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- The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Principles of Scientific Management
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-
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- This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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- most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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- whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
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- of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
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- at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
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- you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
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- before using this eBook.
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-
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- Title: The Principles of Scientific Management
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-
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-
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- Author: Frederick Winslow Taylor
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-
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- Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6435]
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- Most recently updated: November 4, 2011
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-
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- Language: English
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- *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ***
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-
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- Produced by Charles E. Nichols
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- The Principles of Scientific Management
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-
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- by
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-
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- FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR, M.E., Sc.D.
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-
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- 1911
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-
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-
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-
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- INTRODUCTION
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-
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- President Roosevelt in his address to the Governors at the White House,
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- prophetically remarked that "The conservation of our national resources
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- is only preliminary to the larger question of national efficiency."
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-
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- The whole country at once recognized the importance of conserving our
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- material resources and a large movement has been started which will be
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- effective in accomplishing this object. As yet, however, we have but
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- vaguely appreciated the importance of "the larger question of increasing
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- our national efficiency."
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-
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- We can see our forests vanishing, our water-powers going to waste, our
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- soil being carried by floods into the sea; and the end of our coal and
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- our iron is in sight. But our larger wastes of human effort, which go on
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- every day through such of our acts as are blundering, ill-directed, or
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- inefficient, and which Mr. Roosevelt refers to as a, lack of "national
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- efficiency," are less visible, less tangible, and are but vaguely
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- appreciated.
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-
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- We can see and feel the waste of material things. Awkward, inefficient,
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- or ill-directed movements of men, however, leave nothing visible or
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- tangible behind them. Their appreciation calls for an act of memory, an
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- effort of the imagination. And for this reason, even though our daily
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- loss from this source is greater than from our waste of material things,
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- the one has stirred us deeply, while the other has moved us but little.
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-
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- As yet there has been no public agitation for "greater national
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- efficiency," no meetings have been called to consider how this is to be
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- brought about. And still there are signs that the need for greater
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- efficiency is widely felt.
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-
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- The search for better, for more competent men, from the presidents of
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- our great companies down to our household servants, was never more
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- vigorous than it is now. And more than ever before is the demand for
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- competent men in excess of the supply.
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-
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- What we are all looking for, however, is the readymade, competent man;
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- the man whom some one else has trained. It is only when we fully realize
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- that our duty, as well as our opportunity, lies in systematically
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- cooperating to train and to make this competent man, instead of in
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- hunting for a man whom some one else has trained, that we shall be on
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- the road to national efficiency.
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-
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- In the past the prevailing idea has been well expressed in the saying
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- that "Captains of industry are born, not made"; and the theory has been
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- that if one could get the right man, methods could be safely left to
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- him. In the future it will be appreciated that our leaders must be
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- trained right as well as born right, and that no great man can (with the
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- old system of personal management) hope to compete with a number of
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- ordinary men who have been properly organized so as efficiently to
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- cooperate.
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-
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- In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be
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- first. This in no sense, however, implies that great men are not needed.
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- On the contrary, the first object of any good system must be that of
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- developing first-class men; and under systematic management the best man
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- rises to the top more certainly and more rapidly than ever before.
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-
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- This paper has been written:
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-
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- First. To point out, through a series of simple illustrations, the great
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- loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost
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- all of our daily acts.
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-
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- Second. To try to convince the reader that the remedy for this
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- inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for
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- some unusual or extraordinary man.
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-
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- Third. To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon
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- clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And
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- further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management
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- are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest
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- individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for
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- the most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through a series of
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- illustrations, to convince the reader that whenever these principles are
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- correctly applied, results must follow which are truly astounding.
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-
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- This paper was originally prepared for presentation to the American
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- Society of Mechanical Engineers. The illustrations chosen are such as,
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- it is believed, will especially appeal to engineers and to managers of
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- industrial and manufacturing establishments, and also quite as much to
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- all of the men who are working in these establishments. It is hoped,
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- however, that it will be clear to other readers that the same principles
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- can be applied with equal force to all social activities: to the
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- management of our homes; the management of our farms; the management of
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- the business of our tradesmen, large and small; of our churches, our
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- philanthropic institutions our universities, and our governmental
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- departments.
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-
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-
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-
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- CHAPTER I
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-
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- FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
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-
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- The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum
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- prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for
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- each employee.
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-
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- The words "maximum prosperity" are used, in their broad sense, to mean
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- not only large dividends for the company or owner, but the development
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- of every branch of the business to its highest state of excellence, so
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- that the prosperity may be permanent. In the same way maximum prosperity
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- for each employee means not only higher wages than are usually received
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- by men of his class, but, of more importance still, it also means the
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- development of each man to his state of maximum efficiency, so that he
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- may be able to do, generally speaking, the highest grade of work for
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- which his natural abilities fit him, and it further means giving him,
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- when possible, this class of work to do.
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-
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- It would seem to be so self-evident that maximum prosperity for the
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- employer, coupled with maximum prosperity for the employee, ought to be
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- the two leading objects of management, that even to state this fact
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- should be unnecessary. And yet there is no question that, throughout the
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- industrial world, a large part of the organization of employers, as well
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- as employees, is for war rather than for peace, and that perhaps the
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- majority on either side do not believe that it is possible so to arrange
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- their mutual relations that their interests become identical.
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-
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- The majority of these men believe that the fundamental interests of
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- employees and employers are necessarily antagonistic. Scientific
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- management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm
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- conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that
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- prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years
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- unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee, and vice versa;
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- and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants--high
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- wages--and the employer what he wants--a low labor cost--for his
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- manufactures.
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-
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- It is hoped that some at least of those who do not sympathize with each
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- of these objects may be led to modify their views; that some employers,
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- whose attitude toward their workmen has been that of trying to get the
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- largest amount of work out of them for the smallest possible wages, may
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- be led to see that a more liberal policy toward their men will pay them
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- better; and that some of those workmen who begrudge a fair and even a
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- large profit to their employers, and who feel that all of the fruits of
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- their labor should belong to them, and that those for whom they work and
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- the capital invested in the business are entitled to little or nothing,
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- may be led to modify these views.
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-
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- No one can be found who will deny that in the case of any single
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- individual the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual
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- has reached his highest state of efficiency; that is, when he is turning
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- out his largest daily output.
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-
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- The truth of this fact is also perfectly clear in the case of two men
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- working together. To illustrate: if you and your workman have become so
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- skilful that you and he together are making two pairs of, shoes in a
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- day, while your competitor and his workman are making only one pair, it
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- is clear that after selling your two pairs of shoes you can pay your
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- workman much higher wages than your competitor who produces only one
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- pair of shoes is able to pay his man, and that there will still be
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- enough money left over for you to have a larger profit than your
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- competitor.
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-
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- In the case of a more complicated manufacturing establishment, it should
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- also be perfectly clear that the greatest permanent prosperity for the
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- workman, coupled with the greatest prosperity for the employer, can be
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- brought about only when the work of the establishment is done with the
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- smallest combined expenditure of human effort, plus nature's resources,
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- plus the cost for the use of capital in the shape of machines,
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- buildings, etc. Or, to state the same thing in a different way: that the
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- greatest prosperity can exist only as the result of the greatest
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- possible productivity of the men and machines of the establishment--that
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- is, when each man and each machine are turning out the largest possible
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- output; because unless your men and your machines are daily turning out
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- more work than others around you, it is clear that competition will
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- prevent your paying higher wages to your workmen than are paid to those
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- of your competitor. And what is true as to the possibility of paying
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- high wages in the case of two companies competing close beside one
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- another is also true as to whole districts of the country and even as to
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- nations which are in competition. In a word, that maximum prosperity can
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- exist only as the result of maximum productivity. Later in this paper
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- illustrations will be given of several companies which are earning large
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- dividends and at the same time paying from 30 per cent to 100 per cent
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- higher wages to their men than are paid to similar men immediately
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- around them, and with whose employers they are in competition. These
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- illustrations will cover different types of work, from the most
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- elementary to the most complicated.
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-
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- If the above reasoning is correct, it follows that the most important
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- object of both the workmen and the management should be the training and
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- development of each individual in the establishment, so that he can do
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- (at his fastest pace and with the maximum of efficiency) the highest
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- class of work for which his natural abilities fit him.
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-
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- These principles appear to be so self-evident that many men may think it
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- almost childish to state them. Let us, however, turn to the facts, as
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- they actually exist in this country and in England. The English and
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- American peoples are the greatest sportsmen in the world. Whenever an
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- American workman plays baseball, or an English workman plays cricket, it
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- is safe to say that he strains every nerve to secure victory for his
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- side. He does his very best to make the largest possible number of runs.
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- The universal sentiment is so strong that any man who fails to give out
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- all there is in him in sport is branded as a "quitter," and treated with
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- contempt by those who are around him.
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-
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- When the same workman returns to work on the following day, instead of
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- using every effort to turn out the largest possible amount of work, in a
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- majority of the cases this man deliberately plans to do as little as he
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- safely can to turn out far less work than he is well able to do in many
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- instances to do not more than one-third to one-half of a proper day's
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- work. And in fact if he were to do his best to turn out his largest
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- possible day's work, he would be abused by his fellow-workers for so
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- doing, even more than if he had proved himself a "quitter" in sport.
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- Under working, that is, deliberately working slowly so as to avoid doing
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- a full day's work, "soldiering," as it is called in this country,
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- "hanging it out," as it is called in England, "ca canae," as it is
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- called in Scotland, is almost universal in industrial establishments,
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- and prevails also to a large extent in the building trades; and the
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- writer asserts without fear of contradiction that this constitutes the
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- greatest evil with which the working-people of both England and America
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- are now afflicted.
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-
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- It will be shown later in this paper that doing away with slow working
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- and "soldiering" in all its forms and so arranging the relations between
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- employer and employs that each workman will work to his very best
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- advantage and at his best speed, accompanied by the intimate cooperation
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- with the management and the help (which the workman should receive) from
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- the management, would result on the average in nearly doubling the
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- output of each man and each machine. What other reforms, among those
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- which are being discussed by these two nations, could do as much toward
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- promoting prosperity, toward the diminution of poverty, and the
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- alleviation of suffering? America and England have been recently
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- agitated over such subjects as the tariff, the control of the large
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- corporations on the one hand, and of hereditary power on the other hand,
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- and over various more or less socialistic proposals for taxation, etc.
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- On these subjects both peoples have been profoundly stirred, and yet
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- hardly a voice has been raised to call attention to this vastly greater
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- and more important subject of "soldiering," which directly and
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- powerfully affects the wages, the prosperity, and the life of almost
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- every working-man, and also quite as much the prosperity of every
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- industrial, establishment in the nation.
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-
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- The elimination of "soldiering" and of the several causes of slow
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- working would so lower the cost of production that both our home and
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- foreign markets would be greatly enlarged, and we could compete on more
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- than even terms with our rivals. It would remove one of the fundamental
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- causes for dull times, for lack of employment, and for poverty, and
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- therefore would have a more permanent and far-reaching effect upon these
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- misfortunes than any of the curative remedies that are now being used to
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- soften their consequences. It would insure higher wages and make shorter
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- working hours and better working and home conditions possible.
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-
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- Why is it, then, in the face of the self-evident fact that maximum
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- prosperity can exist only as the result of the determined effort of each
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- workman to turn out each day his largest possible day's work, that the
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- great majority of our men are deliberately doing just the opposite, and
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- that even when the men have the best of intentions their work is in most
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- cases far from efficient?
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-
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- There are three causes for this condition, which may be briefly
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- summarized as:
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-
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- First. The fallacy, which has from time immemorial been almost universal
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- among workmen, that a material increase in the output of each man or
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- each machine in the trade would result in the end in throwing a large
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- number of men out of work.
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-
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- Second. The defective systems of management which are in common use, and
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- which make it necessary for each workman to soldier, or work slowly, in
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- order that he may protect his own best interests.
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-
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- Third. The inefficient rule-of-thumb methods, which are still almost
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- universal in all trades, and in practicing which our workmen waste a
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- large part of their effort.
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-
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- This paper will attempt to show the enormous gains which would result
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- from the substitution by our workmen of scientific for rule-of-thumb
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- methods.
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-
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- To explain a little more fully these three causes:
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-
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- First. The great majority of workmen still believe that if they were to
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- work at their best speed they would be doing a great injustice to the
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- whole trade by throwing a lot of men out of work, and yet the history of
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- the development of each trade shows that each improvement, whether it be
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- the invention of a new machine or the introduction of a better method,
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- which results in increasing the productive capacity of the men in the
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- trade and cheapening the costs, instead of throwing men out of work make
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- in the end work for more men.
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-
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- The cheapening of any article in common use almost immediately results
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- in a largely increased demand for that article. Take the case of shoes,
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- for instance. The introduction of machinery for doing every element of
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- the work which was formerly done by hand has resulted in making shoes at
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- a fraction of their former labor cost, and in selling them so cheap that
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- now almost every man, woman, and child in the working-classes buys one
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- or two pairs of shoes per year, and wears shoes all the time, whereas
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- formerly each workman bought perhaps one pair of shoes every five years,
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- and went barefoot most of the time, wearing shoes only as a luxury or as
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- a matter of the sternest necessity. In spite of the enormously increased
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- output of shoes per workman, which has come with shoe machinery, the
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- demand for shoes has so increased that there are relatively more men
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- working in the shoe industry now than ever before.
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-
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- The workmen in almost every trade have before them an object lesson of
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- this kind, and yet, because they are ignorant of the history of their
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- own trade even, they still firmly believe, as their fathers did before
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- them, that it is against their best interests for each man to turn out
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- each day as much work as possible.
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-
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- Under this fallacious idea a large proportion of the workmen of both
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- countries each day deliberately work slowly so as to curtail the output.
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- Almost every labor union has made, or is contemplating making, rules
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- which have for their object curtailing the output of their members,
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- and those men who have the greatest influence with the working-people,
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- the labor leaders as well as many people with philanthropic feelings who
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- are helping them, are daily spreading this fallacy and at the same time
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- telling them that they are overworked.
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-
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- A great deal has been and is being constantly said about "sweat-shop"
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- work and conditions. The writer has great sympathy with those who are
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- overworked, but on the whole a greater sympathy for those who are under
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- paid. For every individual, however, who is overworked, there are a
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- hundred who intentionally under work--greatly under work--every day of
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- their lives, and who for this reason deliberately aid in establishing
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- those conditions which in the end inevitably result in low wages. And
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- yet hardly a single voice is being raised in an endeavor to correct this
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- evil.
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-
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- As engineers and managers, we are more intimately acquainted with these
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- facts than any other class in the community, and are therefore best
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- fitted to lead in a movement to combat this fallacious idea by educating
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- not only the workmen but the whole of the country as to the true facts.
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- And yet we are practically doing nothing in this direction, and are
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- leaving this field entirely in the hands of the labor agitators (many of
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- whom are misinformed and misguided), and of sentimentalists who are
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- ignorant as to actual working conditions.
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-
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- Second. As to the second cause for soldiering--the relations which exist
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- between employers and employees under almost all of the systems of
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- management which are in common use--it is impossible in a few words to
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- make it clear to one not familiar with this problem why it is that the
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- ignorance of employers as to the proper time in which work of various
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- kinds should be done makes it for the interest of the workman to
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- "soldier."
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-
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- The writer therefore quotes herewith from a paper read before The
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- American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in June, 1903, entitled "Shop
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- Management," which it is hoped will explain fully this cause for
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- soldiering:
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-
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- "This loafing or soldiering proceeds from two causes. First, from the
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- natural instinct and tendency of men to take it easy, which may be
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- called natural soldiering. Second, from more intricate second thought
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- and reasoning caused by their relations with other men, which may be
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- called systematic soldiering."
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-
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- "There is no question that the tendency of the average man (in all walks
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- of life) is toward working at a slow, easy gait, and that it is only
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- after a good deal of thought and observation on his part or as a result
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- of example, conscience, or external pressure that he takes a more rapid
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- pace."
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-
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- "There are, of course, men of unusual energy, vitality, and ambition who
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- naturally choose the fastest gait, who set up their own standards, and
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- who work hard, even though it may be against their best interests. But
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- these few uncommon men only serve by forming a contrast to emphasize the
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- tendency of the average."
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-
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- "This common tendency to 'take it easy' is greatly increased by bringing
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- a number of men together on similar work and at a uniform standard rate
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- of pay by the day."
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-
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- "Under this plan the better men gradually but surely slow down their
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- gait to that of the poorest and least efficient. When a naturally
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- energetic man works for a few days beside a lazy one, the logic of the
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- situation is unanswerable."
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-
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- "Why should I work hard when that lazy fellow gets the same pay that I
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- do and does only half as much work?"
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-
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- "A careful time study of men working under these conditions will
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- disclose facts which are ludicrous as well as pitiable."
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-
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- "To illustrate: The writer has timed a naturally energetic workman who,
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- while going and coming from work, would walk at a speed of from three to
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- four miles per hour, and not infrequently trot home after a day's work.
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- On arriving at his work he would immediately slow down to a speed of
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- about one mile an hour. When, for example, wheeling a loaded
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- wheelbarrow, he would go at a good fast pace even up hill in order to be
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- as short a time as possible under load, and immediately on the return
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- walk slow down to a mile an hour, improving every opportunity for delay
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- short of actually sitting down. In order to be sure not to do more than
433
- his lazy neighbor, he would actually tire himself in his effort to go
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- slow."
435
-
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- "These men were working under a foreman of good reputation and highly
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- thought of by his employer, who, when his attention was called to this
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- state of things, answered: 'Well, I can keep them from sitting down, but
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- the devil can't make them get a move on while they are at work.'"
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-
441
- "The natural laziness of men is serious, but by far the greatest evil
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- from which both workmen and employers are suffering is the systematic
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- soldiering which is almost universal under all of the ordinary schemes
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- of management and which results from a careful study on the part of the
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- workmen of what will promote their best interests."
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-
447
- "The writer was much interested recently in hearing one small but
448
- experienced golf caddy boy of twelve explaining to a green caddy, who
449
- had shown special energy and interest, the necessity of going slow and
450
- lagging behind his man when he came up to the ball, showing him that
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- since they were paid by the hour, the faster they went the less money
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- they got, and finally telling him that if he went too fast the other
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- boys would give him a licking."
454
-
455
- "This represents a type of systematic soldiering which is not, however,
456
- very serious, since it is done with the knowledge of the employer, who
457
- can quite easily break it up if he wishes."
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-
459
- "The greater part of the systematic soldiering, however, is done by the
460
- men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of
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- how fast work can be done."
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-
463
- "So universal is soldiering for this purpose that hardly a competent
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- workman can be found in a large establishment, whether he works by the
465
- day or on piece work, contract work, or under any of the ordinary
466
- systems, who does not devote a considerable part of his time to studying
467
- just how slow he can work and still convince his employer that he is
468
- going at a good pace."
469
-
470
- "The causes for this are, briefly, that practically all employers
471
- determine upon a maximum sum which they feel it is right for each of
472
- their classes of employees to earn per day, whether their men work by
473
- the day or piece."
474
-
475
- "Each workman soon finds out about what this figure is for his
476
- particular case, and he also realizes that when his employer is
477
- convinced that a man is capable of doing more work than he has done, he
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- will find sooner or later some way of compelling him to do it with
479
- little or no increase of pay."
480
-
481
- "Employers derive their knowledge of how much of a given class of work
482
- can be done in a day from either their own experience, which has
483
- frequently grown hazy with age, from casual and unsystematic observation
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- of their men, or at best from records which are kept, showing the
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- quickest time in which each job has been done. In many cases the
486
- employer will feel almost certain that a given job can be done faster
487
- than it has been, but he rarely cares to take the drastic measures
488
- necessary to force men to do it in the quickest time, unless he has an
489
- actual record proving conclusively how fast the work can be done."
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-
491
- "It evidently becomes for each man's interest, then, to see that no job
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- is done faster than it has been in the past. The younger and less
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- experienced men are taught this by their elders, and all possible
494
- persuasion and social pressure is brought to bear upon the greedy and
495
- selfish men to keep them from making new records which result in
496
- temporarily increasing their wages, while all those who come after them
497
- are made to work harder for the same old pay."
498
-
499
- "Under the best day work of the ordinary type, when accurate records are
500
- kept of the amount of work done by each man and of his efficiency, and
501
- when each man's wages are raised as he improves, and those who fail to
502
- rise to a certain standard are discharged and a fresh supply of
503
- carefully selected men are given work in their places, both the natural
504
- loafing and systematic soldiering can be largely broken up. This can
505
- only be done, however, when the men are thoroughly convinced that there
506
- is no intention of establishing piece work even in the remote future,
507
- and it is next to impossible to make men believe this when the work is
508
- of such a nature that they believe piece work to be practicable. In most
509
- cases their fear of making a record which will be used as a basis for
510
- piece work will cause them to soldier as much as they dare."
511
-
512
- "It is, however, under piece work that the art of systematic soldiering
513
- is thoroughly developed; after a workman has had the price per piece of
514
- the work he is doing lowered two or three times as a result of his
515
- having worked harder and increased his output, he is likely entirely to
516
- lose sight of his employer's side of the case and become imbued with a
517
- grim determination to have no more cuts if soldiering can prevent it.
518
- Unfortunately for the character of the workman, soldiering involves a
519
- deliberate attempt to mislead and deceive his employer, and thus upright
520
- and straightforward workmen are compelled to become more or less
521
- hypocritical. The employer is soon looked upon as an antagonist, if not
522
- an enemy, and the mutual confidence which should exist between a leader
523
- and his men, the enthusiasm, the feeling that they are all working for
524
- the same end and will share in the results is entirely lacking.
525
-
526
- "The feeling of antagonism under the ordinary piece-work system becomes
527
- in many cases so marked on the part of the men that any proposition made
528
- by their employers, however reasonable, is looked upon with suspicion,
529
- and soldiering becomes such a fixed habit that men will frequently take
530
- pains to restrict the product of machines which they are running when
531
- even a large increase in output would involve no more work on their
532
- part."
