Music Trade Review

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THE
AUGUST 16, 1924
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Making the Dealer's Repair Shop Pay
An Address Before the Annual Convention of the National Association of Piano Tuners at Milwaukee by
Allan E. Pollar—Taking the Repair Work From the Red Ink Side of the Books Through
Proper Organization and Exploitation of the Work and the Service
HEN the problem of taking the repair
shop off the dead expense side of the
retail piano store ledger has been
solved one of the greatest obstacles to the
advancement of the tuner's status will have
been removed. The step from the general
idea, which the average dealer has to-day
about his tuning department, to the ultimate
truth, cannot be taken in a day but must be
brought about by a systematic course of edu-
cation. Usually, the tuner in charge of the
shop knows his importance to the industry
very well. He knows perfectly the service he
renders to the dealer. Therefore, it rests with
the tuner to be the teacher. As a rule, after
he has begun his work of education, if he is
the proper type of man and sincere in his en-
deavors he will find that the dealer is a willing
pupil.
Before the dealer can be shown how his shop
is paying him, his shop must really be paying
him, and the superintendent or foreman, him-
self, of the shop must know in what way it is
paying. Therefore, the shop must "have as fore-
man a man who knows the piano repair busi-
ness from beginning to end, or as nearly so as
possible. This man must be wide awake, progres-
sive, and have a desire for future development.
He must not have the idea that he learned long
ago all there is to know about the piano busi-
ness and that he is the only man in the country
who docs know it.
First Steps
One of the first steps for the foreman in
putting his shop on a paying basis is to build
up an organization of helpers interested in the
piano repair business, willing to learn, willing
to try out new ideas and methods, and anxious
to work together to develop the profession and
place it on a par with other professions in its
class from a scientific as well as a monetary
standpoint. It would be well for every shop
foreman to make a study of the basic facts of
applied psychology and to teach his helpers as
many of these facts as are necessary to enable
them to work harmoniously with him in putting
the shop in its proper light with the dealer.
Men who are of a cheerful nature, men with
fair to good educations, and men willing to im-
prove their educations by systematic study to-
gether along the line of work are great factors
for the success of any undertaking. In a true
sense they are the prime essentials.
With the proper crew back of him and this
crew having the right mental attitude, the fore-
man should next turn his attention to the equip-
ment of the shop. Man can do many- things
with his bare hands, but the improvement in
work made possible by proper tools is so great
that the tools are now a necessity rather than
a luxury. There is certain equipment that
should be furnished by the store which all shops
should have. This includes such tools and ac-
cessories as are used by all workmen in com-
mon, such as clamps, glue pots, glue stoves, a
good power emery wheel, polishing wheels, a
power-driven machine for keyboard work and
perhaps a small lathe; also a vacuum cleaner;
and we might include varnish brushes and the
tuners' wedges. The store should also provide
the shop with suitable benches for the work, a
good cabinet which may be locked, for the
materials, and a place for such literature as the
foreman must have, that is, catalogs and account
W
Highest
Quality
books. The foreman must keep definite and
accurate accounts and it will be well for him to
order all his material himself and to do the
correspondence relative to his part of the busi-
ness.
In the matter of personal tools, each man
should be encouraged to have as full an assort-
ment of his own tools as he can afford so that
there will be little or no necessity for borrowing.
The practice of borrowing and loaning tools is
the source of much dissatisfaction and should
be discouraged. The foreman should teach his
men the proper use and care of their tools and
encourage them to make it a point of pride to
have their tools so arranged and kept in such an
orderly manner as to lessen the lost time and
motion in rinding the proper tool for any certain
piece of work.
The conditions in the shop should be as com-
fortable as possible for work. The room should
be light and airy; it should be clean and have
an agreeable appearance, as a cheerful attitude
of mind has much to do with efficient service;
it should be warm in Winter and cool in Sum-
mer so that the men will be contented to stay
in it. A discontented force is a costly force.
Strict working hours should be made a matter
of pride as well as business, and overtime should
be figured and charged for. The working day
for the shop should not be over eight hours
and should be less than that on Saturdays. A
good plan is to take only thirty minutes for
lunch each noon and close at 1 o'clock on
Saturdays. Jt is being proved in all lines of
work that better service is obtained by not
allowing the men to work too many hours.
