Milt Work Institute of California in Quaiterly Meeting at Los Angeles

The Quarterly IVleeting of the l\{ilhvork Institute of California was held on February 19th and 20th, at the Clark Hotel, Los Angeles, rvith a record attendance, and bringing a host of instructir.e discussion and information to tl.re assembled delegates.

This meeting was held at the close of the Annual Meeting of the Western Planing N{ill and Woodworking Association, held the day before.

President Harry E. Gaetjen, San Francisco, called the meeting to order, with fitting remarks of welcome to the great number of members in attendance.

After the report of the Managing Director, H. T. Didesch, Mr. D. N. Edwards, of Oakland, spoke on "An Institute Insignia." Lantern slides of the proposed shield were shown, and Mr. Edrvards gave an interesting outline of the research work that had been done, in order to evolve a proper insignia for the mill'rvork industry.

It was proposed that this shield be adopted by the Institute, that the members display it on their stationery, trucks, in their windows and that they use stickers showing the insignia, on every piece of rvork that is turned out by them.

After lengthy discussion, Mr. Edrvards' suggestions were adopted, and the shield, as shown herewith, was made the official emblem of the Millq'ork Institute.

Col. W. J. Sutphen, of Hammel, Sutphen & Company, Los Angeles, addressed the meeting on "A Group Advertising Plan."

He offered a comprehensive campaign, by districts, whereby the millwork ,industry could present their materials to the buying public through newspapers throughout California, and by the use of various trade journals. He also had a plan of other display publicity matter, wagon signs, etc. The report was made in detail as to costs, etc., and it was referred to a committee for action.

E. R. Maule, Los Angeles, was called on for a report for the Cost Finding Committee.

"Gentlemen, after a committee meeting at luncheon, I am rather in a haze as just how to make a report for the Cost Finding Committee. We had many suggestions to offer as to how to obtain better results from your committee than has been obtained in the past and I am afraid that it finally evolves on the question of who in our organization is desirous of doing a tremendous'lot of missionary work. I think that is the answer of the Cost Finding Committee. That this work can be done there is no question. Why? Because it has been done in Los Angeles. But how it is going to be done all over the state of Califoinia can only be answered by you gentlemen and no one else. Cost finding is a thing that must be done by the individual and nobody can do it for you. They can merely assist you in doing it. Now we can do two things. One is, each one take care of his costs as we have been taking care of them in the past and the other is to start to work, not your committee, but you, in real cost finding efforts.

"About two years ago Mr. Niclas came to Los Angeles and has been in this city continuously at work since that time installing the Millwork Cost Bureau of Chicago standard cost-finding system. I can only suggest that as a preliminary the various districts interest themselves in the installation of the standard cost-finding system, and with that part of cost-finding done, and it must be the first part done, then to start compiling records as the Los Angeles mills are now doing."

"Perhaps the most constructive opinion offered at the committee meeting was made by Mr. Nicholson (and by the way, whenever a man ofiers a constructive opinion that means he is elected to a committee) which was that we all work towards obtaining schedule pricing in business. But, real schedule pricing is in a great extent dependent upon the installation of standard cost-finding systems, for it is utterly impossible for any two plans to compare the individual costs of their products unless the overheads are distributed in a similar way in both plants. The most essential thing to do, if we are going to have any cost-finding work done, is to install uniform cost systems.

"A year or so ago there was issued in Los Angeles, scheduled millwork prices, and I venture to say that all of the larger mills, at any rate in Los Angeles, are utilizing those schedule prices in their daily estimating of plan work. At our office we estimate let us say $500,000 worth of full mill bids a month. I am not sure of the figures. I can't tell you what it costs us to do that work, because we have no plan estimator in our employ, that is, a man taking the items from the plan and estimating them. That work is all done in Mr. Clynick's Listing Bureau where the items are taken off the plans by experts and schedule prices applied to each article. Now since that schedule price is thoroughly understood by us, we divide it into its component parts; our cost department applies a discount to those schedule prices, which as found by our factory costs, are discounted from the list or schedule price applied by Mr. Clynick's office. I venture to say that the average time consumed in estimating the prices in our office on a $25,000 mill bid woutd not exceed fifteen or twenty minutes, because the procedure is one of discounting some seven or eight difierent clasess of items only, So I maintain that to my satisfaction at least schedule pricing is not only possible but essential to good business.

"After listening to the suggestions made at the committee table I have just one recommendation to make and that is that each district determine for themselves whether thev shatl start to work installing uniform cost systems and are determined that eventually they shall operate under the method of schedule pricing."

This was followed by a report by Mr. Joe Shepard of the Lien Law Committee, and by Mr. R. J. Button, of the Estimator Committee.'

The Friday morning session was consumed, until 11:30, with addresses by E. J. Borgmeyer, Los Angeles; W. A. Simpson, Los Angeles, and a very illuminating talk by H. P. Dixon, on "Standard Glass Grades."

MBYER & HODGE

330 Chapman Building, L'c Angelcr Phone VAndike 4912