533
-
534
- Third. As to the third cause for slow work, considerable space will
535
- later in this paper be devoted to illustrating the great gain, both to
536
- employers and employees, which results from the substitution of
537
- scientific for rule-of-thumb methods in even the smallest details of the
538
- work of every trade. The enormous saving of time and therefore increase
539
- in the output which it is possible to effect through eliminating
540
- unnecessary motions and substituting fast for slow and inefficient
541
- motions for the men working in any of our trades can be fully realized
542
- only after one has personally seen the improvement which results from a
543
- thorough motion and time study, made by a competent man.
544
-
545
- To explain briefly: owing to the fact that the workmen in all of our
546
- trades have been taught the details of their work by observation of
547
- those immediately around them, there are many different ways in common
548
- use for doing the same thing, perhaps forty, fifty, or a hundred ways of
549
- doing each act in each trade, and for the same reason there is a great
550
- variety in the implements used for each class of work. Now, among the
551
- various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there
552
- is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than
553
- any of the rest.
554
-
555
- And this one best method and best implement can only be discovered or
556
- developed through a scientific study and analysis of all of the methods
557
- and implements in use, together with accurate, minute, motion and time
558
- study. This involves the gradual substitution of science for rule of
559
- thumb throughout the mechanic arts.
560
-
561
- This paper will show that the underlying philosophy of all of the old
562
- systems of management in common use makes it imperative that each
563
- workman shall be left with the final responsibility for doing his job
564
- practically as he thinks best, with comparatively little help and advice
565
- from the management. And it will also show that because of this
566
- isolation of workmen, it is in most cases impossible for the men working
567
- under these systems to do their work in accordance with the rules and
568
- laws of a science or art, even where one exists.
569
-
570
- The writer asserts as a general principle (and he proposes to give
571
- illustrations tending to prove the fact later in this paper) that in
572
- almost all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of
573
- each workman is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is
574
- best suited to actually doing the work is incapable of fully
575
- understanding this science, without the guidance and help of those who
576
- are working with him or over him, either through lack of education or
577
- through insufficient mental capacity. In order that the work may be done
578
- in accordance with scientific laws, it is necessary that there shall be
579
- a far more equal division of the responsibility between the management
580
- and the workmen than exists under any of the ordinary types of
581
- management. Those in the management whose duty it is to develop this
582
- science should also guide and help the workman in working under it, and
583
- should assume a much larger share of the responsibility for results than
584
- under usual conditions is assumed by the management.
585
-
586
- The body of this paper will make it clear that, to work according to
587
- scientific laws, the management must take over and perform much of the
588
- work which is now left to the men; almost every act of the workman
589
- should be preceded by one or more preparatory acts of the management
590
- which enable him to do his work better and quicker than he otherwise
591
- could. And each man should daily be taught by and receive the most
592
- friendly help from those who are over him, instead of being, at the one
593
- extreme, driven or coerced by his bosses, and at the other left to his
594
- own unaided devices.
595
-
596
- This close, intimate, personal cooperation between the management and
597
- the men is of the essence of modern scientific or task management.
598
-
599
- It will be shown by a series of practical illustrations that, through
600
- this friendly cooperation, namely, through sharing equally in every
601
- day's burden, all of the great obstacles (above described) to obtaining
602
- the maximum output for each man and each machine in the establishment
603
- are swept away. The 30 per cent to 100 per cent increase in wages which
604
- the workmen are able to earn beyond what they receive under the old type
605
- of management, coupled with the daily intimate shoulder to shoulder
606
- contact with the management, entirely removes all cause for soldiering.
607
- And in a few years, under this system, the workmen have before them the
608
- object lesson of seeing that a great increase in the output per man
609
- results in giving employment to more men, instead of throwing men out of
610
- work, thus completely eradicating the fallacy that a larger output for
611
- each man will throw other men out of work.
612
-
613
- It is the writer's judgment, then, that while much can be done and
614
- should be done by writing and talking toward educating not only workmen,
615
- but all classes in the community, as to the importance of obtaining the
616
- maximum output of each man and each machine, it is only through the
617
- adoption of modern scientific management that this great problem can be
618
- finally solved. Probably most of the readers of this paper will say that
619
- all of this is mere theory. On the contrary, the theory, or philosophy,
620
- of scientific management is just beginning to be understood, whereas the
621
- management itself has been a gradual evolution, extending over a period
622
- of nearly thirty years. And during this time the employees of one
623
- company after another, including a large range and diversity of
624
- industries, have gradually changed from the ordinary to the scientific
625
- type of management. At least 50,000 workmen in the United States are now
626
- employed under this system; and they are receiving from 30 per cent to
627
- 100 per cent higher wages daily than are paid to men of similar caliber
628
- with whom they are surrounded, while the companies employing them are
629
- more prosperous than ever before. In these companies the output, per man
630
- and per machine, has on an average been doubled. During all these years
631
- there has never been a single strike among the men working under this
632
- system. In place of the suspicious watchfulness and the more or less
633
- open warfare which characterizes the ordinary types of management, there
634
- is universally friendly cooperation between the management and the men.
635
-
636
- Several papers have been written, describing the expedients which have
637
- been adopted and the details which have been developed under scientific
638
- management and the steps to be taken in changing from the ordinary to
639
- the scientific type. But unfortunately most of the readers of these
640
- papers have mistaken the mechanism for the true essence. Scientific
641
- management fundamentally consists of certain broad general principles, a
642
- certain philosophy, which can be applied in many ways, and a description
643
- of what any one man or men may believe to be the best mechanism for
644
- applying these general principles should in no way be confused with the
645
- principles themselves.
646
-
647
- It is not here claimed that any single panacea exists for all of the
648
- troubles of the working-people or of employers. As long as some people
649
- are born lazy or inefficient, and others are born greedy and brutal, as
650
- long as vice and crime are with us, just so long will a certain amount
651
- of poverty, misery, and unhappiness be with us Also. No system of
652
- management, no single expedient--within the control of any man or any
653
- set of men can insure continuous prosperity to either workmen or
654
- employers. Prosperity depends upon so many factors entirely beyond the
655
- control of any one set of men, any state, or even any one country, that
656
- certain periods will inevitably come when both sides must suffer, more
657
- or less. It is claimed, however, that under scientific management the
658
- intermediate periods will be far more prosperous, far happier, and more
659
- free from discord and dissension. And also, that the periods will be
660
- fewer, shorter and the suffering less. And this will be particularly
661
- true in any one town, any one section of the country, or any one state
662
- which first substitutes the principles of scientific management for the
663
- rule of thumb.
664
-
665
- That these principles are certain to come into general use practically
666
- throughout the civilized world, sooner or later, the writer is
667
- profoundly convinced, and the sooner they come the better for all the
668
- people.
669
-
670
-
671
-
672
- CHAPTER II
673
-
674
- THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
675
-
676
- The writer has found that there are three questions uppermost in the
677
- minds of men when they become interested in scientific management.
678
-
679
- First. Wherein do the principles of scientific management differ
680
- essentially from those of ordinary management?
681
-
682
- Second. Why are better results attained under scientific management than
683
- under the other types?
684
-
685
- Third. Is not the most important problem that of getting the right man
686
- at the head of the company? And if you have the right man cannot the
687
- choice of the type of management be safely left to him?
688
-
689
- One of the principal objects of the following pages will be to give a
690
- satisfactory answer to these questions.
691
-
692
-
693
- THE FINEST TYPE OF ORDINARY MANAGEMENT
694
-
695
- Before starting to illustrate the principles of scientific management,
696
- or "task management" as it is briefly called, it seems desirable to
697
- outline what the writer believes will be recognized as the best type of
698
- management which is in common use. This is done so that the great
699
- difference between the best of the ordinary management and scientific
700
- management may be fully appreciated.
701
-
702
- In an industrial establishment which employs say from 500 to 1000
703
- workmen, there will be found in many cases at least twenty to thirty
704
- different trades. The workmen in each of these trades have had their
705
- knowledge handed down to them by word of mouth, through the many years
706
- in which their trade has been developed from the primitive condition, in
707
- which our far-distant ancestors each one practiced the rudiments of many
708
- different trades, to the present state of great and growing subdivision
709
- of labor, in which each man specializes upon some comparatively small
710
- class of work.
711
-
712
- The ingenuity of each generation has developed quicker and better
713
- methods for doing every element of the work in every trade. Thus the
714
- methods which are now in use may in a broad sense be said to be an
715
- evolution representing the survival of the fittest and best of the ideas
716
- which have been developed since the starting of each trade. However,
717
- while this is true in a broad sense, only those who are intimately
718
- acquainted with each of these trades are fully aware of the fact that in
719
- hardly any element of any trade is there uniformity in the methods which
720
- are used. Instead of having only one way which is generally accepted as
721
- a standard, there are in daily use, say, fifty or a hundred different
722
- ways of doing each element of the work. And a little thought will make
723
- it clear that this must inevitably be the case, since our methods have
724
- been handed down from man to man by word of mouth, or have, in most
725
- cases, been almost unconsciously learned through personal observation.
726
- Practically in no instances have they been codified or systematically
727
- analyzed or described. The ingenuity and experience of each
728
- generation--of each decade, even, have without doubt handed over better
729
- methods to the next. This mass of rule-of-thumb or traditional knowledge
730
- may be said to be the principal asset or possession of every tradesman.
731
- Now, in the best of the ordinary types of management, the managers
732
- recognize frankly the fact that the 500 or 1000 workmen, included in the
733
- twenty to thirty trades, who are under them, possess this mass of
734
- traditional knowledge, a large part of which is not in the possession of
735
- the management. The management, of course, includes foremen and
736
- superintendents, who themselves have been in most cases first-class
737
- workers at their trades. And yet these foremen and superintendents know,
738
- better than any one else, that their own knowledge and personal skill
739
- falls far short of the combined knowledge and dexterity of all the
740
- workmen under them. The most experienced managers therefore frankly
741
- place before their workmen the problem of doing the work in the best and
742
- most economical way. They recognize the task before them as that of
743
- inducing each workman to use his best endeavors, his hardest work, all
744
- his traditional knowledge, his skill, his ingenuity, and his
745
- good-will--in a word, his "initiative," so as to yield the largest
746
- possible return to his employer. The problem before the management,
747
- then, may be briefly said to be that of obtaining the best initiative of
748
- every workman. And the writer uses the word "initiative" in its broadest
749
- sense, to cover all of the good qualities sought for from the men.
750
-
751
- On the other hand, no intelligent manager would hope to obtain in any
752
- full measure the initiative of his workmen unless he felt that he was
753
- giving them something more than they usually receive from their
754
- employers. Only those among the readers of this paper who have been
755
- managers or who have worked themselves at a trade realize how far the
756
- average workman falls short of giving his employer his full initiative.
757
- It is well within the mark to state that in nineteen out of twenty
758
- industrial establishments the workmen believe it to be directly against
759
- their interests to give their employers their best initiative, and that
760
- instead of working hard to do the largest possible amount of work and
761
- the best quality of work for their employers, they deliberately work as
762
- slowly as they dare while they at the same time try to make those over
763
- them believe that they are working fast.*
764
-
765
- [*Footnote: The writer has tried to make the reason for this unfortunate
766
- state of things clear in a paper entitled "Shop Management," read before
767
- the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.]
768
-
769
- The writer repeats, therefore, that in order to have any hope of
770
- obtaining the initiative of his workmen the manager must give some
771
- special incentive to his men beyond that which is given to the average
772
- of the trade. This incentive can be given in several different ways, as,
773
- for example, the hope of rapid promotion or advancement; higher wages,
774
- either in the form of generous piece-work prices or of a premium or
775
- bonus of some kind for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor;
776
- better surroundings and working conditions than are ordinarily given,
777
- etc., and, above all, this special incentive should be accompanied by
778
- that personal consideration for, and friendly contact with, his workmen
779
- which comes only from a genuine and kindly interest in the welfare of
780
- those under him. It is only by giving a special inducement or
781
- "incentive" of this kind that the employer can hope even approximately
782
- to get the "initiative" of his workmen. Under the ordinary type of
783
- management the necessity for offering the workman a special inducement
784
- has come to be so generally recognized that a large proportion of those
785
- most interested in the subject look upon the adoption of some one of the
786
- modern schemes for paying men (such as piece work, the premium plan, or
787
- the bonus plan, for instance) as practically the whole system of
788
- management. Under scientific management, however, the particular pay
789
- system which is adopted is merely one of the subordinate elements.
790
-
791
- Broadly speaking, then, the best type of management in ordinary use may
792
- be defined as management in which the workmen give their best initiative
793
- and in return receive some special incentive from their employers. This
794
- type of management will be referred to as the management of "initiative
795
- and incentive" in contradistinction to scientific management, or task
796
- management, with which it is to be compared.
797
-
798
- The writer hopes that the management of "initiative and incentive" will
799
- be recognized as representing the best type in ordinary use, and in fact
800
- he believes that it will be hard to persuade the average manager that
801
- anything better exists in the whole field than this type. The task which
802
- the writer has before him, then, is the difficult one of trying to prove
803
- in a thoroughly convincing way that there is another type of management
804
- which is not only better but overwhelmingly better than the management
805
- of "initiative and incentive."
806
-
807
- The universal prejudice in favor of the management of "initiative and
808
- incentive" is so strong that no mere theoretical advantages which can be
809
- pointed out will be likely to convince the average manager that any
810
- other system is better. It will be upon a series of practical
811
- illustrations of the actual working of the two systems that the writer
812
- will depend in his efforts to prove that scientific management is so
813
- greatly superior to other types. Certain elementary principles, a
814
- certain philosophy, will however be recognized as the essence of that
815
- which is being illustrated in all of the practical examples which will
816
- be given. And the broad principles in which the scientific system
817
- differs from the ordinary or "rule-of-thumb" system are so simple in
818
- their nature that it seems desirable to describe them before starting
819
- with the illustrations.
820
-
821
- Under the old type of management success depends almost entirely upon
822
- getting the "initiative" of the workmen, and it is indeed a rare case in
823
- which this initiative is really attained. Under scientific management
824
- the "initiative" of the workmen (that is, their hard work, their
825
- good-will, and their ingenuity) is obtained with absolute uniformity and
826
- to a greater extent than is possible under the old system; and in
827
- addition to this improvement on the part of the men, the managers assume
828
- new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the
829
- past. The managers assume, for instance, the burden of gathering
830
- together all of the traditional knowledge which in the past has been
831
- possessed by the workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and
832
- reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, and formulae which are immensely
833
- helpful to the workmen in doing their daily work. In addition to
834
- developing a science in this way, the management take on three other
835
- types of duties which involve new and heavy burdens for themselves.
836
-
837
- These new duties are grouped under four heads:
838
-
839
- First. They develop a science for each element of a man's work, which
840
- replaces the old rule-of.-thumb method.
841
-
842
- Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop
843
- the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained
844
- himself as best he could.
845
-
846
- Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the
847
- work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which
848
- has been developed.
849
-
850
- Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the
851
- responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management
852
- take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen,
853
- while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the
854
- responsibility were thrown upon the men.
855
-
856
- It is this combination of the initiative of the workmen, coupled with
857
- the new types of work done by the management, that makes scientific
858
- management so much more efficient than the old plan.
859
-
860
- Three of these elements exist in many cases, under the management of
861
- "initiative and incentive," in a small and rudimentary way, but they
862
- are, under this management, of minor importance, whereas under
863
- scientific management they form the very essence of the whole system.
864
-
865
- The fourth of these elements, "an almost equal division of the
866
- responsibility between the management and the workmen," requires further
867
- explanation. The philosophy of the management of initiative and
868
- incentive makes it necessary for each workman to bear almost the entire
869
- responsibility for the general plan as well as for each detail of his
870
- work, and in many cases for his implements as well. In addition to this
871
- he must do all of the actual physical labor. The development of a
872
- science, on the other hand, involves the establishment of many rules,
873
- laws, and formulae which replace the judgment of the individual workman
874
- and which can be effectively used only after having been systematically
875
- recorded, indexed, etc. The practical use of scientific data also calls
876
- for a room in which to keep the books, records*, etc., and a desk for
877
- the planner to work at.
878
-
879
- [*Footnote: For example, the records containing the data used under
880
- scientific management in an ordinary machine-shop fill thousands of
881
- pages.]
882
-
883
- Thus all of the planning which under the old system was done by the
884
- workman, as a result of his personal experience, must of necessity under
885
- the new system be done by the management in accordance with the laws of
886
- the science; because even if the workman was well suited to the
887
- development and use of scientific data, it would be physically
888
- impossible for him to work at his machine and at a desk at the same
889
- time. It is also clear that in most cases one type of man is needed to
890
- plan ahead and an entirely different type to execute the work.
891
-
892
- The man in the planning room, whose specialty under scientific
893
- management is planning ahead, invariably finds that the work can be done
894
- better and more economically by a subdivision of the labor; each act of
895
- each mechanic, for example, should be preceded by various preparatory
896
- acts done by other men. And all of this involves, as we have said, "an
897
- almost equal division of the responsibility and the work between the
898
- management and the workman."
899
-
900
- To summarize: Under the management of "initiative and incentive"
901
- practically the whole problem is "up to the workman," while under
902
- scientific management fully one-half of the problem is "up to the
903
- management."
904
-
905
- Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern scientific
906
- management is the task idea. The work of every workman is fully planned
907
- out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives
908
- in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the
909
- task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing
910
- the work. And the work planned in advance in this way constitutes a task
911
- which is to be solved, as explained above, not by the workman alone, but
912
- in almost all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the
913
- management. This task specifies not only what is to be done but how it
914
- is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it. And whenever the
915
- workman succeeds in doing his task right, and within the time limit
916
- specified, he receives an addition of from 30 per cent to 100 per cent
917
- to his ordinary wages. These tasks are carefully planned, so that both
918
- good and careful work are called for in their performance, but it should
919
- be distinctly understood that in no case is the workman called upon to
920
- work at a pace which would be injurious to his health. The task is
921
- always so regulated that the man who is well suited to his job will
922
- thrive while working at this rate during a long term of years and grow
923
- happier and more prosperous, instead of being overworked. Scientific
924
- management consists very largely in preparing for and carrying out these
925
- tasks.
926
-
927
- The writer is fully aware that to perhaps most of the readers of this
928
- paper the four elements which differentiate the new management from the
929
- old will at first appear to be merely high-sounding phrases; and he
930
- would again repeat that he has no idea of convincing the reader of their
931
- value merely through announcing their existence. His hope of carrying
932
- conviction rests upon demonstrating the tremendous force and effect of
933
- these four elements through a series of practical illustrations. It will
934
- be shown, first, that they can be applied absolutely to all classes of
935
- work, from the most elementary to the most intricate; and second, that
936
- when they are applied, the results must of necessity be overwhelmingly
937
- greater than those which it is possible to attain under the management
938
- of initiative and incentive.
939
-
940
- The first illustration is that of handling pig iron, and this work is
941
- chosen because it is typical of perhaps the crudest and most elementary
942
- form of labor which is performed by man. This work is done by men with
943
- no other implements than their hands. The pig-iron handler stoops down,
944
- picks up a pig weighing about 92 pounds, walks for a few feet or yards
945
- and then drops it on to the ground or upon a pile. This work is so crude
946
- and elementary in its nature that the writer firmly believes that it
947
- would be possible to train an intelligent, gorilla so as to become a
948
- more efficient pig-iron handler than any man can be. Yet it will be
949
- shown that the science of handling pig iron is so great and amounts to
950
- so much that it is impossible for the man who is best suited to this
951
- type of work to understand the principles of this science, or even to
952
- work in accordance with these principles without the aid of a man better
953
- educated than he is. And the further illustrations to be given will make
954
- it clear that in almost all of the mechanic arts the science which
955
- underlies each workman's act is so great and amounts to so much that the
956
- workman who is best suited actually to do the work is incapable (either
957
- through lack of education or through insufficient mental capacity) of
958
- understanding this science. This is announced as a general principle,
959
- the truth of which will become apparent as one illustration after
960
- another is given. After showing these four elements in the handling of
961
- pig iron, several illustrations will be given of their application to
962
- different kinds of work in the field of the mechanic arts, at intervals
963
- in a rising scale, beginning with the simplest and ending with the more
964
- intricate forms of labor.
965
-
966
- One of the first pieces of work undertaken by us, when the writer
967
- started to introduce scientific management into the Bethlehem Steel
968
- Company, was to handle pig iron on task work. The opening of the Spanish
969
- War found some 80,000 tons of pig iron placed in small piles in an open
970
- field adjoining the works. Prices for pig iron had been so low that it
971
- could not be sold at a profit, and it therefore had been stored. With
972
- the opening of the Spanish War the price of pig iron rose, and this
973
- large accumulation of iron was sold. This gave us a good opportunity to
974
- show the workmen, as well as the owners and managers of the works, on a
975
- fairly large scale the advantages of task work over the old-fashioned
976
- day work and piece work, in doing a very elementary class of work.
977
-
978
- The Bethlehem Steel Company had five blast furnaces, the product of
979
- which had been handled by a pig-iron gang for many years. This gang, at
980
- this time, consisted of about 75 men. They were good, average pig-iron
981
- handlers, were under an excellent foreman who himself had been a
982
- pig-iron handler, and the work was done, on the whole, about as fast and
983
- as cheaply as it was anywhere else at that time.
984
-
985
- A railroad switch was run out into the field, right along the edge of
986
- the piles of pig iron. An inclined plank was placed against the side of
987
- a car, and each man picked up from his pile a pig of iron weighing about
988
- 92 pounds, walked up the inclined plank and dropped it on the end of the
989
- car.
990
-
991
- We found that this gang were loading on the average about 12 and a half
992
- long tons per man per day. We were surprised to find, after studying the
993
- matter, that a first-class pig-iron handler ought to handle between 47,
994
- and 48 long tons per day, instead of 12 and a half tons. This task
995
- seemed to us so very large that we were obliged to go over our work
996
- several times before we were absolutely sure that we were right. Once we
997
- were sure, however, that 47 tons was a proper day's work for a
998
- first-class pig-iron handler, the task which faced us as managers under
999
- the modern scientific plan was clearly before us. It was our duty to see
1000
- that the 80,000 tons of pig iron was loaded on to the cars at the rate
1001
- of 47 tons per man per day, in place of 12 and a half tons, at which
1002
- rate the work was then being done. And it was further our duty to see
1003
- that this work was done without bringing on a strike among the men,
1004
- without any quarrel with the men, and to see that the men were happier
1005
- and better contented when loading at the new rate of 47 tons than they
1006
- were when loading at the old rate of 12 and a half tons.