Systematizing
With the proper men, the proper mental atti-
tude, and the proper place to work, the foreman
can now begin to systematize his shop and
learn exactly what he is doing. First, he must
keep an expense account. He must study the
cost of producing certain jobs. He must know
which man is best to use in each type of work
and be careful to see that a highly skilled, and
therefore an expensive, man is not on a job that
a less skillful and cheaper man could do as well
and as quickly. He must watch to see that too
much material is not being used. He must not
be too close with the material but should en-
courage his men to be economical by teaching
them the cost of it and showing the direct value
to them of having a small expense account for
material.
For instance, he might find that too much
cheesecloth was being used. In order to check
up on this, he could place one man in charge of
the wiping rags and cheesecloth, for a period of
perhaps a month, and have all the others go to
him for their cloth. Let the man in charge keep
a record of the yardage given each man. In
this way the foreman will soon learn where his
cheesecloth goes. The same system may be used
in checking all material. One great source of
waste about a shop may be the careless use of
sandpaper. If the foreman will check the sand-
paper used, he can often cut his bill in half. In
the finishing department the use of alcohol, tur-
pentine and other more or less expensive mate-
rials must be watched. The use of French var-
nish may be abused and made an undue expense.
Proper care of varnish brushes, rubbing pads
and chamois skins will save many dollars on the
expense sheet. In the action department often
T
ONKRENCH
the proper use of a little new material will save
the outside man a trip and the store several dol-
lars. If a set of shoulder or butt felts is badly
eaten and hanging by shreds, yet not noisy, it is
poor economy not to replace them. A .set of
old, rotten bridles should be replaced even if
they are not all broken. All this saves the out-
side man's time. By having the proper assort-
ment, in different thicknesses, of punchings, key
rail and action cloths much time is saved in
regulating. Many a yellow ivory keyboard can
be whitened and polished with a good polishing
machine cheaper than celluloid can be put on.
In fact, there are any number of corners where
the foreman, once he has begun to look, will
find short cuts and ways of reducing his expense
account.
He must departmentalize his shop so that
there will be as little lost motion as possible.
In that way he will have more time for his
own work and less worry on his hands about
each individual job. Each man will have his
task laid out and the jobs will be taken care
of automatically. In these days everybody
knows the value of teamwork; having the shop
departmentalized makes teamwork possible.
Two Work Classifications
The work of the shop may be divided into
two general classes: the case department and
the action department. The case department
receives the piano and takes it apart. The
screws should be wrapped, labeled and filed
away in a box. The parts of the case should
be marked and placed on racks, not left strewn
about the shop. The orderly handling of the
case parts in the finishing of the piano results
in a great saving of time. The finisher should
be thoroughly up to date and understand the
tricks of his trade—the use of his amalgamators,
his stains, fillers and finishing coats. The action
and keyboard are turned over to the action de-
partment while the bottom board may be cared
for by the errand boy who will have charge of
the pedals. He can see that they are plated and
replaced on the bottom board ready for the case
when the piano is reassembled.
The action and keyboard are being handled
by the action department while the case is going
through the refinishing process. Small jobs on
the wareroom floor should be handled by the
department to which they belong and a record
kept of the job, piano number and, if thought
best, of the workman who did the job.
Finally, with the right kind of a force, his
$hop well equipped and organized, and a thor-
ough knowledge of what he is doing, the shop
foreman must show these things to the dealer.
This can best be done by a system of reports.
Each general repair job which goes through the
shop may be tagged and the tags turned over to
the manager of the store, or a weekly report
shop may be tagged and the tags turned over to
morning. This report should show the service
performed and the departments to which they
should be charged, as well as the cost of each
service. It should show what general repair
jobs have been completed in the shop and the
cost of each job.
T. H. Wear, for a number of years engaged
in the piano business in Ft. Worth, Tex., has
joined with his son, T. H. Wear, Jr., in opening
warcrooms in Lubbock, Tex., where the Baldwin
line will be featured.
Highest
Quality