Non-productive Time a Problem
Page 52
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DEFINING the title of his taper on 1--,prime costs as meaning "the price of production without regard to profit" and cost as being " what is laid out or suffered to obtain anything," Mr. Wright commented that many of the members of the Association must suffer, because he so 'often heard it said by a remover that he would rather have his vehicles kept running at a low cost than kept idle, not realizing that in so doing, he was giving his customer something for allowing him to work for him.
In dealing with vehicle' operating costs, Mr. Wright divided the items into labour, which he called "staff." and running costs. He Said that his hearers would be surphsed to find that the cost per hour of the vehicle was less than the cost per man-hour of the men engaged in the operation.
Time Not Paid For First he considered this item of cost of staff, including in that the driver, foreman and packer but excluding the porter. In addition to wages there were: National Insurance, Common Law premiums (which, he pointed out, have now superseded workmen's compensation), holidays with pay, occasional sickness and "non-productive hours," being time when the men are employed, but not on work for which the customer directly pays.
He dwelt on this matter of non-productive hours and cited as an example the case of a man whose time for starting is 8 a.m. He probably does not get away from the garage until 8.15 a.m. or perhaps 8.341 a.m. and as probably the agreed time for being at the householder's premises is 9 a.m. and those premises are only 15 minutes' journey from the warehouse, it it impossible to charge the customer for that loss of time from 8 a.m. to 8.45 a.m.
Nevertheless, Mr. Wright gave it as his opinion that it is not a practical proposition to give the staff productive work for the whole of the time. Vans have to be swept out, wrappers disinfected, cases examined to make sure that there is nothing left in them and there are very many jobs which cannot directly be charged to any customer A34 but for which the employer must pay.
He stated that from figures obtained by the costing committee of the Association, it was apparent that from 20 to 25 per cent. of the time worked was