1007
-
1008
- Our first step was the scientific selection of the workman. In dealing
1009
- with workmen under this type of management, it is an inflexible rule to
1010
- talk to and deal with only one man at a time, since each workman has his
1011
- own special abilities and limitations, and since we are not dealing with
1012
- men in masses, but are trying to develop each individual man to his
1013
- highest state of efficiency and prosperity. Our first step was to find
1014
- the proper workman to begin with. We therefore carefully watched and
1015
- studied these 75 men for three or four days, at the end of which time we
1016
- had picked out four men who appeared to be physically able to handle pig
1017
- iron at the rate of 47 tons per day. A careful study was then made of
1018
- each of these men. We looked up their history as far back as practicable
1019
- and thorough inquiries were made as to the character, habits, and the
1020
- ambition of each of them. Finally we selected one from among the four as
1021
- the most likely man to start with. He was a little Pennsylvania Dutchman
1022
- who had been observed to trot back home for a mile or so after his work
1023
- in the evening about as fresh as he was when he came trotting down to
1024
- work in the morning. We found that upon wages of $1.15 a day he had
1025
- succeeded in buying a small plot of ground, and that he was engaged in
1026
- putting up the walls of a little house for himself in the morning before
1027
- starting to work and at night after leaving. He also had the reputation
1028
- of being exceedingly "close," that is, of placing a very high value on a
1029
- dollar. As one man whom we talked to about him said, "A penny looks
1030
- about the size of a cart-wheel to him." This man we will call Schmidt.
1031
-
1032
- The task before us, then, narrowed itself down to getting Schmidt to
1033
- handle 47 tons of pig iron per day and making him glad to do it. This
1034
- was done as follows. Schmidt was called out from among the gang of
1035
- pig-iron handlers and talked to somewhat in this way:
1036
-
1037
- "Schmidt, are you a high-priced man?"
1038
-
1039
- "Vell, I don't know vat you mean."
1040
-
1041
- "Oh yes, you do. What I want to know is whether you are a high-priced
1042
- man or not."
1043
-
1044
- "Vell, I don't know vat you mean."
1045
-
1046
- "Oh, come now, you answer my questions. What I want to find out is
1047
- whether you are a high-priced man or one of these cheap fellows here.
1048
- What I want to find out is whether you want to earn $1.85 a day or
1049
- whether you are satisfied with $1.15, just the same as all those cheap
1050
- fellows are getting."
1051
-
1052
- "Did I vant $1.85 a day? Vas dot a high-priced man? Vell, yes, I vas a
1053
- high-priced man."
1054
-
1055
- "Oh, you're aggravating me. Of course you want $1.85 a day--every one
1056
- wants it! You know perfectly well that that has very little to do with
1057
- your being a high-priced man. For goodness' sake answer my questions,
1058
- and don't waste any more of my time. Now come over here. You see that
1059
- pile of pig iron?"
1060
-
1061
- "Yes."
1062
-
1063
- "You see that car?"
1064
-
1065
- "Yes."
1066
-
1067
- "Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will load that pig iron on that
1068
- car tomorrow for $1.85. Now do wake up and answer my question. Tell me
1069
- whether you are a high-priced man or not."
1070
-
1071
- "Vell, did I got $1.85 for loading dot pig iron on dot car to-morrow?"
1072
-
1073
- "Yes, of course you do, and you get $1.85 for loading a pile like that
1074
- every day right through the year. That is what a high-priced man does,
1075
- and you know it just as well as I do."
1076
-
1077
- "Vell, dot's all right. I could load dot pig iron on the car to-morrow
1078
- for $1.85, and I get it every day, don't I?"
1079
-
1080
- "Certainly you do--certainly you do."
1081
-
1082
- "Vell, den, I vas a high-priced man."
1083
-
1084
- "Now, hold on, hold on. You know just as well as I do that a high-priced
1085
- man has to do exactly as he's told from morning till night. You have
1086
- seen this man here before, haven't you?"
1087
-
1088
- "No, I never saw him."
1089
-
1090
- "Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will do exactly as this man
1091
- tells you tomorrow, from morning till night. When he tells you to pick
1092
- up a pig and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when he tells you to
1093
- sit down and rest, you sit down. You do that right straight through the
1094
- day. And what's more, no back talk. Now a high-priced man does just what
1095
- he's told to do, and no back talk. Do you understand that? When this man
1096
- tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit
1097
- down, and you don't talk back at him. Now you come on to work here
1098
- to-morrow morning and I'll know before night whether you are really a
1099
- high-priced man or not."
1100
-
1101
- This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to
1102
- an educated mechanic, or even an intelligent laborer. With a man of the
1103
- mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not unkind,
1104
- since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he
1105
- wants and away from what, if it were called to his attention, he
1106
- probably would consider impossibly hard work.
1107
-
1108
- What would Schmidt's answer be if he were talked to in a manner which is
1109
- usual under the management of "initiative and incentive"? say, as
1110
- follows:
1111
-
1112
- "Now, Schmidt, you are a first-class pig-iron handler and know your
1113
- business well. You have been handling at the rate of 12 and a half tons
1114
- per day. I have given considerable study to handling pig iron, and feel
1115
- sure that you could do a much larger day's work than you have been
1116
- doing. Now don't you think that if you really tried you could handle 47
1117
- tons of pig iron per day, instead of 12 and a half tons?"
1118
-
1119
- What do you think Schmidt's answer would be to this?
1120
-
1121
- Schmidt started to work, and all day long, and at regular intervals, was
1122
- told by the man who stood over him with a watch, "Now pick up a pig and
1123
- walk. Now sit down and rest. Now walk--now rest," etc. He worked when
1124
- he was told to work, and rested when he was told to rest, and at
1125
- half-past five in the afternoon had his 47 and a half tons loaded on the
1126
- car. And he practically never failed to work at this pace and do the
1127
- task that was set him during the three years that the writer was at
1128
- Bethlehem. And throughout this time he averaged a little more than $1.85
1129
- per day, whereas before he had never received over $1.15 per day, which
1130
- was the ruling rate of wages at that time in Bethlehem. That is, he
1131
- received 60 per cent. higher wages than were paid to other men who were
1132
- not working on task work. One man after another was picked out and
1133
- trained to handle pig iron at the rate of 47 and a half tons per day
1134
- until all of the pig iron was handled at this rate, and the men were
1135
- receiving 60 per cent. more wages than other workmen around them.
1136
-
1137
- The writer has given above a brief description of three of the four
1138
- elements which constitute the essence of scientific management: first,
1139
- the careful selection of the workman, and, second and third, the method
1140
- of first inducing and then training and helping the workman to work
1141
- according to the scientific method. Nothing has as yet been said about
1142
- the science of handling pig iron. The writer trusts, however, that
1143
- before leaving this illustration the reader will be thoroughly convinced
1144
- that there is a science of handling pig iron, and further that this
1145
- science amounts to so much that the man who is suited to handle pig iron
1146
- cannot possibly understand it, nor even work in accordance with the laws
1147
- of this science, without the help of those who are over him.
1148
-
1149
- The writer came into the machine-shop of the Midvale Steel Company in
1150
- 1878, after having served an apprenticeship as a pattern-maker and as a
1151
- machinist. This was close to the end of the long period of depression
1152
- following the panic of 1873, and business was so poor that it was
1153
- impossible for many mechanics to get work at their trades. For this
1154
- reason he was obliged to start as a day laborer instead of working as a
1155
- mechanic. Fortunately for him, soon after he came into the shop the
1156
- clerk of the shop was found stealing. There was no one else available,
1157
- and so, having more education than the other laborers (since he had been
1158
- prepared for college) he was given the position of clerk. Shortly after
1159
- this he was given work as a machinist in running one of the lathes, and,
1160
- as he turned out rather more work than other machinists were doing on
1161
- similar lathes, after several months was made gang boss over the lathes.
1162
-
1163
- Almost all of the work of this shop had been done on piece work for
1164
- several years. As was usual then, and in fact as is still usual in most
1165
- of the shops in this country, the shop was really run by the workmen,
1166
- and not by the bosses. The workmen together had carefully planned just
1167
- how fast each job should be done, and they had set a pace for each
1168
- machine throughout the shop, which was limited to about one-third of a
1169
- good day's work. Every new workman who came into the shop was told at
1170
- once by the other men exactly how much of each kind of work he was to
1171
- do, and unless he obeyed these instructions he was sure before long to
1172
- be driven out of the place by the men.
1173
-
1174
- As soon as the writer was made gang-boss, one after another of the men
1175
- came to him and talked somewhat as follows:
1176
-
1177
- "Now, Fred we're very glad to see that you've been made gang-boss. You
1178
- know the game all right, and we're sure that you're not likely to be a
1179
- piece-work hog. You come along with us, and every-thing will be all
1180
- right, but if you try breaking any of these rates you can be mighty sure
1181
- that we'll throw you over the fence."
1182
-
1183
- The writer told them plainly that he was now working on the side of the
1184
- management, and that he proposed to do whatever he could to get a fair
1185
- day's work out of the lathes. This immediately started a war; in most
1186
- cases a friendly war, because the men who were under him were his
1187
- personal friends, but none the less a war, which as time went on grew
1188
- more and more bitter. The writer used every expedient to make them do a
1189
- fair day's work, such as discharging or lowering the wages of the more
1190
- stubborn men who refused to make any improvement, and such as lowering
1191
- the piece-work price, hiring green men, and personally teaching them how
1192
- to do the work, with the promise from them that when they had learned
1193
- how, they would then do a fair day's work. While the men constantly
1194
- brought such pressure to bear (both inside and outside the works) upon
1195
- all those who started to increase their output that they were finally
1196
- compelled to do about as the rest did, or else quit. No one who has not
1197
- had this experience can have an idea of the bitterness which is
1198
- gradually developed in such a struggle. In a war of this kind the
1199
- workmen have one expedient which is usually effective. They use their
1200
- ingenuity to contrive various ways in which the machines which they are
1201
- running are broken or damaged--apparently by accident, or in the regular
1202
- course of work--and this they always lay at the door of the foreman, who
1203
- has forced them to drive the machine so hard that it is overstrained and
1204
- is being ruined. And there are few foremen indeed who are able to stand
1205
- up against the combined pressure of all of the men in the shop. In this
1206
- case the problem was complicated by the fact that the shop ran both day
1207
- and night.
1208
-
1209
- The writer had two advantages, however, which are not possessed by the
1210
- ordinary foreman, and these came, curiously enough, from the fact that
1211
- he was not the son of a working man.
1212
-
1213
- First, owing to the fact that he happened not to be of working parents,
1214
- the owners of the company believed that he had the interest of the works
1215
- more at heart than the other workmen, and they therefore had more
1216
- confidence in his word than they did in that of the machinists who were
1217
- under him. So that, when the machinists reported to the Superintendent
1218
- that the machines were being smashed up because an incompetent foreman
1219
- was overstraining them, the Superintendent accepted the word of the
1220
- writer when he said that these men were deliberately breaking their
1221
- machines as a part of the piece-work war which was going on, and he also
1222
- allowed the writer to make the only effective answer to this Vandalism
1223
- on the part of the men, namely: "There will be no more accidents to the
1224
- machines in this shop. If any part of a machine is broken the man in
1225
- charge of it must pay at least a part of the cost of its repair, and the
1226
- fines collected in this way will all be handed over to the mutual
1227
- beneficial association to help care for sick workmen." This soon stopped
1228
- the willful breaking of machines.
1229
-
1230
- Second. If the writer had been one of the workmen, and had lived where
1231
- they lived, they would have brought such social pressure to bear upon
1232
- him that it would have been impossible to have stood out against them.
1233
- He would have been called "scab" and other foul names every time he
1234
- appeared on the street, his wife would have been abused, and his
1235
- children would have been stoned. Once or twice he was begged by some of
1236
- his friends among the workmen not to walk home, about two and a half
1237
- miles along the lonely path by the side of the railway. He was told that
1238
- if he continued to do this it would be at the risk of his life. In all
1239
- such cases, however, a display of timidity is apt to increase rather
1240
- than diminish the risk, so the writer told these men to say to the other
1241
- men in the shop that he proposed to walk home every night right up that
1242
- railway track; that he never had carried and never would carry any
1243
- weapon of any kind, and that they could shoot and be d------.
1244
-
1245
- After about three years of this kind of struggling, the output of the
1246
- machines had been materially increased, in many cases doubled, and as a
1247
- result the writer had been promoted from one gang-boss-ship to another
1248
- until he became foreman of the shop. For any right-minded man, however,
1249
- this success is in no sense a recompense for the bitter relations which
1250
- he is forced to maintain with all of those around him. Life which is one
1251
- continuous struggle with other men is hardly worth living. His workman
1252
- friends came to him continually and asked him, in a personal, friendly
1253
- way, whether he would advise them, for their own best interest, to turn
1254
- out more work. And, as a truthful man, he had to tell them that if he
1255
- were in their place he would fight against turning out any more work,
1256
- just as they were doing, because under the piece-work system they would
1257
- be allowed to earn no more wages than they had been earning, and yet
1258
- they would be made to work harder.
1259
-
1260
- Soon after being made foreman, therefore, he decided to make a
1261
- determined effort to in some way change the system of management, so
1262
- that the interests of the workmen and the management should become the
1263
- same, instead of antagonistic. This resulted, some three years later, in
1264
- the starting of the type of management which is described in papers
1265
- presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers entitled "A
1266
- Piece-Rate System" and "Shop Management."
1267
-
1268
- In preparation for this system the writer realized that the greatest
1269
- obstacle to harmonious cooperation between the workmen and the
1270
- management lay in the ignorance of the management as to what really
1271
- constitutes a proper day's work for a workman. He fully realized that
1272
- although he was foreman of the shop, the combined knowledge and skill of
1273
- the workmen who were under him was certainly ten times as great as his
1274
- own. He therefore obtained the permission of Mr. William Sellers, who
1275
- was at that time the President of the Midvale Steel Company, to spend
1276
- some money in a careful, scientific study of the time required to do
1277
- various kinds of work.
1278
-
1279
- Mr. Sellers allowed this more as a reward for having, to a certain
1280
- extent, "made good" as foreman of the shop in getting more work out of
1281
- the men, than for any other reason. He stated, however, that he did not
1282
- believe that any scientific study of this sort would give results of
1283
- much value.
1284
-
1285
- Among several investigations which were undertaken at this time, one was
1286
- an attempt to find some rule, or law, which would enable a foreman to
1287
- know in advance how much of any kind of heavy laboring work a man who
1288
- was well suited to his job ought to do in a day; that is, to study the
1289
- tiring effect of heavy labor upon a first-class man. Our first step was
1290
- to employ a young college graduate to look up all that had been written
1291
- on the subject in English, German, and French. Two classes of
1292
- experiments had been made: one by physiologists who were studying the
1293
- endurance of the human animal, and the other by engineers who wished to
1294
- determine what fraction of a horse-power a man-power was. These
1295
- experiments had been made largely upon men who were lifting loads by
1296
- means of turning the crank of a winch from which weights were suspended,
1297
- and others who were engaged in walking, running, and lifting weights in
1298
- various ways. However, the records of these investigations were so
1299
- meager that no law of any value could be deduced from them. We therefore
1300
- started a series of experiments of our own.
1301
-
1302
- Two first-class laborers were selected, men who had proved themselves to
1303
- be physically powerful and who were also good steady workers. These men
1304
- were paid double wages during the experiments, and were told that they
1305
- must work to the best of their ability at all times, and that we should
1306
- make certain tests with them from time to time to find whether they were
1307
- "soldiering" or not, and that the moment either one of them started to
1308
- try to deceive us he would be discharged. They worked to the best of
1309
- their ability throughout the time that they were being observed.
1310
-
1311
- Now it must be clearly understood that in these experiments we were not
1312
- trying to find the maximum work that a man could do on a short spurt or
1313
- for a few days, but that our endeavor was to learn what really
1314
- constituted a full day's work for a first-class man; the best day's work
1315
- that a man could properly do, year in and year out, and still thrive
1316
- under. These men were given all kinds of tasks, which were carried out
1317
- each day under the close observation of the young college man who was
1318
- conducting the experiments, and who at the same time noted with a
1319
- stop-watch the proper time for all of the motions that were made by the
1320
- men. Every element in any way connected with the work which we believed
1321
- could have a bearing on the result was carefully studied and recorded.
1322
- What we hoped ultimately to determine was what fraction of a horse-power
1323
- a man was able to exert, that is, how many foot-pounds of work a man
1324
- could do in a day.
1325
-
1326
- After completing this series of experiments, therefore, each man's work
1327
- for each day was translated into foot-pounds of energy, and to our
1328
- surprise we found that there was no constant or uniform relation between
1329
- the foot-pounds of energy which the man exerted during a day and the
1330
- tiring effect of his work. On some kinds of work the man would be tired
1331
- out when doing perhaps not more than one-eighth of a horse-power, while
1332
- in others he would be tired to no greater extent by doing half a
1333
- horse-power of work.
1334
-
1335
- We failed, therefore, to find any law which was an accurate guide to the
1336
- maximum day's work for a first-class workman.
1337
-
1338
- A large amount of very valuable data had been obtained, which enabled us
1339
- to know, for many kinds of labor, what was a proper day's work. It did
1340
- not seem wise, however, at this time to spend any more money in trying
1341
- to find the exact law which we were after. Some years later, when more
1342
- money was available for this purpose, a second series of experiments was
1343
- made, similar to the first, but some what more thorough.
1344
-
1345
- This, however, resulted as the first experiments, in obtaining valuable
1346
- information but not in the development of a law. Again, some years
1347
- later, a third series of experiments was made, and this time no trouble
1348
- was spared in our endeavor to make the work thorough. Every minute
1349
- element which could in anyway affect the problem was carefully noted and
1350
- studied, and two college men devoted about three months to the
1351
- experiments. After this data was again translated into foot-pounds of
1352
- energy exerted for each man each day, it became perfectly clear that
1353
- there is no direct relation between the horse-power which a man
1354
- exerts (that is, his foot-pounds of energy per day) and the tiring effect
1355
- of the work on the man. The writer, however, was quite as firmly
1356
- convinced as ever that some definite, clear-cut law existed as to what
1357
- constitutes a full day's work for a first-class laborer, and our data
1358
- had been so carefully collected and recorded that he felt sure that the
1359
- necessary information was included somewhere in the records. The problem
1360
- of developing this law from the accumulated facts was therefore handed
1361
- over to Mr. Carl G. Barth, who is a better mathematician than any of the
1362
- rest of us, and we decided to investigate the problem in a new way, by
1363
- graphically representing each element of the work through plotting
1364
- curves, which should give us, as it were, a bird's-eye view of every
1365
- element. In a comparatively short time Mr. Barth had discovered the law
1366
- governing the tiring effect of heavy labor on a first-class man. And it
1367
- is so simple in its nature that it is truly remarkable that it should
1368
- not have been discovered and clearly understood years before. The law
1369
- which was developed is as follows:
1370
-
1371
- The law is confined to that class of work in which the limit of a man's
1372
- capacity is reached because he is tired out. It is the law of heavy
1373
- laboring, corresponding to the work of the cart horse, rather than that
1374
- of the trotter. Practically all such work consists of a heavy pull or a
1375
- push on the man's arms, that is, the man's strength is exerted by either
1376
- lifting or pushing something which he grasps in his hands. And the law
1377
- is that for each given pull or push on the man's arms it is possible for
1378
- the workman to be under load for only a definite percentage of the day.
1379
- For example, when pig iron is being handled (each pig weighing 92
1380
- pounds), a first-class workman can only be under load 43 per cent of the
1381
- day. He must be entirely free from load during 57 per cent of the day.
1382
- And as the load becomes lighter, the percentage of the day under which
1383
- the man can remain under load increases. So that, if the workman is
1384
- handling a half-pig, weighing 46 pounds, he can then be under load 58
1385
- per cent of the day, and only has to rest during 42 per cent. As the
1386
- weight grows lighter the man can remain under load during a larger and
1387
- larger percentage of the day, until finally a load is reached which he
1388
- can carry in his hands all day long without being tired out. When that
1389
- point has been arrived at this law ceases to be useful as a guide to a
1390
- laborer's endurance, and some other law must be found which indicates
1391
- the man's capacity for work.
1392
-
1393
- When a laborer is carrying a piece of pig iron weighing 92 pounds in his
1394
- hands, it tires him about as much to stand still under the load as it
1395
- does to walk with it, since his arm muscles are under the same severe
1396
- tension whether he is moving or not. A man, however, who stands still
1397
- under a load is exerting no horse-power whatever, and this accounts for
1398
- the fact that no constant relation could be traced in various kinds of
1399
- heavy laboring work between the foot-pounds of energy exerted and the
1400
- tiring effect of the work on the man. It will also be clear that in all
1401
- work of this kind it is necessary for the arms of the workman to be
1402
- completely free from load (that is, for the workman to rest) at frequent
1403
- intervals. Throughout the time that the man is under a heavy load the
1404
- tissues of his arm muscles are in process of degeneration, and frequent
1405
- periods of rest are required in order that the blood may have a chance
1406
- to restore these tissues to their normal condition.
1407
-
1408
- To return now to our pig-iron handlers at the Bethlehem Steel Company.
1409
- If Schmidt had been allowed to attack the pile of 47 tons of pig iron
1410
- without the guidance or direction of a man who understood the art, or
1411
- science, of handling pig iron, in his desire to earn his high wages he
1412
- would probably have tired himself out by 11 or 12 o'clock in the day. He
1413
- would have kept so steadily at work that his muscles would not have had
1414
- the proper periods of rest absolutely needed for recuperation, and he
1415
- would have been completely exhausted early in the day. By having a man,
1416
- however, who understood this law, stand over him and direct his work,
1417
- day after day, until he acquired the habit of resting at proper
1418
- intervals, he was able to work at an even gait all day long without
1419
- unduly tiring himself.
