. Analysis of the results
156. Table 9 contains the summary of the analysis of
the influences, that is, the indices of the relative importance of the factors affecting productivity. It is similar
to the table for the old spinning mills and is based on
the averages of the total influence, and of the influences
of operation and size, which can be found in table 10.
157. The influence of the small size of the mills of
the sample (1.09) is almost equal to that of the Brazilian
spinning industry as a whole (1.08). It is important,
not only because its value is relatively large and cannot
24 Productivity of the Cotton Textile Industry in Latin America
be diminished, but because it indicates that mills are
being built in Brazil, which, from the time of their installation, contain structural defects which prevent them
from achieving optimum productivity. However, within
the group of countries visited, the largest mills being installed are those of Sao Paulo.
158. Even without making a detailed analysis of some
mills, it might have been concluded that the influence of
operation in the industry (1.41) is principally due to an
excess of labour, arising from two closely connected
causes:
(1) the fact that many tenders are still in the
process of training and (2) a certain policy or attitude
on the part of the managers, who are not considered to
have made every possible effort to increase work-loads
and reduce personnel. However, it was deemed of interest to analyse mills "C" and "D" (tables 11 and 12),
where conditions of capacity and manufacture are absolutely uniform, but which differ in that the former is
exclusively equipped with European machinery and the
latter with American machinery. The average of the influence of operation of these mills was almost equal to
the general average of the modern spinning mills of Sao
Paulo, and therefore the adjustment required in order
to extend the data to the general sample was insignificant
(table 17).
159. The redistribution of the influence was made in
the light of the following considerations, which arise
from a study of the tables of analysis of mills "C" and
"D" and the general observations made in the industry.
160. Although there are small differences in nearly
all the processes between the actual and the standard
draft schedules, speeds and efficiencies, the over-all influence of production (0.97) is not important and no
attempt has been made to analyse it; it has been included
among the influences of causes which are being actively
corrected.
161. The influence represented by the excess of workers (1.45) has been divided into two parts, one of which
(1.10) has been attributed to the fact that the training
of the workers is still incomplete, the other (1.32) being
ascribed to the existence of a superfluous number of
workers, even taking into account their incomplete
training. This figure of 1.10 is an estimative allowance
which was based on the observed slowness of the workers in carrying out certain operations such as piecing-up
broken ends, and doffing.
162. The analysis can be summed up by saying that
the modern spinning industry of Sao Paulo works under
the best conditions of production, that is, of efficiency
of the processes, organization of the draft schedule, and
machine speeds. The elimination of the absolutely superfluous personnel could increase productivity by 32 per
cent, and the completion of its workers' training could
add another 10 per cent. The uneconomic size of some of
the mills is the only innate difficulty preventing the modern mills from attaining optimum productivity.
I V . COMMENTS , RESULTS AND ANALYSI S OF TH E
MODERN WEAVING MILL S OF SAO PAULO
A. General comments
163. The individual productivity of the modern weaving mills of Sao Paulo,
included in the sample, is shown
in graph 2, together with the general average and the
productivity of the standard mill which was taken as a
norm for comparison.
164. Mill no. 6 is only partly modern, since it still has
non-automatic looms and its spinning mill is also semimodern. As a result of these two circumstances, its productivity is comparatively low. Mills nos. 7 and 9, which
are about average in their productivity, have semi-modern spinning mills ; and mills nos. 1 and 4, which show
the best results, are equipped with completely modern
machinery, both for spinning and weaving. This correlation between productivity and types of equipment
agrees with what has been repeated several times in other
sections of this report: (1) that modern weaving mills
require the quality of yarn produced by modern spinning
mills in order to work under the best conditions for
productivity; and (2) the mechanical differences between the old and modern looms are themselves responsible for a great variation in productivity.
165. Taking into account the influence of size and
excluding mill no. 6, the two extremes observed are ap-
' proximately 34 and 79 per cent of normal productivity.
166. The following conditions were observed in most
of the mills :
(a) The excessive number of mechanical stops per
loom per hour indicates that the loom fixers probably
have not yet acquired sufficient experience to enable
them to determine the causes of the stops and correct
them rapidly ;
(b) The training of weavers and cone-winder tenders
is also deficient, though relatively better than that of the
loom fixers ;
(c) Control of efficiency is deficient or non-existent;
(d) The work-loads are small, even taking into account other abnormal conditions, such as the lack of
training of the tenders. At the same time, the mills have
few auxiliary workers thus compelling the tenders to
perform tasks which they should not have to fulfill ;
(e) In the majority of the mills, the work-loads are
not determined by rational methods. The number of
stops per loom, or of breakages of yarn, is not measured
systematically, in order to assign machines to the tenders
in accordance with the actual time required for the performance of their functions ;
(/) The type of cotton used by the mills was not
found to influence productivity.
