EFFECT OF PHYSICAL ARRANGEMENT =24.= However efficient the personal organization, satisfactory results can be obtained only under proper environment. It is not merely a question of pleasant surroundings for employes, but a financial proposition; not a reform or a fad, but a money-making plan that governs the engineer in laying out a plant. This is not to be a discussion of welfare work, about which much has been published. Our purpose is to point out the business economy of a proper physical arrangement of office, store or factory as against the wasteful methods of a systemless grouping of men and machinery. The question of physical environment is a practical one that has been solved by many enterprising concerns, and the subject is deserving of careful study by the student of business organization. While some hard-headed business men may regard the question of minor importance, it is significant that the largest and most successful enterprises, financially, are those in which employes have been supplied with the most comforts, surrounded with approved safeguards, and aided in their work by the latest appliances of proved worth. There is an old axiom to the effect that even a good workman cannot be expected to do good work with poor tools. It is equally true that he cannot be expected to do good work in either unsanitary or inconveniently arranged shops and offices. =25. Factory Plans.= The planning of a manufacturing plant is a question for the engineer, rather than the accountant or business organizer, but a few general remarks on the subject will not be out of place in this paper. It may be stated as a fundamental principle that the factory should be planned to facilitate the movement of raw material from one department to another. In the ideal factory, storage for raw material will be provided where it can be economically received and easily procured when needed in the factory. It should, if possible, be close to the department in which the material is subjected to the first operation. The shops themselves should be arranged to facilitate the movement of partly completed parts from one department or shop to another. To illustrate, a foundry should be so located that castings can be taken direct to the machine shop, or smith shop, not through another shop or in a round-about way. Likewise, the machine shop, if the process be continuous, should be located next to the assembling department. Or, if a "parts" storeroom is maintained, it should be located between the machine shop and assembling department. Storage for completed goods should be adjacent to the assembling department, and convenient to the shipping room or platform. The chart, Fig. 9, shows a typical layout of a manufacturing plant operating both a foundry and wood shop. Naturally the foundry and wood shop are as widely separated as possible. Storage of foundry materials is provided for just outside of the foundry, while lumber is convenient to the wood shop.