1420
-
1421
- Now one of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle
1422
- pig iron as a regular occupation that he shall be so stupid and so
1423
- phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox
1424
- than any other type. The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is
1425
- for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the
1426
- grinding monotony of work of this character. Therefore the workman who
1427
- is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real
1428
- science of doing this class of work. He is so stupid that the word
1429
- "percentage" has no meaning to him, and he must consequently be trained
1430
- by a man more intelligent than himself into the habit of working in
1431
- accordance with the laws of this science before he can be successful.
1432
-
1433
- The writer trusts that it is now clear that even in the case of the most
1434
- elementary form of labor that is known, there is a science, and that
1435
- when the man best suited to this class of work has been carefully
1436
- selected, when the science of doing the work has been developed, and
1437
- when the carefully selected man has been trained to work in accordance
1438
- with this science, the results obtained must of necessity be
1439
- overwhelmingly greater than those which are possible under the plan of
1440
- "initiative and incentive."
1441
-
1442
- Let us, however, again turn to the case of these pig-iron handlers, and
1443
- see whether, under the ordinary type of management, it would not have
1444
- been possible to obtain practically the same results.
1445
-
1446
- The writer has put the problem before many good managers, and asked them
1447
- whether, under premium work, piece work, or any of the ordinary plans of
1448
- management, they would be likely even to approximate 47 tons* per man per
1449
- day, and not a man has suggested that an output of over 18 to 25 tons
1450
- could be attained by any of the ordinary expedients. It will be remembered
1451
- that the Bethlehem men were loading only 12 1/2 tons per man.
1452
-
1453
- [*Footnote: Many people have questioned the accuracy of the statement
1454
- that first-class workmen can load 47 1/2 tons of pig iron from the ground
1455
- on to a car in a day. For those who are skeptical, therefore, the following
1456
- data relating to this work are given:
1457
-
1458
- First. That our experiments indicated the existence of the following
1459
- law: that a first-class laborer, suited to such work as handling pig
1460
- iron, could be under load only 42 per cent of the day and must be free
1461
- from load 58 per cent of the day.
1462
-
1463
- Second. That a man in loading pig iron from piles placed on the ground
1464
- in an open field on to a car which stood on a track adjoining these
1465
- piles, ought to handle (and that they did handle regularly) 47 1/2 long
1466
- tons (2240 pounds per ton) per day.
1467
-
1468
- That the price paid for loading this pig iron was 3.9 cents per ton, and
1469
- that the men working at it averaged $1.85 per day, whereas, in the past,
1470
- they had been paid only $1.15 per day.
1471
-
1472
- In addition to these facts, the following are given:
1473
-
1474
- 47 1/2 long tons equal 106,400 pounds of pig iron per day.
1475
- At 92 pounds per pig, equals 1156 pigs per day.
1476
- 42 per cent. of a day under load equals 600 minutes; multiplied by
1477
- 0.42 equals 252 minutes under load.
1478
- 252 minutes divided by 1156 pigs equals 0.22 minutes per pig under
1479
- load.
1480
-
1481
- A pig-iron handler walks on the level at the rate of one foot in 0.006
1482
- minutes. The average distance of the piles of pig iron from the car was
1483
- 36 feet. It is a fact, however, that many of the pig-iron handlers ran
1484
- with their pig as soon as they reached the inclined plank. Many of them
1485
- also would run down the plank after loading the car. So that when the
1486
- actual loading went on, many of them moved at a faster rate than is
1487
- indicated by the above figures. Practically the men were made to take a
1488
- rest, generally by sitting down, after loading ten to twenty pigs. This
1489
- rest was in addition to the time which it took them to walk back from
1490
- the car to the pile. It is likely that many of those who are skeptical
1491
- about the possibility of loading this amount of pig iron do not realize
1492
- that while these men were walking back they were entirely free from
1493
- load, and that therefore their muscles had, during that time, the
1494
- opportunity for recuperation. It will be noted that with an average
1495
- distance of 36 feet of the pig iron from the car, these men walked about
1496
- eight miles under load each day and eight miles free from load.
1497
-
1498
- If any one who is interested in these figures will multiply them and
1499
- divide them, one into the other, in various ways, he will find that all
1500
- of the facts stated check up exactly.]
1501
-
1502
- To go into the matter in more detail, however: As to the scientific
1503
- selection of the men, it is a fact that in this gang of 75 pig-iron
1504
- handlers only about one man in eight was physically capable of handling
1505
- 47 1/2 tons per day. With the very best of intentions, the other seven
1506
- out of eight men were physically unable to work at this pace. Now the
1507
- one man in eight who was able to do this work was in no sense superior
1508
- to the other men who were working on the gang. He merely happened to be
1509
- a man of the type of the ox,--no rare specimen of humanity, difficult to
1510
- find and therefore very highly prized. On the contrary, he was a man so
1511
- stupid that he was unfitted to do most kinds of laboring work, even. The
1512
- selection of the man, then, does not involve finding some extraordinary
1513
- individual, but merely picking out from among very ordinary men the few
1514
- who are especially suited to this type of work. Although in this
1515
- particular gang only one man in eight was suited to doing the work, we
1516
- had not the slightest difficulty in getting all the men who were
1517
- needed--some of them from inside of the works and others from the
1518
- neighboring country--who were exactly suited to the job.
1519
-
1520
- Under the management of "initiative and incentive" the attitude of the
1521
- management is that of "putting the work up to the workmen." What
1522
- likelihood would there be, then, under the old type of management, of
1523
- these men properly selecting themselves for pig-iron handling? Would
1524
- they be likely to get rid of seven men out of eight from their own gang
1525
- and retain only the eighth man? No! And no expedient could be devised
1526
- which would make these men properly select themselves. Even if they
1527
- fully realized the necessity of doing so in order to obtain high wages
1528
- (and they are not sufficiently intelligent properly to grasp this
1529
- necessity), the fact that their friends or their brothers who were
1530
- working right alongside of them would temporarily be thrown out of a job
1531
- because they were not suited to this kind of work would entirely prevent
1532
- them from properly selecting themselves, that is, from removing the
1533
- seven out of eight men on the gang who were unsuited to pig-iron
1534
- handling.
1535
-
1536
- As to the possibility, under the old type of management, of inducing
1537
- these pig-iron handlers (after they had been properly selected) to work
1538
- in accordance with the science of doing heavy laboring, namely, having
1539
- proper scientifically determined periods of rest in close sequence to
1540
- periods of work. As has been indicated before, the essential idea of the
1541
- ordinary types of management is that each workman has become more
1542
- skilled in his own trade than it is possible for any one in the
1543
- management to be, and that, therefore, the details of how the work shall
1544
- best be done must be left to him. The idea, then, of taking one man
1545
- after another and training him under a competent teacher into new
1546
- working habits until he continually and habitually works in accordance
1547
- with scientific laws, which have been developed by some one else, is
1548
- directly antagonistic to the old idea that each workman can best
1549
- regulate his own way of doing the work. And besides this, the man suited
1550
- to handling pig iron is too stupid properly to train himself. Thus it
1551
- will be seen that with the ordinary types of management the development
1552
- of scientific knowledge to replace rule of thumb, the scientific
1553
- selection of the men, and inducing the men to work in accordance with
1554
- these scientific principles are entirely out of the question. And this
1555
- because the philosophy of the old management puts the entire
1556
- responsibility upon the workmen, while the philosophy of the new places
1557
- a great part of it upon the management.
1558
-
1559
- With most readers great sympathy will be aroused because seven out of
1560
- eight of these pig-iron handlers were thrown out of a job. This sympathy
1561
- is entirely wasted, because almost all of them were immediately given
1562
- other jobs with the Bethlehem Steel Company. And indeed it should be
1563
- understood that the removal of these men from pig-iron handling, for
1564
- which they were unfit, was really a kindness to themselves, because it
1565
- was the first step toward finding them work for which they were
1566
- peculiarly fitted, and at which, after receiving proper training, they
1567
- could permanently and legitimately earn higher wages.
1568
-
1569
- Although the reader may be convinced that there is a certain science
1570
- back of the handling of pig iron, still it is more than likely that he
1571
- is still skeptical as to the existence of a science for doing other
1572
- kinds of laboring. One of the important objects of this paper is to
1573
- convince its readers that every single act of every workman can be
1574
- reduced to a science. With the hope of fully convincing the reader of
1575
- this fact, therefore, the writer proposes to give several more simple
1576
- illustrations from among the thousands which are at hand.
1577
-
1578
- For example, the average man would question whether there is much of any
1579
- science in the work of shoveling. Yet there is but little doubt, if any
1580
- intelligent reader of this paper were deliberately to set out to find
1581
- what may be called the foundation of the science of shoveling, that with
1582
- perhaps 15 to 20 hours of thought and analysis he would be almost sure
1583
- to have arrived at the essence of this science. On the other hand, so
1584
- completely are the rule-of-thumb ideas still dominant that the writer
1585
- has never met a single shovel contractor to whom it had ever even
1586
- occurred that there was such a thing as the science of shoveling. This
1587
- science is so elementary as to be almost self-evident.
1588
-
1589
- For a first-class shoveler there is a given shovel load at which he will
1590
- do his biggest day's work. What is this shovel load? Will a first-class
1591
- man do more work per day with a shovel load of 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 15
1592
- pounds, 20, 25, 30, or 40 pounds? Now this is a question which can be
1593
- answered only through carefully made experiments. By first selecting two
1594
- or three first-class shovelers, and paying them extra wages for doing
1595
- trustworthy work, and then gradually varying the shovel load and having
1596
- all the conditions accompanying the work carefully observed for several
1597
- weeks by men who were used to experimenting, it was found that a
1598
- first-class man would do his biggest day's work with a shovel load of
1599
- about 21 pounds. For instance, that this man would shovel a larger
1600
- tonnage per day with a 21-pound load than with a 24-pound load or than
1601
- with an 18-pound load on his shovel. It is, of course, evident that no
1602
- shoveler can always take a load of exactly 21 pounds on his shovel, but
1603
- nevertheless, although his load may vary 3 or 4 pounds one way or the
1604
- other, either below or above the 21 pounds, he will do his biggest day's
1605
- work when his average for the day is about 21 pounds.
1606
-
1607
- The writer does not wish it to be understood that this is the whole of
1608
- the art or science of shoveling. There are many other elements, which
1609
- together go to make up this science. But he wishes to indicate the
1610
- important effect which this one piece of scientific knowledge has upon
1611
- the work of shoveling.
1612
-
1613
- At the works of the Bethlehem Steel Company, for example, as a result of
1614
- this law, instead of allowing each shoveler to select and own his own
1615
- shovel, it became necessary to provide some 8 to 10 different kinds of
1616
- shovels, etc., each one appropriate to handling a given type of material
1617
- not only so as to enable the men to handle an average load of 21 pounds,
1618
- but also to adapt the shovel to several other requirements which become
1619
- perfectly evident when this work is studied as a science. A large shovel
1620
- tool room was built, in which were stored not only shovels but carefully
1621
- designed and standardized labor implements of all kinds, such as picks,
1622
- crowbars, etc. This made it possible to issue to each workman a shovel
1623
- which would hold a load of 21 pounds of whatever class of material they
1624
- were to handle: a small shovel for ore, say, or a large one for ashes.
1625
- Iron ore is one of the heavy materials which are handled in a works of
1626
- this kind, and rice coal, owing to the fact that it is so slippery on
1627
- the shovel, is one of the lightest materials. And it was found on
1628
- studying the rule-of-thumb plan at the Bethlehem Steel Company, where
1629
- each shoveler owned his own shovel, that he would frequently go from
1630
- shoveling ore, with a load of about 30 pounds per shovel, to handling
1631
- rice coal, with a load on the same shovel of less than 4 pounds. In the
1632
- one case, he was so overloaded that it was impossible for him to do a
1633
- full day's work, and in the other case he was so ridiculously
1634
- underloaded that it was manifestly impossible to even approximate a
1635
- day's work.
1636
-
1637
- Briefly to illustrate some of the other elements which go to make up
1638
- the science of shoveling, thousands of stop-watch observations were made
1639
- to study just how quickly a laborer, provided in each case with the
1640
- proper type of shovel, can push his shovel into the pile of materials
1641
- and then draw it out properly loaded. These observations were made first
1642
- when pushing the shovel into the body of the pile. Next when shoveling
1643
- on a dirt bottom, that is, at the outside edge of the pile, and next
1644
- with a wooden bottom, and finally with an iron bottom. Again a similar
1645
- accurate time study was made of the time required to swing the shovel
1646
- backward and then throw the load for a given horizontal distance,
1647
- accompanied by a given height. This time study was made for various
1648
- combinations of distance and height. With data of this sort before him,
1649
- coupled with the law of endurance described in the case of the pig-iron
1650
- handlers, it is evident that the man who is directing shovelers can
1651
- first teach them the exact methods which should be employed to use their
1652
- strength to the very best advantage, and can then assign them daily
1653
- tasks which are so just that the workman can each day be sure of earning
1654
- the large bonus which is paid whenever he successfully performs this
1655
- task.
1656
-
1657
- There were about 600 shovelers and laborers of this general class in the
1658
- yard of the Bethlehem Steel Company at this time. These men were
1659
- scattered in their work over a yard which was, roughly, about two miles
1660
- long and half a mile wide. In order that each workman should be given
1661
- his proper implement and his proper instructions for doing each new job,
1662
- it was necessary to establish a detailed system for directing men in
1663
- their work, in place of the old plan of handling them in large groups,
1664
- or gangs, under a few yard foremen. As each workman came into the works
1665
- in the morning, he took out of his own special pigeonhole, with his
1666
- number on the outside, two pieces of paper, one of which stated just
1667
- what implements he was to get from the tool room and where he was to
1668
- start to work, and the second of which gave the history of his previous
1669
- day's work; that is, a statement of the work which he had done, how much
1670
- he had earned the day before, etc. Many of these men were foreigners and
1671
- unable to read and write, but they all knew at a glance the essence of
1672
- this report, because yellow paper showed the man that he had failed to
1673
- do his full task the day before, and informed him that he had not earned
1674
- as much as $1.85 a day, and that none but high-priced men would be
1675
- allowed to stay permanently with this gang. The hope was further
1676
- expressed that he would earn his full wages on the following day. So
1677
- that whenever the men received white slips they knew that everything was
1678
- all right, and whenever they received yellow slips they realized that
1679
- they must do better or they would be shifted to some other class of
1680
- work.
1681
-
1682
- Dealing with every workman as a separate individual in this way involved
1683
- the building of a labor office for the superintendent and clerks who
1684
- were in charge of this section of the work. In this office every
1685
- laborer's work was planned out well in advance, and the workmen were all
1686
- moved from place to place by the clerks with elaborate diagrams or maps
1687
- of the yard before them, very much as chessmen are moved on a
1688
- chess-board, a telephone and messenger system having been installed for
1689
- this purpose. In this way a large amount of the time lost through having
1690
- too many men in one place and too few in another, and through waiting
1691
- between jobs, was entirely eliminated. Under the old system the workmen
1692
- were kept day after day in comparatively large gangs, each under a
1693
- single foreman, and the gang was apt to remain of pretty nearly the same
1694
- size whether there was much or little of the particular kind of work on
1695
- hand which this foreman had under his charge, since each gang had to be
1696
- kept large enough to handle whatever work in its special line was likely
1697
- to come along.
1698
-
1699
- When one ceases to deal with men in large gangs or groups, and proceeds
1700
- to study each workman as an individual, if the workman fails to do his
1701
- task, some competent teacher should be sent to show him exactly how his
1702
- work can best be done, to guide, help, and encourage him, and, at the
1703
- same time, to study his possibilities as a workman. So that, under the
1704
- plan which individualizes each workman, instead of brutally discharging
1705
- the man or lowering his wages for failing to make good at once, he is
1706
- given the time and the help required to make him proficient at his
1707
- present job, or he is shifted to another class of work for which he is
1708
- either mentally or physically better suited.
1709
-
1710
- All of this requires the kindly cooperation of the management, and
1711
- involves a much more elaborate organization and system than the
1712
- old-fashioned herding of men in large gangs. This organization
1713
- consisted, in this case, of one set of men, who were engaged in the
1714
- development of the science of laboring through time study, such as has
1715
- been described above; another set of men, mostly skilled laborers
1716
- themselves, who were teachers, and who helped and guided the men in
1717
- their work; another set of tool-room men who provided them with the
1718
- proper implements and kept them in perfect order, and another set of
1719
- clerks who planned the work well in advance, moved the men with the
1720
- least loss of time from one place to another, and properly recorded each
1721
- man's earnings, etc. And this furnishes an elementary illustration of
1722
- what has been referred to as cooperation between the management and the
1723
- workmen.
1724
-
1725
- The question which naturally presents itself is whether an elaborate
1726
- organization of this sort can be made to pay for itself; whether such an
1727
- organization is not top-heavy. This question will best be answered by a
1728
- statement of the results of the third year of working under this plan.
1729
-
1730
-
1731
- Old Plan New Plan Task Work
1732
- The number of yard laborers
1733
- was reduced from between 400 & 600 down to about 140
1734
- Average number of tons per
1735
- man per day 16 59
1736
- Average earnings per man
1737
- per day $1.15 $1.88
1738
- Average cost of handling a
1739
- ton of 2240 lbs $0.072 $0.033
1740
-
1741
- And in computing the low cost of $0.033 per ton, the office and
1742
- tool-room expenses, and the wages of all labor superintendents, foremen,
1743
- clerks, time-study men, etc., are included.
1744
-
1745
- During this year the total saving of the new plan over the old amounted
1746
- to $36,417.69, and during the six months following, when all of the work
1747
- of the yard was on task work, the saving was at the rate of between
1748
- $75,000 and $80,000 per year.
1749
-
1750
- Perhaps the most important of all the results attained was the effect on
1751
- the workmen themselves. A careful inquiry into the condition of these
1752
- men developed the fact that out of the 140 workmen only two were said to
1753
- be drinking men. This does not, of course, imply that many of them did
1754
- not take an occasional drink. The fact is that a steady drinker would
1755
- find it almost impossible to keep up with the pace which was set, so
1756
- that they were practically all sober. Many, if not most of them, were
1757
- saving money, and they all lived better than they had before. These men
1758
- constituted the finest body of picked laborers that the writer has ever
1759
- seen together, and they looked upon the men who were over them, their
1760
- bosses and their teachers, as their very best friends; not as nigger
1761
- drivers, forcing them to work extra hard for ordinary wages, but as
1762
- friends who were teaching them and helping them to earn much higher
1763
- wages than they had ever earned before.
1764
-
1765
- It would have been absolutely impossible for any one to have stirred up
1766
- strife between these men and their employers. And this presents a very
1767
- simple though effective illustration of what is meant by the words
1768
- "prosperity for the employee, coupled with prosperity for the employer,"
1769
- the two principal objects of management. It is evident also that this
1770
- result has been brought about by the application of the four fundamental
1771
- principles of scientific management.
1772
-
1773
- As another illustration of the value of a scientific study of the
1774
- motives which influence workmen in their daily work, the loss of
1775
- ambition and initiative will be cited, which takes place in workmen when
1776
- they are herded into gangs instead of being treated as separate
1777
- individuals. A careful analysis had demonstrated the fact that when
1778
- workmen are herded together in gangs, each man in the gang becomes far
1779
- less efficient than when his personal ambition is stimulated; that when
1780
- men work in gangs, their individual efficiency falls almost invariably
1781
- down to or below the level of the worst man in the gang; and that they
1782
- are all pulled down instead of being elevated by being herded together.
1783
- For this reason a general order had been issued in the Bethlehem Steel
1784
- Works that not more than four men were to be allowed to work in a labor
1785
- gang without a special permit, signed by the General Superintendent of
1786
- the works, this special permit to extend for one week only. It was
1787
- arranged that as far as possible each laborer should be given a separate
1788
- individual task. As there were about 5000 men at work in the
1789
- establishment, the General Superintendent had so much to do that there
1790
- was but little time left for signing these special permits.
1791
-
1792
- After gang work had been by this means broken up, an unusually fine set
1793
- of ore shovelers had been developed, through careful selection and
1794
- individual, scientific training. Each of these men was given a separate
1795
- car to unload each day, and his wages depended upon his own personal
1796
- work. The man who unloaded the largest amount of ore was paid the
1797
- highest wages, and an unusual opportunity came for demonstrating the
1798
- importance of individualizing each workman. Much of this ore came from
1799
- the Lake Superior region, and the same ore was delivered both in
1800
- Pittsburgh and in Bethlehem in exactly similar cars. There was a
1801
- shortage of ore handlers in Pittsburgh, and hearing of the fine gang of
1802
- laborers that had been developed at Bethlehem, one of the Pittsburgh
1803
- steel works sent an agent to hire the Bethlehem men. The Pittsburgh men
1804
- offered 4 9/10 cents a ton for unloading exactly the same ore, with the
1805
- same shovels, from the same cars, that were unloaded in Bethlehem for 3
1806
- 2/10 cents a ton. After carefully considering this situation, it was
1807
- decided that it would be unwise to pay more than 3 2/10 cents per ton
1808
- for unloading the Bethlehem cars, because, at this rate, the Bethlehem
1809
- laborers were earning a little over $1.85 per man per day, and this
1810
- price was 60 per cent more than the ruling rate of wages around
1811
- Bethlehem.
1812
-
1813
- A long series of experiments, coupled with close observation, had
1814
- demonstrated the fact that when workmen of this caliber are given a
1815
- carefully measured task, which calls for a big day's work on their part,
1816
- and that when in return for this extra effort they are paid wages up to
1817
- 60 per cent beyond the wages usually paid, that this increase in wages
1818
- tends to make them not only more thrifty but better men in every way;
1819
- that they live rather better, begin to save money, become more sober,
1820
- and work more steadily. When, on the other hand, they receive much more
1821
- than a 60 per cent increase in wages, many of them will work irregularly
1822
- and tend to become more or less shiftless, extravagant, and dissipated.
