=Follow─Up Methods for Tracing Orders in the Shop.= The Sub─Production orders having been put into the departments, the first one will order the material for starting the work. For instance, the first step may be upon iron castings. Theoretically all stock and material come from the Store─Room. Therefore we might say that upon a strict construction of this general rule the castings should be furnished by the Foundry and sent to the Store─Room, from which they might be drawn upon requisitions the same as any other material. Practically this would be not only a troublesome but an expensive method, requiring a great deal of unnecessary handling and transportation. The problem is much more practically solved by considering the Foundry as one of the manufacturing departments receiving its raw material (namely, pig iron) through storeroom accounts, and thus "constructively" from the storeroom, while physically it is in the foundry yard. This answers the demands of a theoretical as well as a practical view of the case. Therefore the first sub─production order will go to the iron foundry, which will make the castings and deliver them to such departments as are required to do the first work upon them, as directed upon the order. The sub─production order which this department has received, directs to what department they shall be sent when completed; and so on, until they have gone through the last department and are sent to the Finished Parts Store─Room. This arrangement is all right as far as it goes. If every man attended strictly to his business and pushed work along as rapidly as possible, and every foreman sent his work along to the next department as soon as his department had completed its work, this plan _might_ work fairly well. Unfortunately, however, these conditions seldom or never exist; and there must be ways and means devised to keep the work moving and to be able to _trace_ and _locate_ the work upon any order at any time when information is desired upon it or its state of progress. To accomplish this, there is a _Transfer Office_, located as conveniently as may be for all departments, and serving as a sort of "clearing house" for all departments in transacting inter─departmental business so far as it relates to the transfer of the work in progress. By this method, departments send all their work by way of the Transfer Office, where proper records are kept of all such transfers, so that at any moment the Transfer Clerk can locate any piece of work in progress in the plant. [Illustration: Fig. 26. Transfer Card.]