Loading from a conveyor requires more labor when loading rail cars

because the conveyors extend only to the car door and not to the end of the

car. This necessitates considerable walking by the loaders. Therefore,

the production standard for loading a combination of motor trucks and rail

cars is 147 100-pound bags per hour or about 65 percent of the standard

for loading trucks only. More idle time is required in the loading crew

because the labor requirements actually changes as the car is filled.

This is true because less walking has to be done as loading progresses.

 Labor requirements for paper bags.--Labor requirements and produc-

tion standards for performing various jobs in handling packed 50-pound

paper bags are alsoL shown in Table 11. The job of placing bags on hand

trucks or on conveyors is performed in the same way in each method, by

the bag closing crew. Hand trucking constitutes a large part of the

handling crew, as evidenced by the production standard of 113 50-pound

bags per hour. This standard is relatively high because in South Florida

a larger proportion of the output is loaded in rail cars, necessitating

longer hand trucking distances than is usual when loading trucks only.

Production standards for loading from conveyors is high becausemof the

walking time required of loaders, especially when loading rail cars.

 Analysis of costs for burlap bags.--The fixed and variable costs

for handling 100- and 50-pound burlap bags of potatoes to the load and

loading both rail cars and motor trucks are shown in Table 12, In the hand

truck method, variable costs are higher as more labor is required. Electric-

ity and repair costs are a significant item of costs for the conveyor method