1823
- Our experiments showed, in other words, that it does not do for most men
1824
- to get rich too fast.
1825
-
1826
- After deciding, for this reason, not to raise the wages of our ore
1827
- handlers, these men were brought into the office one at a time, and
1828
- talked to somewhat as follows:
1829
-
1830
- "Now, Patrick, you have proved to us that you are a high-priced man. You
1831
- have been earning every day a little more than $1.85, and you are just
1832
- the sort of man that we want to have in our ore-shoveling gang. A man
1833
- has come here from Pittsburgh, ho is offering 4 9/10 cents per ton for
1834
- handling ore while we can pay only 3 9/10 cents per ton. I think,
1835
- therefore, that you had better apply to this man for a job. Of course,
1836
- you know we are very sorry to have you leave us, but you have proved
1837
- yourself a high-priced man, and we are very glad to see you get this
1838
- chance of earning more money. Just remember, however, that at any time
1839
- in the future, when you get out of a job, you can always come right back
1840
- to us. There will always be a job for a high-priced man like you in our
1841
- gang here."
1842
-
1843
- Almost all of the ore handlers took this advice, and went to Pittsburgh,
1844
- but in about six weeks most of them were again back in Bethlehem
1845
- unloading ore at the old rate of 3 2/10 cents a ton. The writer had the
1846
- following talk with one of these men after he had returned:
1847
-
1848
- "Patrick, what are you doing back here? I thought we had gotten rid of
1849
- you."
1850
-
1851
- "'Well, Sir, I'll tell you how it was. When we got out there Jimmy and I
1852
- were put on to a car with eight other men. We started to shovel the ore
1853
- out just the same as we do here. After about half an hour I saw a little
1854
- devil alongside of me doing pretty near nothing, so I said to him, 'Why
1855
- don't you go to work? Unless we get the ore out of this car we won't get
1856
- any money on pay-day.' He turned to me and said, 'Who in ------ are
1857
- you?'
1858
-
1859
- "'Well,' I said, 'that's none of your business'; and the little devil
1860
- stood up to me and said, 'You'll be minding your own business, or I'll
1861
- throw you off this car!' 'Well, I could have spit on him and drowned
1862
- him, but the rest of the men put down their shovels and looked as if
1863
- they were going to back him up; so I went round to Jimmy and said (so
1864
- that the whole gang could hear it), 'Now, Jimmy, you and I will throw a
1865
- shovel full whenever this little devil throws one, and not another
1866
- shovel full.' So we watched him, and only shoveled when he shoveled.
1867
-
1868
- "When pay-day came around, though, we had less money than we got here at
1869
- Bethlehem. After that Jimmy and I went in to the boss, and asked him for
1870
- a car to ourselves, the same as we got at Bethlehem, but he told us to
1871
- mind our own business. And when another pay-day came around we had less
1872
- money than we got here at Bethlehem, so Jimmy and I got the gang
1873
- together and brought them all back here to work again."
1874
-
1875
- When working each man for himself, these men were able to earn higher
1876
- wages at 3 2/10 cents a ton than they could earn when they were paid 4
1877
- 9/10 cents a ton on gang work; and this again shows the great gain which
1878
- results from working according to even the most elementary of scientific
1879
- principles. But it also shows that in the application of the most
1880
- elementary principles it is necessary for the management to do their
1881
- share of the work in cooperating with the workmen. The Pittsburgh
1882
- managers knew just how the results had been attained at Bethlehem, but
1883
- they were unwilling to go to the small trouble and expense required to
1884
- plan ahead and assign a separate car to each shoveler, and then keep an
1885
- individual record of each man's work, and pay him just what he had
1886
- earned.
1887
-
1888
- Bricklaying is one of the oldest of our trades.
1889
-
1890
- For hundreds of years there has been little or no improvement made in
1891
- the implements and materials used in this trade, nor in fact in the
1892
- method of laying bricks. In spite of the millions of men who have
1893
- practiced this trade, no great improvement has been evolved for many
1894
- generations. Here, then, at least one would expect to find but little
1895
- gain possible through scientific analysis and study. Mr. Frank B.
1896
- Gilbreth, a member of our Society, who had himself studied bricklaying
1897
- in his youth, became interested in the principles of scientific
1898
- management, and decided to apply them to the art of bricklaying. He made
1899
- an intensely interesting analysis and study of each movement of the
1900
- bricklayer, and one after another eliminated all unnecessary movements
1901
- and substituted fast for slow motions. He experimented with every minute
1902
- element which in any way affects the speed and the tiring of the
1903
- bricklayer.
1904
-
1905
- He developed the exact position which each of the feet of the bricklayer
1906
- should occupy with relation to the wall, the mortar box, and the pile of
1907
- bricks, and so made it unnecessary for him to take a step or two toward
1908
- the pile of bricks and back again each time a brick is laid.
1909
-
1910
- He studied the best height for the mortar box and brick pile, and then
1911
- designed a scaffold, with a table on it, upon which all of the materials
1912
- are placed, so as to keep the bricks, the mortar, the man, and the wall
1913
- in their proper relative positions. These scaffolds are adjusted, as the
1914
- wall grows in height, for all of the bricklayers by a laborer especially
1915
- detailed for this purpose, and by this means the bricklayer is saved the
1916
- exertion of stooping down to the level of his feet for each brick and
1917
- each trowel full of mortar and then straightening up again. Think of the
1918
- waste of effort that has gone on through all these years, with each
1919
- bricklayer lowering his body, weighing, say, 150 pounds, down two feet
1920
- and raising it up again every time a brick (weighing about 5 pounds) is
1921
- laid in the wall! And this each bricklayer did about one thousand times
1922
- a day.
1923
-
1924
- As a result of further study, after the bricks are unloaded from the
1925
- cars, and before bringing them to the bricklayer, they are carefully
1926
- sorted by a laborer, and placed with their best edge up on a simple
1927
- wooden frame, constructed so as to enable him to take hold of each brick
1928
- in the quickest time and in the most advantageous position. In this way
1929
- the bricklayer avoids either having to turn the brick over or end for
1930
- end to examine it before laying it, and he saves, also, the time taken
1931
- in deciding which is the best edge and end to place on the outside of
1932
- the wall. In most cases, also, he saves the time taken in disentangling
1933
- the brick from a disorderly pile on the scaffold. This "pack" of bricks
1934
- (as Mr. Gilbreth calls his loaded wooden frames) is placed by the helper
1935
- in its proper position on the adjustable scaffold close to the mortar
1936
- box.
1937
-
1938
- We have all been used to seeing bricklayers tap each brick after it is
1939
- placed on its bed of mortar several times with the end of the handle of
1940
- the trowel so as to secure the right thickness for the joint. Mr.
1941
- Gilbreth found that by tempering the mortar just right, the bricks could
1942
- be readily bedded to the proper depth by a downward pressure of the hand
1943
- with which they are laid. He insisted that his mortar mixers should give
1944
- special attention to tempering the mortar, and so save the time consumed
1945
- in tapping the brick.
1946
-
1947
- Through all of this minute study of the motions to be made by the
1948
- bricklayer in laying bricks under standard conditions, Mr. Gilbreth has
1949
- reduced his movements from eighteen motions per brick to five, and even
1950
- in one case to as low as two motions per brick. He has given all of the
1951
- details of this analysis to the profession in the chapter headed "Motion
1952
- Study," of his book entitled "Bricklaying System," published by Myron C.
1953
- Clerk Publishing Company, New York and Chicago; E. F. N. Spon, of
1954
- London.
1955
-
1956
- An analysis of the expedients used by Mr. Gilbreth in reducing the
1957
- motions of his bricklayers from eighteen to five shows that this
1958
- improvement has been made in three different ways:
1959
-
1960
- First. He has entirely dispensed with certain movements which the
1961
- bricklayers in the past believed were necessary, but which a careful
1962
- study and trial on his part have shown to be useless.
1963
-
1964
- Second. He has introduced simple apparatus, such as his adjustable
1965
- scaffold and his packets for holding the bricks, by means of which, with
1966
- a very small amount of cooperation from a cheap laborer, he entirely
1967
- eliminates a lot of tiresome and time-consuming motions which are
1968
- necessary for the brick-layer who lacks the scaffold and the packet.
1969
-
1970
- Third. He teaches his bricklayers to make simple motions with both
1971
- hands at the same time, where before they completed a motion with the
1972
- right hand and followed it later with one from the left hand.
1973
-
1974
- For example, Mr. Gilbreth teaches his brick-layer to pick up a brick in
1975
- the left hand at the same instant that he takes a trowel full of mortar
1976
- with the right hand. This work with two hands at the same time is, of
1977
- course, made possible by substituting a deep mortar box for the old
1978
- mortar board (on which the mortar spread out so thin that a step or two
1979
- had to be taken to reach it) and then placing the mortar box and the
1980
- brick pile close together, and at the proper height on his new scaffold.
1981
-
1982
- These three kinds of improvements are typical of the ways in which
1983
- needless motions can be entirely eliminated and quicker types of
1984
- movements substituted for slow movements when scientific motion study,
1985
- as Mr. Gilbreth calls his analysis, time study, as the writer has called
1986
- similar work, are, applied in any trade.
1987
-
1988
- Most practical men would (knowing the opposition of almost all tradesmen
1989
- to making any change in their methods and habits), however, be skeptical
1990
- as to the possibility of actually achieving any large results from a
1991
- study of this sort. Mr. Gilbreth reports that a few months ago, in a
1992
- large brick building which he erected, he demonstrated on a commercial
1993
- scale the great gain which is possible from practically applying his
1994
- scientific study. With union bricklayers, in laying a factory wall,
1995
- twelve inches thick, with two kinds of brick, faced and ruled joints on
1996
- both sides of the wall, he averaged, after his selected workmen had
1997
- become skilful in his new methods, 350 bricks per man per hour; whereas
1998
- the average speed of doing this work with the old methods was, in that
1999
- section of the country, 120 bricks per man per hour. His bricklayers
2000
- were taught his new method of bricklaying by their foreman. Those who
2001
- failed to profit by their teaching were dropped, and each man, as he
2002
- became proficient under the new method, received a substantial (not a
2003
- small) increase in his wages. With a view to individualizing his workmen
2004
- and stimulating each man to do his best, Mr. Gilbreth also developed an
2005
- ingenious method for measuring and recording the number of bricks laid
2006
- by each man, and for telling each workman at frequent intervals how many
2007
- bricks he had succeeded in laying.
2008
-
2009
- It is only when this work is compared with the conditions which prevail
2010
- under the tyranny of some of our misguided bricklayers' unions that the
2011
- great waste of human effort which is going on will be realized. In one
2012
- foreign city the bricklayers' union have restricted their men to 275
2013
- bricks per day on work of this character when working for the city, and
2014
- 375 per day when working for private owners. The members of this union
2015
- are probably sincere in their belief that this restriction of output is
2016
- a benefit to their trade. It should be plain to all men, however, that
2017
- this deliberate loafing is almost criminal, in that it inevitably
2018
- results in making every workman's family pay higher rent for their
2019
- housing, and also in the end drives work and trade away from their city,
2020
- instead of bringing it to it.
2021
-
2022
- Why is it, in a trade which has been continually practiced since before
2023
- the Christian era, and with implements practically the same as they now
2024
- are, that this simplification of the bricklayer's movements, this great
2025
- gain, has not been made before?
2026
-
2027
- It is highly likely that many times during all of these years individual
2028
- bricklayers have recognized the possibility of eliminating each of these
2029
- unnecessary motions. But even if, in the past, he did invent each one of
2030
- Mr. Gilbreth's improvements, no bricklayer could alone increase his
2031
- speed through their adoption because it will be remembered that in all
2032
- cases several bricklayers work together in a row and that the walls all
2033
- around a building must grow at the same rate of speed. No one
2034
- bricklayer, then, can work much faster than the one next to him. Nor has
2035
- any one workman the authority to make other men cooperate with him to do
2036
- faster work. It is only through enforced standardization of methods,
2037
- enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and
2038
- enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty
2039
- of enforcing the adoption of standards and of enforcing-this cooperation
2040
- rests with the management alone. The management must supply continually
2041
- one or more teachers to show each new man the new and simpler motions,
2042
- and the slower men must be constantly watched and helped until they have
2043
- risen to their proper speed. All of those who, after proper teaching,
2044
- either will not or cannot work in accordance with the new methods and at
2045
- the higher speed must be discharged by the management. The management
2046
- must also recognize the broad fact that workmen will not submit to this
2047
- more rigid standardization and will not work extra hard, unless they
2048
- receive extra pay for doing it.
2049
-
2050
- All of this involves an individual study of and treatment for each man,
2051
- while in the past they have been handled in large groups.
2052
-
2053
- The management must also see that those who prepare the bricks and the
2054
- mortar and adjust the scaffold, etc., for the bricklayers, cooperate
2055
- with them by doing their work just right and always on time; and they
2056
- must also inform each bricklayer at frequent intervals as to the
2057
- progress he is making, so that he may not unintentionally fall off in
2058
- his pace. Thus it will be seen that it is the assumption by the
2059
- management of new duties and new kinds of work never done by employers
2060
- in the past that makes this great improvement possible, and that,
2061
- without this new help from the management, the workman even with full
2062
- knowledge of the new methods and with the best of intentions could not
2063
- attain these startling results.
2064
-
2065
- Mr. Gilbreth's method of bricklaying furnishes a simple illustration of
2066
- true and effective cooperation. Not the type of cooperation in which a
2067
- mass of workmen on one side together cooperate with the management; but
2068
- that in which several men in the management (each one in his own
2069
- particular way) help each workman individually, on the one hand, by
2070
- studying his needs and his shortcomings and teaching him better and
2071
- quicker methods, and, on the other hand, by seeing that all other
2072
- workmen with whom he comes in contact help and cooperate with him by
2073
- doing their part of the work right and fast.
2074
-
2075
- The writer has gone thus fully into Mr. Gilbreth's method in order that
2076
- it may be perfectly clear that this increase in output and that this
2077
- harmony could not have been attained under the management of "initiative
2078
- and incentive" (that is, by putting the problem up to the workman and
2079
- leaving him to solve it alone) which has been the philosophy of the
2080
- past. And that his success has been due to the use of the four elements
2081
- which constitute the essence of scientific management.
2082
-
2083
- First. The development (by the management, not the workman) of the
2084
- science of bricklaying, with rigid rules for each motion of every man,
2085
- and the perfection and standardization of all implements and working
2086
- conditions.
2087
-
2088
- Second. The careful selection and subsequent training of the bricklayers
2089
- into first-class men, and the elimination of all men who refuse to or
2090
- are unable to adopt the best methods.
2091
-
2092
- Third. Bringing the first-class bricklayer and the science of
2093
- bricklaying together, through the constant help and watchfulness of the
2094
- management, and through paying each man a large daily bonus for working
2095
- fast and doing what he is told to do.
2096
-
2097
- Fourth. An almost equal division of the work and responsibility between
2098
- the workman and the management. All day long the management work almost
2099
- side by side with the men, helping, encouraging, and smoothing the way
2100
- for them, while in the past they stood one side, gave the men but little
2101
- help, and threw on to them almost the entire responsibility as to
2102
- methods, implements, speed, and harmonious cooperation.
2103
-
2104
- Of these four elements, the first (the development of the science of
2105
- bricklaying) is the most interesting and spectacular. Each of the three
2106
- others is, however, quite as necessary for success.
2107
-
2108
- It must not be forgotten that back of all this, and directing it, there
2109
- must be the optimistic, determined, and hard-working leader who can wait
2110
- patiently as well as work.
2111
-
2112
- In most cases (particularly when the work to be done is intricate in its
2113
- nature) the "development of the science" is the most important of the
2114
- four great elements of the new management. There are instances, however,
2115
- in which the "scientific selection of the workman" counts for more than
2116
- anything else.
2117
-
2118
- A case of this type is well illustrated in the very simple though
2119
- unusual work of inspecting bicycle balls.
2120
-
2121
- When the bicycle craze was at its height some years ago several million
2122
- small balls made of hardened steel were used annually in bicycle
2123
- bearings. And among the twenty or more operations used in making steel
2124
- balls, perhaps the most important was that of inspecting them after
2125
- final polishing so as to remove all fire-cracked or otherwise imperfect
2126
- balls before boxing.
2127
-
2128
- The writer was given the task of systematizing the largest bicycle ball
2129
- factory in this country. This company had been running for from eight to
2130
- ten years on ordinary day work before he undertook its reorganization,
2131
- so that the one hundred and twenty or more girls who were inspecting the
2132
- balls were "old bands" and skilled at their jobs.
2133
-
2134
- It is impossible even in the most elementary work to change rapidly from
2135
- the old independence of individual day work to scientific cooperation.
2136
-
2137
- In most cases, however, there exist certain imperfections in working
2138
- conditions which can at once be improved with benefit to all concerned.
2139
-
2140
- In this instance it was found that the inspectors (girls) were working
2141
- ten and one-half hours per day (with a Saturday half holiday.)
2142
-
2143
- Their work consisted briefly in placing a row of small polished steel
2144
- balls on the back of the left hand, in the crease between two of the
2145
- fingers pressed together, and while they were rolled over and over, they
2146
- were minutely examined in a strong light, and with the aid of a magnet
2147
- held in the right hand, the defective balls were picked out and thrown
2148
- into especial boxes. Four kinds of defects were looked for-dented, soft,
2149
- scratched, and fire-cracked--and they were mostly so minute as to be
2150
- invisible to an eye not especially trained to this work. It required the
2151
- closest attention and concentration, so that the nervous tension of the
2152
- inspectors was considerable, in spite of the fact that they were
2153
- comfortably seated and were not physically tired.
2154
-
2155
- A most casual study made it evident that a very considerable part of the
2156
- ten and one-half hours during which the girls were supposed to work was
2157
- really spent in idleness because the working period was too long. It is
2158
- a matter of ordinary common sense to plan working hours so that the
2159
- workers can really "work while they work" and "play while they play,"
2160
- and not mix the two.
2161
-
2162
- Before the arrival of Mr. Sanford E. Thompson, who undertook a
2163
- scientific study of the whole process, we decided, therefore, to shorten
2164
- the working hours.
2165
-
2166
- The old foreman who had been over the inspecting room for years was
2167
- instructed to interview one after another of the better inspectors and
2168
- the more influential girls and persuade them that they could do just as
2169
- much work in ten hours each day as they had been doing in ten and
2170
- one-half hours. Each girl was told that the proposition was to shorten
2171
- the day's work to ten hours and pay them the same day's pay they were
2172
- receiving for the ten and one-half hours.
2173
-
2174
- In about two weeks the foreman reported that all of the girls he had
2175
- talked to agreed that they could do their present work just as well in
2176
- ten hours as in ten and one-half and that they approved of the change.
2177
-
2178
- The writer had not been especially noted for his tact so he decided that
2179
- it would be wise for him to display a little more of this quality by
2180
- having the girls vote on the new proposition. This decision was hardly
2181
- justified, however, for when the vote was taken the girls were unanimous
2182
- that 10 1/2 hours was good enough for them and they wanted no innovation
2183
- of any kind.
2184
-
2185
- This settled the matter for the time being. A few months later tact was
2186
- thrown to the winds and the working hours were arbitrarily shortened in
2187
- successive steps to 10 hours, 9 1/2, 9, and 8 1/2 (the pay per day
2188
- remaining the same); and with each shortening of the working day the
2189
- output increased instead of diminishing.
2190
-
2191
- The change from the old to the scientific method in this department was
2192
- made under the direction of Mr. Sanford E. Thompson, perhaps the most
2193
- experienced man in motion and time study in this country, under the
2194
- general superintendence of Mr. H. L. Gantt.
2195
-
2196
- In the Physiological departments of our universities experiments are
2197
- regularly conducted to determine what is known as the "personal
2198
- coefficient" of the man tested. This is done by suddenly bringing some
2199
- object, the letter A or B for instance, within the range of vision of
2200
- the subject, who, the instant he recognizes the letter has to do some
2201
- definite thing, such as to press a particular electric button. The time
2202
- which elapses from the instant the letter comes in view until the
2203
- subject presses the button is accurately recorded by a delicate
2204
- scientific instrument.
2205
-
2206
- This test shows conclusively that there is a great difference in the
2207
- "personal coefficient" of different men. Some individuals are born with
2208
- unusually quick powers of perception accompanied by quick responsive
2209
- action. With some the message is almost instantly transmitted from the
2210
- eye to the brain, and the brain equally quickly responds by sending the
2211
- proper message to the hand.
2212
-
2213
- Men of this type are said to have a low "personal coefficient," while
2214
- those of slow perception and slow action have a high "personal
2215
- coefficient."
2216
-
2217
- Mr. Thompson soon recognized that the quality most needed for bicycle
2218
- ball inspectors was a low personal coefficient. Of course the ordinary
2219
- qualities of endurance and industry were also called for.
2220
-
2221
- For the ultimate good of the girls as well as the company, however, it
2222
- became necessary to exclude, all girls who lacked a low "personal
2223
- coefficient." And unfortunately this involved laying off many of the
2224
- most intelligent, hardest working, and most trustworthy girls merely
2225
- because they did not possess the quality of quick perception followed by
2226
- quick action.
2227
-
2228
- While the gradual selection of girls was going on other changes were
2229
- also being made.
2230
-
2231
- One of the dangers to be guarded against, when the pay of the man or
2232
- woman is made in any way to depend on the quantity of the work done, is
2233
- that in the effort to increase the quantity the quality is apt to
2234
- deteriorate.
2235
-
2236
- It is necessary in almost all cases, therefore, to take definite steps
2237
- to insure against any falling off in quality before moving in any way
2238
- towards an increase in quantity.
2239
-
2240
- In the work of these particular girls quality was the very essence. They
2241
- were engaged in picking out all defective balls.
