* Women in this column are included in preceeding columns.

Source:

Records of the Main Committee for Aircraft Production, Air Ministry and Speer Ministry.

A/ Three months's production (March index period covers Jan, Feb, Mar, etc.)
B/ Employees as of the first of the month of the index period
C/ Based on representative sample of the German and American aircraft companies.
D/ Quantity factor derived from the basic 80 percent curve.

The steps taken to determine an index of relative efficiency between German aircraft production and American aircraft production are briefly as follows:

(1) The weight in pounds produced is converted to a common basis (that of fighter production). It has been determined that the cost of an airplane or of the production hours per airplane varies inversely as the weight to the one-third power. The weight in pounds produced for a three month period is used to avoid fluctuations caused by shortages, weather, design changes, etc. which may have caused a drop in production one month only to be offset by an abnormally large production of the following month.

(2) In order to reduce the results to a common unit the weight in pounds produced ina given three month period is divided by the number of working days in that period:

(3) In determining pounds per employee per working day the number of employees used is that of the first day of the month of the index period. That is done to give consideration to "labor flow time" for the fact that parts produced in May will not be reflected in output until July although a large protion of the July final assembly work will show up in July acceptances. The third step of the index is:

(4) The final step is to modify the results achieved so far to take into account the variation in the scale of production undertaken. It has been determined that each time the quantity to be produced is doubled the unit labor involved to 80 percent of the maount required in the original quantity*. Hence the basic 80 percent curve was developed as a means of measuring variation in output with condieration given to the quantity produced. In deriving this index a representative sample of German and American companies was chosen for each period shown, their unit acceptances modified to equivalent units of fighter planes and reduced to number of planes per company per day. The quantity factor is then read from the 80 percent curve. Hence the index of efficiency:
(LB/emp/Day x Qf =I_E)
* "Factors Affecting the Cost of Airplanes", by T. P. Wright, - Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, February, 1936.

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