The really useful talk and work is the result of wholesome habit of thought and action.

Tying up Capital in Stock in Process of Construction.

The amount of capital tied up in raw material supplies, stock in process and finished product should not be greater than that which is necessary to get the greatest output per dollar of investment.

In the machinery-building world there is no such thing as a steady long-lived demand for any machine.  Hence the proposition to build a locomotive or printing-press by methods employed in watch or sewing-machine manufacture is entirely ill-timed at least.

For this reason the stock in process must not necessarily be considered insufficient if it appears to be on the hand-to-mouth plan.  The dividing line between excessive and insufficient stock must be drawn in each individual case.

Raw material should be purchased in reasonable quantities with due regard to the price which varies with quantities but there should always be a regard for the amount of capital used for this purpose.  Any excess represents just that much extra capital unnecessarily risked in the business.

There should be a constant supply of material throughout the entire work.  The stock in process should flow through the plant in a rapid but thin stream.  The quantity should be no greater than absolutely necessary to insure a steady supply for all of the workers, including the assembling and selling workers.

An excessive stock of this or that piece, or of all pieces, means that much capital idle, and it also tends to slackness of management.  Frequently it is the outcome of carelessness.

A slip-shod management that disregards this point will use no care in purchase of material or in putting in the shop orders.  All that is needed is to just hurry forward the stock that “happens” to be “out”, and at the same time allow the accumulation of the unneeded stock to go on unchecked.

Immense storerooms for keeping finished stock are shown with pride, unmindful of the fact that every dollar’s worth of unnecessary stock on the shelves in the stockroom, every dollar’s worth of unnecessary work in the plant, represents idle money and faulty management.

If this money is to be retained in the business, the system should be changed so that the money will be put where it will bring the best return.

The excessive stock in process is sometimes an outcome of blind progressiveness—­the blindness that fails to see that there is as much money tied up in stock in process and in finished product as there is in the entire machinery equipment.

An adaptable equipment facilitates keeping down the amount tied up in stock in process.  The modern plant should take advantage of these modern methods and machines which tend toward profitable use of capital.  Such machines are highly developed and true to the controlling ideal of adaptability and largest output per dollar of investment.