2242
-
2243
- The first step, therefore, was to make it impossible for them to slight
2244
- their work without being, found out. This was accomplished through what
2245
- is known as over-inspection. Each one of four of the most trust-worthy
2246
- girls was given each day a lot of balls to inspect which had been
2247
- examined the day before by one of the regular inspectors; the number
2248
- identifying the lot to be over-inspected having been changed by the
2249
- foreman so that none of the over-inspectors knew whose work they were
2250
- examining. In addition to this one of the lots inspected by the four
2251
- over-inspectors was examined on the following day by the chief
2252
- inspector, selected on account of her especial accuracy and integrity.
2253
-
2254
- An effective expedient was adopted for checking the honesty and accuracy
2255
- of the over-inspection. Every two or three days a lot of balls was
2256
- especially prepared by the foreman, who counted out a definite number of
2257
- perfect balls, and added a recorded number of defective balls of each
2258
- kind. Neither the inspectors nor the over-inspectors had any means of
2259
- distinguishing this prepared lot from the regular commercial lots. And
2260
- in this way all temptation to slight their work or make false returns
2261
- was removed.
2262
-
2263
- After insuring in this way against deterioration in quality, effective
2264
- means were at once adopted to increase the output. Improved day work was
2265
- substituted for the old slipshod method. An accurate daily record was
2266
- kept both as to the quantity and quality of the work done in order to
2267
- guard against any personal prejudice on the part of the foreman and to
2268
- insure absolute impartiality and justice for each inspector. In a
2269
- comparatively short time this record enabled the foreman to stir the
2270
- ambition of all the inspectors by increasing the wages of those who
2271
- turned out a large quantity and good quality, while at the same time
2272
- lowering the pay of those who did indifferent work and discharging
2273
- others who proved to be incorrigibly slow or careless. A careful
2274
- examination was then made of the way in which each girl spent her time
2275
- and an accurate time study was undertaken, through the use of a
2276
- stop-watch and record blanks, to determine how fast each kind of
2277
- inspection should be done, and to establish the exact conditions under
2278
- which each girl could do her quickest and best work, while at the same
2279
- time guarding against giving her a task so severe that there was danger
2280
- from over fatigue or exhaustion. This investigation showed that the
2281
- girls spent a considerable part of their time either in partial
2282
- idleness, talking and half working, or in actually doing nothing.
2283
-
2284
- Even when the hours of labor had been shortened from 10 1/2 to 8 1/2
2285
- hours a close observation of the girls showed that after about an hour
2286
- and one-half of consecutive work they began to get nervous. They
2287
- evidently needed a rest. It is wise to stop short of the point at which
2288
- overstrain begins, so we arranged for them to have a ten minutes period
2289
- for recreation at the end of each hour and one quarter. During these
2290
- recess periods (two of ten minutes each in the morning and two in the
2291
- afternoon) they were obliged to stop work and were encouraged to leave
2292
- their seats and get a complete change of occupation by walking around
2293
- and talking, etc.
2294
-
2295
- In one respect no doubt some people will say that these girls were
2296
- brutally treated. They were seated so far apart that they could not
2297
- conveniently talk while at work.
2298
-
2299
- Shortening their hours of labor, however, and providing so far as we
2300
- knew the most favorable working conditions made it possible for them to
2301
- really work steadily instead of pretending to do so.
2302
-
2303
- And it is only after this stage in the reorganization is reached, when
2304
- the girls have been properly selected and on the one hand such
2305
- precautions have been taken as to guard against the possibility of
2306
- over-driving them, while, on the other hand, the temptation to slight
2307
- their work has been removed and the most favorable working conditions
2308
- have been established, that the final step should be taken which insures
2309
- them what they most want, namely, high wages, and the employers what
2310
- they most want, namely, the maximum output and best quality of work,
2311
- -which means a low labor cost.
2312
-
2313
- This step is to give each girl each day a carefully measured task which
2314
- demands a full day's work from a competent operative, and also to give
2315
- her a large premium or bonus whenever she accomplishes this task.
2316
-
2317
- This was done in this case through establishing what is known as
2318
- differential rate piece work.*
2319
-
2320
- [*Footnote: See paper read before the American Society of Mechanical
2321
- Engineers, by Fred. W. Taylor, Vol. XVI, p. 856, entitled "Piece Rate
2322
- System."]
2323
-
2324
- Under this system the pay of each girl was increased in proportion to
2325
- the quantity of her output and also still more in proportion to the
2326
- accuracy of her work.
2327
-
2328
- As will be shown later, the differential rate (the lots inspected by the
2329
- over-inspectors forming the basis for the differential) resulted in a
2330
- large gain in the quantity of work done and at the same time in a marked
2331
- improvement in the quality.
2332
-
2333
- Before they finally worked to the best advantage it was found to be
2334
- necessary to measure the output of each girl as often as once every
2335
- hour, and to send a teacher to each individual who was found to be
2336
- falling behind to find what was wrong, to straighten her out, and to
2337
- encourage and help her to catch up.
2338
-
2339
- There is a general principle back of this which should be appreciated by
2340
- all of those who are especially interested in the management of men.
2341
-
2342
- A reward, if it is to be effective in stimulating men to do their best
2343
- work, must come soon after the work has been done. But few men are able
2344
- to look forward for more than a week or perhaps at most a month, and
2345
- work hard for a reward which they are to receive at the end of this
2346
- time.
2347
-
2348
- The average workman must be able to measure what he has accomplished and
2349
- clearly see his reward at the end of each day if he is to do his best.
2350
- And more elementary characters, such as the young girls inspecting
2351
- bicycle balls, or children, for instance, should have proper
2352
- encouragement either in the shape of personal attention from those over
2353
- them or an actual reward in sight as often as once an hour.
2354
-
2355
- This is one of the principal reasons why cooperation or "profit-sharing"
2356
- either through selling stock to the employees or through dividends on
2357
- wages received at the end of the year, etc., have been at the best only
2358
- mildly effective in stimulating men to work hard. The nice time which
2359
- they are sure to have to-day if they take things easily and go slowly
2360
- proves more attractive than steady hard work with a possible reward to
2361
- be shared with others six months later. A second reason for the
2362
- inefficiency of profit-sharing schemes had been that no form of
2363
- cooperation has yet been devised in which each individual is allowed
2364
- free scope for his personal ambition. Personal ambition always has been
2365
- and will remain a more powerful incentive to exertion than a desire for
2366
- the general welfare. The few misplaced drones, who do the loafing and
2367
- share equally in the profits, with the rest, under cooperation are sure
2368
- to drag the better men down toward their level.
2369
-
2370
- Other and formidable difficulties in the path of cooperative schemes
2371
- are, the equitable division of the profits, and the fact that, while
2372
- workmen are always ready to share the profits, they are neither able nor
2373
- willing to share the losses. Further than this, in many cases, it is
2374
- neither right nor just that they should share either the profits or the
2375
- losses, since these may be due in great part to causes entirely beyond
2376
- their influence or control, and to which they do not contribute.
2377
-
2378
- To come back to the girls inspecting bicycle balls, however, the final
2379
- outcome of all the changes was that thirty-five girls did the work
2380
- formerly done by one hundred and twenty. And that the accuracy of the
2381
- work at the higher speed was two-thirds greater than at the former slow
2382
- speed.
2383
-
2384
- The good that came to the girls was,
2385
-
2386
- First. That they averaged from 80 to 100 per cent higher wages than they
2387
- formerly received.
2388
-
2389
- Second. Their hours of labor were shortened from 10 1/2 to 8 1/2 per day,
2390
- with a Saturday half holiday. And they were given four recreation
2391
- periods properly distributed through the day, which made overworking
2392
- impossible for a healthy girl.
2393
-
2394
- Third. Each girl was made to feel that she was the object of especial
2395
- care and interest on the part of the management, and that if anything
2396
- went wrong with her she could always have a helper and teacher in the
2397
- management to lean upon.
2398
-
2399
- Fourth. All young women should be given two consecutive days of rest
2400
- (with pay) each month, to be taken whenever they may choose. It is my
2401
- impression that these girls were given this privilege, although I am not
2402
- quite certain on this point.
2403
-
2404
- The benefits which came to the company from these changes were:
2405
-
2406
- First. A substantial improvement in the quality of the product.
2407
-
2408
- Second. A material reduction in the cost of inspection, in spite of the
2409
- extra expense involved in clerk work, teachers, time study,
2410
- over-inspectors, and in paying higher wages.
2411
-
2412
- Third. That the most friendly relations existed between the management
2413
- and the employees, which rendered labor troubles of any kind or a strike
2414
- impossible.
2415
-
2416
- These good results were brought about by many changes which substituted
2417
- favorable for unfavorable working conditions. It should be appreciated,
2418
- however, that the one element which did more than all of the others was,
2419
- the careful selection of girls with quick perception to replace those
2420
- whose perceptions were slow--(the substitution of girls with a low
2421
- personal coefficient for those whose personal coefficient was high)--the
2422
- scientific selection of the workers.
2423
-
2424
- The illustrations have thus far been purposely confined to the more
2425
- elementary types of work, so that a very strong doubt must still remain
2426
- as to whether this kind of cooperation is desirable in the case of more
2427
- intelligent mechanics, that is, in the case of men who are more capable
2428
- of generalization, and who would therefore be more likely, of their own
2429
- volition, to choose the more scientific and better methods. The
2430
- following illustrations will be given for the purpose of demonstrating
2431
- the fact that in the higher classes of work the scientific laws which
2432
- are developed are so intricate that the high-priced mechanic needs (even
2433
- more than the cheap laborer) the cooperation of men better educated than
2434
- himself in finding the laws, and then in selecting, developing, and
2435
- training him to work in accordance with these laws. These illustrations
2436
- should make perfectly clear our original proposition that in practically
2437
- all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each workman's act
2438
- is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited
2439
- to actually doing the work is incapable, either through lack of
2440
- education or through insufficient mental capacity, of understanding this
2441
- science.
2442
-
2443
- A doubt, for instance, will remain in the minds perhaps of most readers
2444
- (in the case of an establishment which manufactures the same machine,
2445
- year in and year out, in large quantities, and in which, therefore, each
2446
- mechanic repeats the same limited series of operations over and over
2447
- again), whether the ingenuity of each workman and the help which he from
2448
- time to time receives from his foreman will not develop such superior
2449
- methods and such a personal dexterity that no scientific study which
2450
- could be made would result in a material increase in efficiency.
2451
-
2452
- A number of years ago a company employing about three hundred men, which
2453
- had been manufacturing the same machine for ten to fifteen years, sent
2454
- for us to report as to whether any gain could be made through the
2455
- introduction of scientific management. Their shops had been run for many
2456
- years under a good superintendent and with excellent foremen and
2457
- workmen, on piece work. The whole establishment was, without doubt, in
2458
- better physical condition than the average machine-shop in this country.
2459
- The superintendent was distinctly displeased when told that through the
2460
- adoption of task management the output, with the same number of men and
2461
- machines, could be more than doubled. He said that he believed that any
2462
- such statement was mere boasting, absolutely false, and instead of
2463
- inspiring him with confidence, he was disgusted that any one should make
2464
- such an impudent claim. He, however, readily assented to the proposition
2465
- that he should select any one of the machines whose output he considered
2466
- as representing the average of the shop, and that we should then
2467
- demonstrate on this machine that through scientific methods its output
2468
- could be more than doubled.
2469
-
2470
- The machine selected by him fairly represented the work of the shop. It
2471
- had been run for ten or twelve years past by a first-class mechanic who
2472
- was more than equal in his ability to the average workmen in the
2473
- establishment. In a shop of this sort in which similar machines are
2474
- made over and over again, the work is necessarily greatly subdivided, so
2475
- that no one man works upon more than a comparatively small number of
2476
- parts during the year. A careful record was therefore made, in the
2477
- presence of both parties, of the time actually taken in finishing each
2478
- of the parts which this man worked upon. The total time required by him
2479
- to finish each piece, as well as the exact speeds and feeds which he
2480
- took, were noted and a record was kept of the time which he took in
2481
- setting the work in the machine and removing it. After obtaining in this
2482
- way a statement of what represented a fair average of the work done in
2483
- the shop, we applied to this one machine the principles of scientific
2484
- management.
2485
-
2486
- By means of four quite elaborate slide-rules, which have been especially
2487
- made for the purpose of determining the all-round capacity of
2488
- metal-cutting machines, a careful analysis was made of every element of
2489
- this machine in its relation to the work in hand. Its Pulling power at
2490
- its various speeds, its feeding capacity, and its proper speeds were
2491
- determined by means of the slide-rules, and changes were then made in
2492
- the countershaft and driving pulleys so as to run it at its proper
2493
- speed. Tools, made of high-speed steel, and of the proper shapes, were
2494
- properly dressed, treated, and ground. (It should be understood,
2495
- however, that in this case the high-speed steel which had heretofore
2496
- been in general use in the shop was also used in our demonstration.) A
2497
- large special slide-rule was then made, by means of which the exact
2498
- speeds and feeds were indicated at which each kind of work could be done
2499
- in the shortest possible time in this particular lathe. After preparing
2500
- in this way so that the workman should work according to the new method,
2501
- one after another, pieces of work were finished in the lathe,
2502
- corresponding to the work which had been done in our preliminary trials,
2503
- and the gain in time made through running the machine according to
2504
- scientific principles ranged from two and one-half times the speed in
2505
- the slowest instance to nine times the speed in the highest.
2506
-
2507
- The change from rule-of-thumb management to scientific management
2508
- involves, however, not only a study of what is the proper speed for
2509
- doing the work and a remodeling of the tools and the implements in the
2510
- shop, but also a complete change in the mental attitude of all the men
2511
- in the shop toward their work and toward their employers. The physical
2512
- improvements in the machines necessary to insure large gains, and the
2513
- motion, study followed by minute study with a stop-watch of the time in
2514
- which each workman should do his work, can be made comparatively
2515
- quickly. But the change in the mental attitude and in the habits of the
2516
- three hundred or more workmen can be brought about only slowly and
2517
- through a long series of object-lessons, which finally demonstrates to
2518
- each man the great advantage which he will gain by heartily cooperating
2519
- in his every-day work with the men in the management. Within three
2520
- years, however, in this shop, the output had been more than doubled per
2521
- man and per machine. The men had been carefully selected and in almost
2522
- all cases promoted from a lower to a higher order of work, and so
2523
- instructed by their teachers (the functional foremen) that they were
2524
- able to earn higher wages than ever before. The average increase in the
2525
- daily earnings of each man was about 35 per cent., while, at the same
2526
- time, the sum total of the wages paid for doing a given amount of work
2527
- was lower than before. This increase in the speed of doing the work, of
2528
- course, involved a substitution of the quickest hand methods for the old
2529
- independent rule-of-thumb methods, and an elaborate analysis of the hand
2530
- work done by each man. (By hand work is meant such work as depends upon
2531
- the manual dexterity and speed of a workman, and which is independent of
2532
- the work done by the machine.) The time saved by scientific hand work
2533
- was in many cases greater even than that saved in machine-work.
2534
-
2535
- It seems important to fully explain the reason why, with the aid of a
2536
- slide-rule, and after having studied the art of cutting metals, it was
2537
- possible for the scientifically equipped man, who had never before seen
2538
- these particular jobs, and who had never worked on this machine, to do
2539
- work from two and one-half to nine times as fast as it had been done
2540
- before by a good mechanic who had spent his whole time for some ten to
2541
- twelve years in doing this very work upon this particular machine. In a
2542
- word, this was possible because the art of cutting metals involves a
2543
- true science of no small magnitude, a science, in fact, so intricate
2544
- that it is impossible for any machinist who is suited to running a lathe
2545
- year in and year out either to understand it or to work according to its
2546
- laws without the help of men who have made this their specialty. Men who
2547
- are un-familiar with machine-shop work are prone to look upon the
2548
- manufacture of each piece as a special problem, independent of any other
2549
- kind of machine-work. They are apt to think, for instance, that the
2550
- problems connected with making the parts of an engine require the
2551
- especial study, one may say almost the life study, of a set of
2552
- engine-making mechanics, and that these problems are entirely different
2553
- from those which would be met with in machining lathe or planer parts.
2554
- In fact, however, a study of those elements which are peculiar either to
2555
- engine parts or to lathe parts is trifling, compared with the great
2556
- study of the art, or science, of cutting metals, upon a knowledge of
2557
- which rests the ability to do really fast machine-work of all kinds.
2558
-
2559
- The real problem is how to remove chips fast from a casting or a
2560
- forging, and how to make the piece smooth and true in the shortest time,
2561
- and it matters but little whether the piece being worked upon is part,
2562
- say, of a marine engine, a printing-press, or an automobile. For this
2563
- reason, the man with the slide rule, familiar with the science of
2564
- cutting metals, who had never before seen this particular work, was able
2565
- completely to distance the skilled mechanic who had made the parts of
2566
- this machine his specialty for years.
2567
-
2568
- It is true that whenever intelligent and educated men find that the
2569
- responsibility for making progress in any of the mechanic arts rests
2570
- with them, instead of upon the workmen who are actually laboring at the
2571
- trade, that they almost invariably start on the road which leads to the
2572
- development of a science where, in the past, has existed mere
2573
- traditional or rule-of-thumb knowledge. When men, whose education has
2574
- given them the habit of generalizing and everywhere looking for laws,
2575
- find themselves confronted with a multitude of problems, such as exist
2576
- in every trade and which have a general similarity one to another, it is
2577
- inevitable that they should try to gather these problems into certain
2578
- logical groups, and then search for some general laws or rules to guide
2579
- them in their solution. As has been pointed out, however, the underlying
2580
- principles of the management of "initiative and incentive," that is, the
2581
- underlying philosophy of this management, necessarily leaves the
2582
- solution of all of these problems in the hands of each individual
2583
- workman, while the philosophy of scientific management places their
2584
- solution in the hands of the management. The workman's whole time is
2585
- each day taken in actually doing the work with his hands, so that, even
2586
- if he had the necessary education and habits of generalizing in his
2587
- thought, he lacks the time and the opportunity for developing these
2588
- laws, because the study of even a simple law involving say time study
2589
- requires the cooperation of two men, the one doing the work while the
2590
- other times him with a stop-watch. And even if the workman were to
2591
- develop laws where before existed only rule-of-thumb knowledge, his
2592
- personal interest would lead him almost inevitably to keep his
2593
- discoveries secret, so that he could, by means of this special
2594
- knowledge, personally do more work than other men and so obtain higher
2595
- wages.
2596
-
2597
- Under scientific management, on the other hand, it becomes the duty and
2598
- also the pleasure of those who are engaged in the management not only to
2599
- develop laws to replace rule of thumb, but also to teach impartially all
2600
- of the workmen who are under them the quickest ways of working. The
2601
- useful results obtained from these laws are always so great that any
2602
- company can well afford to pay for the time and the experiments needed
2603
- to develop them. Thus under scientific management exact scientific
2604
- knowledge and methods are everywhere, sooner or later, sure to replace
2605
- rule of thumb, whereas under the old type of management working in
2606
- accordance with scientific laws is an impossibility. The development of
2607
- the art or science of cutting metals is an apt illustration of this
2608
- fact. In the fall of 1880, about the time that the writer started to
2609
- make the experiments above referred to, to determine what constitutes a
2610
- proper day's work for a laborer, he also obtained the permission of Mr.
2611
- William Sellers, the President of the Midvale Steel Company, to make a
2612
- series of experiments to determine what angles and shapes of tools were
2613
- the best for cutting steel, and also to try to determine the proper
2614
- cutting speed for steel. At the time that these experiments were started
2615
- it was his belief that they would not last longer than six months, and,
2616
- in fact, if it had been known that a longer period than this would be
2617
- required, the permission to spend a considerable sum of money in making
2618
- them would not have been forthcoming.
2619
-
2620
- A 66-inch diameter vertical boring-mill was the first machine used in
2621
- making these experiments, and large locomotive tires, made out of hard
2622
- steel of uniform quality, were day after day cut up into chips in
2623
- gradually learning how to make, shape, and use the cutting tools so that
2624
- they would do faster work. At the end of six months sufficient
2625
- practical information had been obtained to far more than repay the cost
2626
- of materials and wages which had been expended in experimenting. And yet
2627
- the comparatively small number of experiments which had been made served
2628
- principally to make it clear that the actual knowledge attained was but
2629
- a small fraction of that which still remained to be developed, and which
2630
- was badly needed by us, in our daily attempt to direct and help the
2631
- machinists in their tasks.
2632
-
2633
- Experiments in this field were carried on, with occasional interruption,
2634
- through a period of about 26 years, in the course of which ten different
2635
- experimental machines were especially fitted up to do this work. Between
2636
- 30,000 and 50,000 experiments were carefully recorded, and many other
2637
- experiments were made, of which no record was kept. In studying these
2638
- laws more than 800,000 pounds of steel and iron was cut up into chips
2639
- with the experimental tools, and it is estimated that from $150,000 to
2640
- $200,000 was spent in the investigation.
2641
-
2642
- Work of this character is intensely interesting to any one who has any
2643
- love for scientific research. For the purpose of this paper, however, it
2644
- should be fully appreciated that the motive power which kept these
2645
- experiments going through many years, and which supplied the money and
2646
- the opportunity for their accomplishment, was not an abstract search
2647
- after scientific knowledge, but was the very practical fact that we
2648
- lacked the exact information which was needed every day, in order to
2649
- help our machinists to do their work in the best way and in the quickest
2650
- time.
2651
-
2652
- All of these experiments were made to enable us to answer correctly the
2653
- two questions which face every machinist each time that he does a piece
2654
- of work in a metal-cutting machine, such as a lathe, planer, drill
2655
- press, or milling machine. These two questions are:
2656
-
2657
- In order to do the work in the quickest time, At what cutting speed
2658
- shall I run my machine? and
2659
-
2660
- What feed shall I use?
2661
-
2662
- They sound so simple that they would appear to call for merely the
2663
- trained judgment of any good mechanic. In fact, however, after working
2664
- 26 years, it has been found that the answer in every case involves the
2665
- solution of an intricate mathematical problem, in which the effect of
2666
- twelve independent variables must be determined.
2667
-
2668
- Each of the twelve following variables has an important effect upon the
2669
- answer. The figures which are given with each of the variables represent
2670
- the effect of this element upon the cutting speed.
