but little attention to the boi'er room except to call the fireman down if he does not keep up steam to the normal pressure carried on the plant. The average fireman is trained to keep up steam without any regard to efficiency, so don’t blame him if he wastes one-quarter of the coal he feeds into the furnace either with a shovel or a mechanical stoker. The efficiency of an engine or generating unit will not vary much during its entire life, yet the engineer is given all sorts of instruments with which he can check up and keep tab on the operation of his machines. In the boiler room, however, few, if any, instruments are supplied the fireman. He has no way of knowing how much coal he burns, nor how much water he evaporates; about all he knows is that he keeps up the steam pressure, if he did not he knows he would lose his job. In the doing of any piece of work, any manager is very particular to see that no more men are put on the work than required, or can work efficiently. Why should he not take even more care to see that no more coal is burned under his boilers than is required to do the work?

Questions for the Fireman.