The important shops of a large building and repairing plant are:

(1) The Woodworking shop, including the Pattern and the Joiner shops, sometimes separate.

(2) The Foundry.

(3) The Blacksmith or Forge shop.

(4) The Machine shop.

(5) The Boiler shop.

(6) The Copper and Sheet Metal shop, sometimes divided into two shops.

(7) The Plate and Angle shop, for shipyards and, to a less extent, for bridge material plants.

Of prime importance to any manufacturing plant is the drafting room, or drawing room, in which the design of machinery parts is worked out and drawings of these parts are made to guide the several shops in shaping their respective parts for the complete machine. In a ship-building plant the drawings of the ship's hull are elaborated by scribing them out to full size on the floor of the mould loft as the best means of obtaining the exact form of the various individual frames and plates of which the hull is composed.

A very essential adjunct to the machine shop is the erecting shop, where the finished parts of a machine are assembled and secured together as a complete unit. All engines and large machines are thus assembled and tried, after which they are dis-mantled and moved away.

Of indispensable importance in metal producing and many metal shaping establishments are (a) the chemical laboratory for analyzing materials, (b) the testing room, for testing the strength of materials, and (c) the inspecting department for inspecting and testing finished products.