2671
-
2672
- For example, after the first variable (A) we quote,
2673
-
2674
- "The proportion is as I in the case of semi-hardened steel or chilled
2675
- iron to 100 in the case of a very soft, low-carbon steel." The meaning
2676
- of this quotation is that soft steel can be cut 100 times as fast as the
2677
- hard steel or chilled iron. The ratios which are given, then, after each
2678
- of these elements, indicate the wide range of judgment which practically
2679
- every machinist has been called upon to exercise in the past in
2680
- determining the best speed at which to run the machine and the best feed
2681
- to use.
2682
-
2683
- (A) The quality of the metal which is to be cut; i.e., its hardness
2684
- or other qualities which affect the cutting speed. The proportion is as
2685
- 1 in the case of semi-hardened steel or chilled iron to 100 in the case
2686
- of very soft, low-carbon steel.
2687
-
2688
- (B) The chemical composition of the steel from which the tool is
2689
- made, and the heat treatment of the tool. The proportion is as 1 in
2690
- tools made from tempered carbon steel to 7 in the best high-speed tools.
2691
-
2692
- (C) The thickness of the shaving, or, the thickness of the spiral
2693
- strip or band of metal which is to be removed by the tool. The
2694
- proportion is as 1 with thickness of shaving 3/16 of an inch to 3 1/2
2695
- with thickness of shaving 1/64 of an inch.
2696
-
2697
- (D) The shape or contour of the cutting edge of the tool. The
2698
- proportion is as 1 in a thread tool to 6 in a broad-nosed cutting tool.
2699
-
2700
- (E) Whether a copious stream of water or other cooling medium is
2701
- used on the tool. The proportion is as 1 for tool running dry to 1.41
2702
- for tool cooled by a copious stream of water.
2703
-
2704
- (F) The depth of the cut. The proportion is as 1 with 1/2 inch depth
2705
- of cut to 1.36 with 1/8 inch depth of cut.
2706
-
2707
- (G) The duration of the cut, i.e., the time which a tool must last under
2708
- pressure of the shaving without being reground. The proportion is as 1
2709
- when tool is to be ground every 1 1/2 hours to 1.20 when tool is to be
2710
- ground every 20 minutes.
2711
-
2712
- (H) The lip and clearance angles of the tool. The proportion is as 1
2713
- with lip angle of 68 degrees to 1.023 with lip angle of 61 degrees.
2714
-
2715
- (J) The elasticity of the work and of the tool on account of
2716
- producing chatter. The proportion is as 1 with tool chattering to 1.15
2717
- with tool running smoothly.
2718
-
2719
- (K) The diameter of the casting or forging which is being cut.
2720
-
2721
- (L) The pressure of the chip or shaving upon the cutting surface of the
2722
- tool.
2723
-
2724
- (M) The pulling power and the speed and feed changes of the machine.
2725
-
2726
- It may seem preposterous to many people that it should have required a
2727
- period of 26 years to investigate the effect of these twelve variables
2728
- upon the cutting speed of metals. To those, however, who have had
2729
- personal experience as experimenters, it will be appreciated that the
2730
- great difficulty of the problem lies in the fact that it contains so
2731
- many variable elements. And in fact the great length of time consumed in
2732
- making each single experiment was caused by the difficulty of holding
2733
- eleven variables constant and uniform throughout the experiment, while
2734
- the effect of the twelfth variable was being investigated. Holding the
2735
- eleven variables constant was far more difficult than the investigation
2736
- of the twelfth element.
2737
-
2738
- As, one after another, the effect upon the cutting speed of each of
2739
- these variables was investigated, in order that practical use could be
2740
- made of this knowledge, it was necessary to find a mathematical formula
2741
- which expressed in concise form the laws which had been obtained. As
2742
- examples of the twelve formulae which were developed, the three
2743
- following are given:
2744
-
2745
- P = 45,000 D 14/15 F 3/4
2746
-
2747
- V = 90/T 1/8
2748
-
2749
- V = 11.9/ (F 0.665(48/3 D) 0.2373 + (2.4 / (18 + 24D))
2750
-
2751
- After these laws had been investigated and the various formulae which
2752
- mathematically expressed them had been determined, there still remained
2753
- the difficult task of how to solve one of these complicated mathematical
2754
- problems quickly enough to make this knowledge available for every-day
2755
- use. If a good mathematician who had these formula before him were to
2756
- attempt to get the proper answer (i.e., to get the correct cutting speed
2757
- and feed by working in the ordinary way) it would take him from two to
2758
- six hours, say, to solve a single problem; far longer to solve the
2759
- mathematical problem than would be taken in most cases by the workmen in
2760
- doing the whole job in his machine. Thus a task of considerable
2761
- magnitude which faced us was that of finding a quick solution of this
2762
- problem, and as we made progress in its solution, the whole problem was
2763
- from time to time presented by the writer to one after another of the
2764
- noted mathematicians in this country. They were offered any reasonable
2765
- fee for a rapid, practical method to be used in its solution. Some of
2766
- these men merely glanced at it; others, for the sake of being courteous,
2767
- kept it before them for some two or three weeks. They all gave us
2768
- practically the same answer: that in many cases it was possible to,
2769
- solve mathematical problems which contained four variables, and in some
2770
- cases problems with five or six variables, but that it was manifestly
2771
- impossible to solve a problem containing twelve variables in any other
2772
- way than by the slow process of "trial and error."
2773
-
2774
- A quick solution was, however, so much of a necessity in our every-day
2775
- work of running machine-shops, that in spite of the small encouragement
2776
- received from the mathematicians, we continued at irregular periods,
2777
- through a term of fifteen years, to give a large amount of time
2778
- searching for a simple solution. Four or five men at various periods
2779
- gave practically their whole time to this work, and finally, while we
2780
- were at the Bethlehem Steel Company, the slide-rule was developed which
2781
- is illustrated on Folder No. 11 of the paper "On the Art of Cutting
2782
- Metals," and is described in detail in the paper presented by Mr. Carl
2783
- G. Barth to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, entitled
2784
- "Slide-rules for the Machine-shop, as a part of the Taylor System of
2785
- Management" (Vol. XXV of The Transactions of the American Society of
2786
- Mechanical Engineers). By means of this slide-rule, one of these
2787
- intricate problems can be solved in less than a half minute by any good
2788
- mechanics whether he understands anything about mathematics or not, thus
2789
- making available for every-day, practical use the years of experimenting
2790
- on the art of cutting metals. This is a good illustration of the fact
2791
- that some way can always be found of making practical, everyday use of
2792
- complicated scientific data, which appears to be beyond the experience
2793
- and the range of the technical training of ordinary practical men. These
2794
- slide-rules have been for years in constant daily use by machinists
2795
- having no knowledge of mathematics.
2796
-
2797
- A glance at the intricate mathematical formula (see page 109) which
2798
- represent the laws of cutting metals should clearly show the reason why
2799
- it is impossible for any machinist, without the aid of these laws, and
2800
- who depends upon his personal experience, correctly to guess at the
2801
- answer to the two questions,
2802
-
2803
- What speed shall I use?
2804
-
2805
- What feed shall I use?
2806
-
2807
- even though he may repeat the same piece of work many times.
2808
-
2809
- To return to the case of the machinist who had been working for ten to
2810
- twelve years in machining the same pieces over and over again, there was
2811
- but a remote chance in any of the various kinds of work which this man
2812
- did that he should hit upon the one best method of doing each piece of
2813
- work out of the hundreds of possible methods which lay before him. In
2814
- considering this typical case, it must also be remembered that the
2815
- metal-cutting machines throughout our machine-shops have practically all
2816
- been speeded by their makers by guesswork, and without the knowledge
2817
- obtained through a study of the art of cutting metals. In the
2818
- machine-shops systematized by us we have found that there is not one
2819
- machine in a hundred which is speeded by its makers at anywhere near the
2820
- correct cutting speed. So that, in order to compete with the science of
2821
- cutting metals, the machinist, before he could use proper speeds, would
2822
- first have to put new pulleys on the countershaft of his machine, and
2823
- also make in most cases changes in the shapes and treatment of his
2824
- tools, etc. Many of these changes are matters entirely beyond his
2825
- control, even if he knows what ought to be done.
2826
-
2827
- If the reason is clear to the reader why the rule-of-thumb knowledge
2828
- obtained by the machinist who is engaged on repeat work cannot possibly
2829
- compete with the true science of cutting metals, it should be even more
2830
- apparent why the high-class mechanic, who is called upon to do a great
2831
- variety of work from day to day, is even less able to compete with this
2832
- science. The high-class mechanic who does a different kind of work each
2833
- day, in order to do each job in the quickest time, would need, in
2834
- addition to a thorough knowledge of the art of cutting metals, a vast
2835
- knowledge and experience in the quickest way of doing each kind of hand
2836
- work. And the reader, by calling to mind the gain which was made by Mr.
2837
- Gilbreth through his motion and time study in laying bricks, will
2838
- appreciate the great possibilities for quicker methods of doing all
2839
- kinds of hand work which lie before every tradesman after he has the
2840
- help which comes from a scientific motion and time study of his work.
2841
-
2842
- For nearly thirty years past, time-study men connected with the
2843
- management of machine-shops have been devoting their whole time to a
2844
- scientific motion study, followed by accurate time study, with a
2845
- stop-watch, of all of the elements connected with the machinist's work.
2846
- When, therefore, the teachers, who form one section of the management,
2847
- and who are cooperating with the working men, are in possession both of
2848
- the science of cutting metals and of the equally elaborate motion-study
2849
- and time-study science connected with this work, it is not difficult to
2850
- appreciate why even the highest class mechanic is unable to do his best
2851
- work without constant daily assistance from his teachers. And if this
2852
- fact has been made clear to the reader, one of the important objects in
2853
- writing this paper will have been realized.
2854
-
2855
- It is hoped that the illustrations which have been given make it
2856
- apparent why scientific management must inevitably in all cases produce
2857
- overwhelmingly greater results, both for the company and its employees,
2858
- than can be obtained with the management of "initiative and incentive."
2859
- And it should also be clear that these results have been attained, not
2860
- through a marked superiority in the mechanism of one type of management
2861
- over the mechanism of another, but rather through the substitution of
2862
- one set of underlying principles for a totally different set of
2863
- principles, by the substitution of one philosophy for another philosophy
2864
- in industrial management.
2865
-
2866
- To repeat them throughout all of these illustrations, it will be seen
2867
- that the useful results have hinged mainly upon (1) the substitution of
2868
- a science for the individual judgment of the workman; (2) the scientific
2869
- selection and development of the workman, after each man has been
2870
- studied, taught, and trained, and one may say experimented with, instead
2871
- of allowing the workmen to select themselves and develop in a haphazard
2872
- way; and (3) the intimate cooperation of the management with the
2873
- workmen, so that they together do the work in accordance with the
2874
- scientific laws which have been developed, instead of leaving the
2875
- solution of each problem in the hands of the individual workman. In
2876
- applying these new principles, in place of the old individual effort of
2877
- each workman, both sides share almost equally in the daily performance
2878
- of each task, the management doing that part of the work for which they
2879
- are best fitted, and the workmen the balance.
2880
-
2881
- It is for the illustration of this philosophy that this paper has been
2882
- written, but some of the elements involved in its general principles
2883
- should be further discussed.
2884
-
2885
- The development of a science sounds like a formidable undertaking, and
2886
- in fact anything like a thorough study of a science such as that of
2887
- cutting metals necessarily involves many years of work. The science of
2888
- cutting metals, however, represents in its complication, and in the time
2889
- required to develop it, almost an extreme case in the mechanic arts. Yet
2890
- even in this very intricate science, within a few months after starting,
2891
- enough knowledge had been obtained to much more than pay for the work of
2892
- experimenting. This holds true in the case of practically all scientific
2893
- development in the mechanic arts. The first laws developed for cutting
2894
- metals were crude, and contained only a partial knowledge of the truth,
2895
- yet this imperfect knowledge was vastly better than the utter lack of
2896
- exact information or the very imperfect rule of thumb which existed
2897
- before, and it enabled the workmen, with the help of the management, to
2898
- do far quicker and better work.
2899
-
2900
- For example, a very short time was needed to discover one or two types
2901
- of tools which, though imperfect as compared with the shapes developed
2902
- years afterward, were superior to all other shapes and kinds in common
2903
- use. These tools were adopted as standard and made possible an immediate
2904
- increase in the speed of every machinist who used them. These types were
2905
- superseded in a comparatively short time by still other tools which
2906
- remained standard until they in their turn made way for later
2907
- improvements.*
2908
-
2909
- [*Footnote: Time and again the experimenter in the mechanic arts will
2910
- find himself face to face with the problem as to whether he had better
2911
- make immediate practical use of the knowledge which he has attained, or
2912
- wait until some positive finality in his conclusions has been reached.
2913
- He recognizes clearly the fact that he has already made some definite
2914
- progress, but sees the possibility (even the probability) of still
2915
- further improvement. Each particular case must of course be
2916
- independently considered, but the general conclusion we have reached is
2917
- that in most instances it is wise to put one's conclusions as soon as
2918
- possible to the rigid test of practical use. The one indispensable
2919
- condition for such a test, however, is that the experimenter shall have
2920
- full opportunity, coupled with sufficient authority, to insure a
2921
- thorough and impartial trial. And this, owing to the almost universal
2922
- prejudice in favor of the old, and to the suspicion of the new, is
2923
- difficult to get.]
2924
-
2925
- The science which exists in most of the mechanic arts is, however, far
2926
- simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in
2927
- fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the
2928
- average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In
2929
- most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple
2930
- analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do
2931
- some small part of his work, and this study is usually made by a man
2932
- equipped merely with a stop-watch and a properly ruled notebook.
2933
- Hundreds of these "time-study men" are now engaged in developing
2934
- elementary scientific knowledge where before existed only rule of thumb.
2935
- Even the motion study of Mr. Gilbreth in bricklaying (described on pages
2936
- 77 to 84) involves a much more elaborate investigation than that which
2937
- occurs in most cases. The general steps to be taken in developing a
2938
- simple law of this class are as follows:
2939
-
2940
- First. Find, say, 10 or 15 different men (preferably in as many separate
2941
- establishments and different parts of the country) who are especially
2942
- skilful in doing the particular work to be analyzed.
2943
-
2944
- Second. Study the exact series of elementary operations or motions which
2945
- each of these men uses in doing the work which is being investigated, as
2946
- well as the implements each man uses.
2947
-
2948
- Third. Study with a stop-watch the time required to make each of these
2949
- elementary movements and then select the quickest way of doing each
2950
- element of the work.
2951
-
2952
- Fourth. Eliminate all false movements, slow movements, and useless
2953
- movements.
2954
-
2955
- Fifth. After doing away with all unnecessary movements, collect into one
2956
- series the quickest and best movements as well as the best implements.
2957
-
2958
- This one new method, involving that series of motions which can be made
2959
- quickest and best, is then substituted in place of the ten or fifteen
2960
- inferior series which were formerly in use. This best method becomes
2961
- standard, and remains standard, to be taught first to the teachers (or
2962
- functional foremen) and by them to every workman in the establishment
2963
- until it is superseded by a quicker and better series of movements. In
2964
- this simple way one element after another of the science is developed.
2965
-
2966
- In the same way each type of implement used in a trade is studied. Under
2967
- the philosophy of the management of "initiative and incentive" each
2968
- work-man is called upon to use his own best judgment, so as to do the
2969
- work in the quickest time, and from this results in all cases a large
2970
- variety in the shapes and types of implements which are used for any
2971
- specific purpose. Scientific management requires, first, a careful
2972
- investigation of each of the many modifications of the same implement,
2973
- developed under rule of thumb; and second, after a time study has been
2974
- made of the speed attainable with each of these implements, that the
2975
- good points of several of them shall be united in a single standard
2976
- implement, which will enable the workman to work faster and with greater
2977
- ease than he could before. This one implement, then, is adopted as
2978
- standard in place of the many different kinds before in use, and it
2979
- remains standard for all workmen to use until superseded by an implement
2980
- which has been shown, through motion and time study, to be still better.
2981
-
2982
- With this explanation it will be seen that the development of a science
2983
- to replace rule of thumb is in most cases by no means a formidable
2984
- under-taking, and that it can be accomplished by ordinary, every-day men
2985
- without any elaborate scientific training; but that, on the other hand,
2986
- the successful use of even the simplest improvement of this kind calls
2987
- for records, system, and cooperation where in the past existed only
2988
- individual effort.
2989
-
2990
- There is another type of scientific investigation which has been
2991
- referred to several times in this paper, and which should receive
2992
- special attention, namely, the accurate study of the motives which
2993
- influence men. At first it may appear that this is a matter for
2994
- individual observation and judgment, and is not a proper subject for
2995
- exact scientific experiments. It is true that the laws which result from
2996
- experiments of this class, owing to the fact that the very complex
2997
- organism--the human being--is being experimented with, are subject to a
2998
- larger number of exceptions than is the case with laws relating to
2999
- material things. And yet laws of this kind, which apply to a large
3000
- majority of men, unquestionably exist, and when clearly defined are of
3001
- great value as a guide in dealing with men. In developing these laws,
3002
- accurate, carefully planned and executed experiments, extending through
3003
- a term of years, have been made, similar in a general way to the
3004
- experiments upon various other elements which have been referred to in
3005
- this paper. Perhaps the most important law belonging to this class, in
3006
- its relation to scientific management, is the effect which the task idea
3007
- has upon the efficiency of the workman. This, in fact, has become such
3008
- an important element of the mechanism of scientific management, that by
3009
- a great number of people scientific management has come to be known as
3010
- "task management."
3011
-
3012
- There is absolutely nothing new in the task idea. Each one of us will
3013
- remember that in his own case this idea was applied with good results in
3014
- his school-boy days. No efficient teacher would think of giving a class
3015
- of students an indefinite lesson to learn. Each day a definite,
3016
- clear-cut task is set by the teacher before each scholar, stating that
3017
- he must learn just so much of the subject; and it is only by this means
3018
- that proper, systematic progress can be made by the students. The
3019
- average boy would go very slowly if, instead of being given a task, he
3020
- were told to do as much as he could. All of us are grown-up children,
3021
- and it is equally true that the average workman will work with the
3022
- greatest satisfaction, both to himself and to his employer, when he is
3023
- given each day a definite task which he is to perform in a given time,
3024
- and which constitutes a proper day's work for a good workman. This
3025
- furnishes the workman with a clear-cut standard, by which he can
3026
- throughout the day measure his own progress, and the accomplishment of
3027
- which affords him the greatest satisfaction.
3028
-
3029
- The writer has described in other papers a series of experiments made
3030
- upon workmen, which have resulted in demonstrating the fact that it is
3031
- impossible, through any long period of time, to get work-men to work
3032
- much harder than the average men around them, unless they are assured a
3033
- large and a permanent increase in their pay. This series of experiments,
3034
- however, also proved that plenty of workmen can be found who are willing
3035
- to work at their best speed, provided they are given this liberal
3036
- increase in wages. The workman must, however, be fully assured that this
3037
- increase beyond the average is to be permanent. Our experiments have
3038
- shown that the exact percentage of increase required to make a workman
3039
- work at his highest speed depends upon the kind of work which the man is
3040
- doing.
3041
-
3042
- It is absolutely necessary, then, when workmen are daily given a task
3043
- which calls for a high rate of speed on their part, that they should
3044
- also be insured the necessary high rate of pay whenever they are
3045
- successful. This involves not only fixing for each man his daily task,
3046
- but also paying him a large bonus, or premium, each time that he
3047
- succeeds in doing his task in the given time. It is difficult to
3048
- appreciate in full measure the help which the proper use of these two
3049
- elements is to the workman in elevating him to the highest standard of
3050
- efficiency and speed in his trade, and then keeping him there, unless
3051
- one has seen first the old plan and afterward the new tried upon the
3052
- same man. And in fact until one has seen similar accurate experiments
3053
- made upon various grades of workmen engaged in doing widely different
3054
- types of work. The remarkable and almost uniformly good results from the
3055
- correct application of the task and the bonus must be seen to be
3056
- appreciated.
3057
-
3058
- These two elements, the task and the bonus (which, as has been pointed
3059
- out in previous papers, can be applied in several ways), constitute two
3060
- of the most important elements of the mechanism of scientific
3061
- management. They are especially important from the fact that they are,
3062
- as it were, a climax, demanding before they can be used almost all of
3063
- the other elements of the mechanism; such as a planning department,
3064
- accurate time study, standardization of methods and implements, a
3065
- routing system, the training of functional foremen or teachers, and in
3066
- many cases instruction cards slide-rules, etc. (Referred to later in
3067
- rather more detail on page 129.)
3068
-
3069
- The necessity for systematically teaching workmen how to work to the
3070
- best advantage has been several times referred to. It seems desirable,
3071
- therefore, to explain in rather more detail how this teaching is done.
3072
- In the case of a machine-shop which is managed under the modern system,
3073
- detailed written instructions as to the best way of doing each piece of
3074
- work are prepared in advance, by men in the planning department. These
3075
- instructions represent the combined work of several men in the planning
3076
- room, each of whom has his own specialty, or function. One of them, for
3077
- instance, is a specialist on the proper speeds and cutting tools to be
3078
- used. He uses the slide-rules which have been above described as an aid,
3079
- to guide him in obtaining proper speeds, etc. Another man analyzes the
3080
- best and quickest motions to be made by the workman in setting the work
3081
- up in the machine and removing it, etc. Still a third, through the
3082
- time-study records which have been accumulated, makes out a timetable
3083
- giving the proper speed for doing each element of the work. The
3084
- directions of all of these men, however, are written on a single
3085
- instruction card, or sheet.
3086
-
3087
- These men of necessity spend most of their time in the planning
3088
- department, because they must be close to the records and data which
3089
- they continually use in their work, and because this work requires the
3090
- use of a desk and freedom from interruption. Human nature is such,
3091
- however, that many of the workmen, if left to themselves, would pay but
3092
- little attention to their written instructions. It is necessary,
3093
- therefore, to provide teachers (called functional foremen) to see that
3094
- the workmen both understand and carry out these written instructions.
3095
-
3096
- Under functional management, the old-fashioned single foreman is
3097
- superseded by eight different men, each one of whom has his own special
3098
- duties, and these men, acting as the agents for the planning department
3099
- (see paragraph 234 to 245 of the paper entitled "Shop Management"), are
3100
- the expert teachers, who are at all times in the shop, helping, and
3101
- directing the workmen. Being each one chosen for his knowledge and
3102
- personal skill in his specialty, they are able not only to tell the
3103
- workman what he should do, but in case of necessity they do the work
3104
- themselves in the presence of the workman, so as to show him not only
3105
- the best but also the quickest methods.
3106
-
3107
- One of these teachers (called the inspector) sees to it that he
3108
- understands the drawings and instructions for doing the work. He teaches
3109
- him how to do work of the right quality; how to make it fine and exact
3110
- where it should be fine, and rough and quick where accuracy is not
3111
- required,--the one being just as important for success as the other. The
3112
- second teacher (the gang boss) shows him how to set up the job in his
3113
- machine, and teaches him to make all of his personal motions in the
3114
- quickest and best way. The third (the speed boss) sees that the machine
3115
- is run at the best speed and that the proper tool is used in the
3116
- particular way which will enable the machine to finish its product in
3117
- the shortest possible time. In addition to the assistance given by these
3118
- teachers, the workman receives orders and help from four other men; from
3119
- the "repair boss" as to the adjustment, cleanliness, and general care of
3120
- his machine, belting, etc.; from the "time clerk," as to everything
3121
- relating to his pay and to proper written reports and returns; from the
3122
- "route clerk," as to the order in which he does his work and as to the
3123
- movement of the work from one part of the shop to another; and, in case
3124
- a workman gets into any trouble with any of his various bosses, the
3125
- "disciplinarian" interviews him.
3126
-
3127
- It must be understood, of course, that all workmen engaged on the same
3128
- kind of work do not require the same amount of individual teaching and
3129
- attention from the functional foremen. The men who are new at a given
3130
- operation naturally require far more teaching and watching than those
3131
- who have been a long time at the same kind of jobs.
3132
-
3133
- Now, when through all of this teaching and this minute instruction the
3134
- work is apparently made so smooth and easy for the workman, the first
3135
- impression is that this all tends to make him a mere automaton, a wooden
3136
- man. As the workmen frequently say when they first come under this
3137
- system, "Why, I am not allowed to think or move without some one
3138
- interfering or doing it for me!" The same criticism and objection,
3139
- however, can be raised against all other modern subdivision of labor. It
3140
- does not follow, for example, that the modern surgeon is any more narrow
3141
- or wooden a man than the early settler of this country. The
3142
- frontiersman, however, had to be not only a surgeon, but also an
3143
- architect, house-builder, lumberman, farmer, soldier, and doctor, and he
3144
- had to settle his law cases with a gun. You would hardly say that the
3145
- life of the modern surgeon is any more narrowing, or that he is more of
3146
- a wooden man than the frontiersman. The many problems to be met and
3147
- solved by the surgeon are just as intricate and difficult and as
3148
- developing and broadening in their way as were those of the
3149
- frontiersman.
3150
-
3151
- And it should be remembered that the training of the surgeon has been
3152
- almost identical in type with the teaching and training which is given
3153
- to the workman under scientific management. The surgeon, all through his
3154
- early years, is under the closest supervision of more experienced men,
3155
- who show him in the minutest way how each element of his work is best
3156
- done. They provide him with the finest implements, each one of which has
3157
- been the subject of special study and development, and then insist upon
3158
- his using each of these implements in the very best way. All of this
3159
- teaching, however, in no way narrows him. On the contrary he is quickly
3160
- given the very best knowledge of his predecessors; and, provided (as he
3161
- is, right from the start) with standard implements and methods which
3162
- represent the best knowledge of the world up to date, he is able to use
3163
- his own originality and ingenuity to make real additions to the world's
3164
- knowledge, instead of reinventing things which are old. In a similar way
3165
- the workman who is cooperating with his many teachers under scientific
3166
- management has an opportunity to develop which is at least as good as
3167
- and generally better than that which he had when the whole problem was
3168
- "up to him" and he did his work entirely unaided.
3169
-
3170
- If it were true that the workman would develop into a larger and finer
3171
- man without all of this teaching, and without the help of the laws which
3172
- have been formulated for doing his particular job, then it would follow
3173
- that the young man who now comes to college to have the help of a
3174
- teacher in mathematics, physics, chemistry, Latin, Greek, etc., would do
3175
- better to study these things unaided and by himself. The only difference
3176
- in the two cases is that students come to their teachers, while from the
3177
- nature of the work done by the mechanic under scientific management, the
3178
- teachers must go to him. What really happens is that, with the aid of
3179
- the science which is invariably developed, and through the instructions
3180
- from his teachers, each workman of a given intellectual capacity is
3181
- enabled to do a much higher, more interesting, and finally more
3182
- developing and more profitable kind of work than he was before able to
3183
- do. The laborer who before was unable to do anything beyond, perhaps,
3184
- shoveling and wheeling dirt from place to place, or carrying the work
3185
- from one part of the shop to another, is in many cases taught to do the
3186
- more elementary machinist's work, accompanied by the agreeable
3187
- surroundings and the interesting variety and higher wages which go with
3188
- the machinist's trade. The cheap machinist or helper, who before was
3189
- able to run perhaps merely a drill press, is taught to do the more
3190
- intricate and higher priced lathe and planer work, while the highly
3191
- skilled and more intelligent machinists become functional foremen and
3192
- teachers. And so on, right up the line.
3193
-
3194
- It may seem that with scientific management there is not the same
3195
- incentive for the workman to use his ingenuity in devising new and
3196
- better methods of doing the work, as well as in improving his
3197
- implements, that there is with the old type of management. It is true
3198
- that with scientific management the workman is not allowed to use
3199
- whatever implements and methods he sees fit in the daily practice of his
3200
- work. Every encouragement, however, should be given him to suggest
3201
- improvements, both in methods and in implements. And whenever a workman
3202
- proposes an improvement, it should be the policy of the management to
3203
- make a careful analysis of the new method, and if necessary conduct a
3204
- series of experiments to determine accurately the relative merit of the
3205
- new suggestion and of the old standard. And whenever the new method is
3206
- found to be markedly superior to the old, it should be adopted as the
3207
- standard for the whole establishment. The workman should be given the
3208
- full credit for the improvement, and should be paid a cash premium as a
3209
- reward for his ingenuity. In this way the true initiative of the workmen
3210
- is better attained under scientific management than under the old
3211
- individual plan.
3212
-
3213
- The history of the development of scientific, management up to date,
3214
- however, calls for a word of warning. The mechanism of management must
3215
- not be mistaken for its essence, or underlying philosophy. Precisely the
3216
- same mechanism will in one case produce disastrous results and in
3217
- another the most beneficent. The same mechanism which will produce the
3218
- finest results when made to serve the underlying principles of
3219
- scientific management, will lead to failure and disaster if accompanied
3220
- by the wrong spirit in those who are using it. Hundreds of people have
3221
- already mistaken the mechanism of this system for its essence. Messrs.
3222
- Gantt, Barth and the writer have presented papers to, the American
3223
- Society of Mechanical Engineers on the subject of scientific management.
3224
- In these papers the mechanism which is used has been described at some
3225
- length. As elements of this mechanism may be cited:
3226
-
3227
- Time study, with the implements and methods for properly making it.
3228
-
3229
- Functional or divided foremanship and its superiority to the
3230
- old-fashioned single foreman.
3231
-
3232
- The standardization of all tools and implements used in the trades, and
3233
- also of the acts or movements of workmen for each class of work.
3234
-
3235
- The desirability of a planning room or department.
3236
-
3237
- The "exception principle" in management.
3238
-
3239
- The use of slide-rules and similar timesaving implements.
3240
-
3241
- Instruction cards for the workman.
3242
-
3243
- The task idea in management, accompanied by a large bonus for the
3244
- successful performance of the task.
3245
-
3246
- The "differential rate."
3247
-
3248
- Mnemonic systems for classifying manufactured products as well as
3249
- implements used in manufacturing.
3250
-
3251
- A routing system.
3252
-
3253
- Modern cost system, etc., etc.
3254
-
3255
- These are, however, merely the elements or details of the mechanism of
3256
- management. Scientific management, in its essence, consists of a certain
3257
- philosophy, which results, as before stated, in a combination of the
3258
- four great underlying principles of management:*
3259
-
3260
- [*Footnote: First. The development of a true science.
3261
- Second. The scientific selection of the workman.
3262
- Third. His scientific education and development.
3263
- Fourth. Intimate friendly cooperation between the management and the men.]
3264
-
3265
- When, however the elements of this mechanism, such as time study,
3266
- functional foremanship etc., are used without being accompanied by the
3267
- true philosophy of management, the results are in many cases disastrous.
3268
- And, unfortunately, even when men who are thoroughly in sympathy with
3269
- the principles of scientific management undertake to change too rapidly
3270
- from the old type to the new, without heeding the warnings of those who
3271
- have had years of experience in making this change, they frequently meet
3272
- with serious troubles, and sometimes with strikes, followed by failure.
3273
-
3274
- The writer, in his paper on "Shop Management," has called especial
3275
- attention to the risks which managers run in attempting to change
3276
- rapidly from the old to the new management in many cases, however, this
3277
- warning has not been heeded. The physical changes which are needed, the
3278
- actual time study which has to be made, the standardization of all
3279
- implements connected with the work, the necessity for individually
3280
- studying each machine and placing it in perfect order, all take time,
3281
- but the faster these elements of the work are studied and improved, the
3282
- better for the undertaking. On the other hand, the really great problem
3283
- involved in a change from the management of "initiative and incentive"
3284
- to scientific management consists in a complete revolution in the mental
3285
- attitude and the habits of all of those engaged in the management, as
3286
- well of the workmen. And this change can be brought about only gradually
3287
- and through the presentation of many object-lessons to the workman,
3288
- which, together with the teaching which he receives, thoroughly convince
3289
- him of the superiority of the new over the old way of doing the work.
3290
- This change in the mental attitude of the workman imperatively demands
3291
- time. It is impossible to hurry it beyond a certain speed. The writer
3292
- has over and over again warned those who contemplated making this change
3293
- that it was a matter, even in a simple establishment, of from two to
3294
- three years, and that in some cases it requires from four to five years.
3295
-
3296
- The first few changes which affect the workmen should be made
3297
- exceedingly slowly, and only one workman at a time should be dealt with
3298
- at the start. Until this single man has been thoroughly convinced that a
3299
- great gain has come to him from the new method, no further change should
3300
- be made. Then one man after another should be tactfully changed over.
3301
- After passing the point at which from one.-fourth to one-third of the
3302
- men in the employ of the company have been changed from the old to the
3303
- new, very rapid progress can be made, because at about this time there
3304
- is, generally, a complete revolution in the public opinion of the whole
3305
- establishment and practically all of the workmen who are working under
3306
- the old system become desirous to share in the benefits which they see
3307
- have been received by those working under the new plan.
3308
-
3309
- Inasmuch as the writer has personally retired from the business of
3310
- introducing this system of management (that is, from all work done in
3311
- return for any money compensation), he does not hesitate again to
3312
- emphasize the fact that those companies are indeed fortunate who can
3313
- secure the services of experts who have had the necessary practical
3314
- experience in introducing scientific management, and who have made a
3315
- special study of its principles. It is not enough that a man should have
3316
- been a manager in an establishment which is run under the new
3317
- principles. The man who undertakes to direct the steps to be taken in
3318
- changing from the old to the new (particularly in any establishment
3319
- doing elaborate work) must have had personal experience in overcoming
3320
- the especial difficulties which are always met with, and which are
3321
- peculiar to this period of transition. It is for this reason that the
3322
- writer expects to devote the rest of his life chiefly to trying to help
3323
- those who wish to take up this work as their profession, and to advising
3324
- the managers and owners of companies in general as to the steps which
3325
- they should take in making this change.
3326
-
3327
- As a warning to those who contemplate adopting scientific management,
3328
- the following instance is given. Several men who lacked the extended
3329
- experience which is required to change without danger of strikes, or
3330
- without interference with the success of the business, from the
3331
- management of "initiative and incentive" to scientific management,
3332
- attempted rapidly to increase the output in quite an elaborate
3333
- establishment, employing between three thousand and four thousand men.
3334
- Those who undertook to make this change were men of unusual ability, and
3335
- were at the same time enthusiasts and I think had the interests of the
3336
- workmen truly at heart. They were, however, warned by the writer, before
3337
- starting, that they must go exceedingly slowly, and that the work of
3338
- making the change in this establishment could not be done in less than
3339
- from three to five years. This warning they entirely disregarded. They
3340
- evidently believed that by using much of the mechanism of scientific
3341
- management, in combination with the principles of the management of
3342
- "initiative and incentive," instead of with these principles of
3343
- scientific management, that they could do, in a year or two, what had
3344
- been proved in the past to require at least double this time. The
3345
- knowledge obtained from accurate time study, for example, is a powerful
3346
- implement, and can be used, in one case to promote harmony between the
3347
- workmen and the management, by gradually educating, training, and
3348
- leading the workmen into new and better methods of doing the work, or,
3349
- in the other case, it may be used more or less as a club to drive the
3350
- workmen into doing a larger day's work for approximately the same pay
3351
- that they received in the past. Unfortunately the men who had charge of
3352
- this work did not take the time and the trouble required to train
3353
- functional foremen, or teachers, who were fitted gradually to lead and
3354
- educate the workmen. They attempted, through the old-style foreman,
3355
- armed with his new weapon (accurate time study), to drive the workmen,
3356
- against their wishes, and without much increase in pay, to work much
3357
- harder, instead of gradually teaching and leading them toward new
3358
- methods, and convincing them through object-lessons that task management
3359
- means for them somewhat harder work, but also far greater prosperity.
3360
- The result of all this disregard of fundamental principles was a series
3361
- of strikes, followed by the down-fall of the men who attempted to make
3362
- the change, and by a return to conditions throughout the establishment
3363
- far worse than those which existed before the effort was made.
3364
-
3365
- This instance is cited as an object-lesson of the futility of using the
3366
- mechanism of the new management while leaving out its essence, and also
3367
- of trying to shorten a necessarily long operation in entire disregard of
3368
- past experience. It should be emphasized that the men who undertook this
3369
- work were both able and earnest, and that failure was not due to lack of
3370
- ability on their part, but to their undertaking to do the impossible.
3371
- These particular men will not again make a similar mistake, and it is
3372
- hoped that their experience may act as a warning to others.
3373
-
3374
- In this connection, however, it is proper to again state that during the
3375
- thirty years that we have been engaged in introducing scientific
3376
- management there has not been a single strike from those who were
3377
- working in accordance with its principles, even during the critical
3378
- period when the change was being made from the old to the new. If proper
3379
- methods are used by men who have had experience in this work, there is
3380
- absolutely no danger from strikes or other troubles.
3381
-
3382
- The writer would again insist that in no case should the managers of an
3383
- establishment ', the work of which is elaborate, undertake to change
3384
- from the old to the new type unless the directors of the company fully
3385
- understand and believe in the fundamental principles of scientific
3386
- management and unless they appreciate all that is involved in making
3387
- this change, particularly the time required, and unless they want
3388
- scientific management greatly.
3389
-
3390
- Doubtless some of those who are especially interested in working men
3391
- will complain because under scientific management the workman, when he
3392
- is shown how to do twice as much work as he formerly did, is not paid
3393
- twice his former wages, while others who are more interested in the
3394
- dividends than the workmen will complain that under this system the men
3395
- receive much higher wages than they did before.
3396
-
3397
- It does seem grossly unjust when the bare statement is made that the
3398
- competent pig-iron handler, for instance, who has been so trained that
3399
- he piles 3 6/10 times as much iron as the incompetent man formerly did,
3400
- should receive an increase of only 60 per cent in wages.
3401
-
3402
- It is not fair, however, to form any final judgment until all of the
3403
- elements in the case have been considered. At the first glance we see
3404
- only two parties to the transaction, the workmen and their employers. We
3405
- overlook the third great party, the whole people,--the consumers, who
3406
- buy the product of the first two and who ultimately pay both the wages
3407
- of the workmen and the profits of the employers.
3408
-
3409
- The rights of the people are therefore greater than those of either
3410
- employer or employee. And this third great party should be given its
3411
- proper share of any gain. In fact, a glance at industrial history shows
3412
- that in the end the whole people receive the greater part of the benefit
3413
- coming from industrial improvements. In the past hundred years, for
3414
- example, the greatest factor tending toward increasing the output, and
3415
- thereby the prosperity of the civilized world, has been the introduction
3416
- of machinery to replace hand labor. And without doubt the greatest gain
3417
- through this change has come to the whole people--the consumer.
3418
-
3419
- Through short periods, especially in the case of patented apparatus, the
3420
- dividends of those who have introduced new machinery have been greatly
3421
- increased, and in many cases, though unfortunately not universally, the
3422
- employees have obtained materially higher wages, shorter hours, and
3423
- better working conditions. But in the end the major part of the gain has
3424
- gone to the whole people.
3425
-
3426
- And this result will follow the introduction of scientific management
3427
- just as surely as it has the introduction of machinery.
3428
-
3429
- To return to the case of the pig-iron handler. We must assume, then,
3430
- that the larger part of the gain which has come from his great increase
3431
- in output will in the end go to the people in the form of cheaper
3432
- pig-iron. And before deciding upon how the balance is to be divided
3433
- between the workmen and the employer, as to what is just and fair
3434
- compensation for the man who does the piling and what should be left for
3435
- the company as profit, we must look at the matter from all sides.
3436
-
3437
- First. As we have before stated, the pig-iron handler is not an
3438
- extraordinary man difficult to find, he is merely a man more or less of
3439
- the type of the ox, heavy both mentally and physically.
3440
-
3441
- Second. The work which this man does tires him no more than any healthy
3442
- normal laborer is tired by a proper day's work. (If this man is
3443
- overtired by his work, then the task has been wrongly set and this is as
3444
- far as possible from the object of scientific management.)
3445
-
3446
- Third. It was not due to this man's initiative or originality that he
3447
- did his big day's work, but to the knowledge of the science of pig-iron
3448
- handling developed and taught him by some one else.
3449
-
3450
- Fourth. It is just and fair that men of the same general grade (when
3451
- their all-round capacities are considered) should be paid about the same
3452
- wages when they are all working to the best of their abilities. (It
3453
- would be grossly unjust to other laborers, for instance, to pay this man
3454
- 3 6/10 as high wages as other men of his general grade receive for an
3455
- honest full day's work.)
3456
-
3457
- Fifth. As is explained (page 74), the 60 per cent increase in pay which
3458
- he received was not the result of an arbitrary judgment of a foreman or
3459
- superintendent, it was the result of a long series of careful
3460
- experiments impartially made to determine what compensation is really
3461
- for the man's true and best interest when all things are considered.
3462
-
3463
- Thus we see that the pig-iron handler with his 60 per cent increase in
3464
- wages is not an object for pity but rather a subject for congratulation.
3465
-
3466
- After all, however, facts are in many cases more convincing than
3467
- opinions or theories, and it is a significant fact that those workmen
3468
- who have come under this system during the past thirty years have
3469
- invariably been satisfied with the increase in pay, which they have
3470
- received, while their employers have been equally pleased with their
3471
- increase in dividends.
3472
-
3473
- The writer is one of those who believes that more and more will the
3474
- third party (the whole people), as it becomes acquainted with the true
3475
- facts, insist that justice shall be done to all three parties. It will
3476
- demand the largest efficiency from both employers and employees. It will
3477
- no longer tolerate the type of employer who has his eye on dividends
3478
- alone, who refuses to do his full share of the work and who merely
3479
- cracks his whip over the heads of his workmen and attempts to drive them
3480
- into harder work for low pay. No more will it tolerate tyranny on the
3481
- part of labor which demands one increase after another in pay and
3482
- shorter hours while at the same time it becomes less instead of more
3483
- efficient.
3484
-
3485
- And the means which the writer firmly believes will be adopted to bring
3486
- about, first, efficiency both in employer and employs and then an
3487
- equitable division of the profits of their joint efforts will be
3488
- scientific management, which has for its sole aim the attainment of
3489
- justice for all three parties through impartial scientific investigation
3490
- of all the elements of the problem. For a time both sides will rebel
3491
- against this advance. The workers will resent any interference with
3492
- their old rule-of-thumb methods, and the management will resent being
3493
- asked to take on new duties and burdens; but in the end the people
3494
- through enlightened public opinion will force the new order of things
3495
- upon both employer and employee.
3496
-
3497
- It will doubtless be claimed that in all that has been said no new fact
3498
- has been brought to light that was not known to some one in the past.
3499
- Very likely this is true. Scientific management does not necessarily
3500
- involve any great invention, nor the discovery of new or startling
3501
- facts. It does, however, involve a certain combination of elements which
3502
- have not existed in the past, namely, old knowledge so collected,
3503
- analyzed, grouped, and classified into laws and rules that it
3504
- constitutes a science; accompanied by a complete change in the mental
3505
- attitude of the working men as well as of those on the side of the
3506
- management, toward each other, and toward their respective duties and
3507
- responsibilities. Also, a new division of the duties between the two
3508
- sides and intimate, friendly cooperation to an extent that is impossible
3509
- under the philosophy of the old management. And even all of this in many
3510
- cases could not exist without the help of mechanisms which have been
3511
- gradually developed.
3512
-
3513
- It is no single element, but rather this whole combination, that
3514
- constitutes scientific management, which may be summarized as:
3515
-
3516
- Science, not rule of thumb.
3517
- Harmony, not discord.
3518
- Cooperation, not individualism.
3519
- Maximum output, in place of restricted output.
3520
- The development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity.
3521
-
3522
- The writer wishes to again state that: "The time is fast going by for
3523
- the great personal or individual achievement of any one man standing
3524
- alone and without the help of those around him. And the time is coming
3525
- when all great things will be done by that type of cooperation in which
3526
- each man performs the function for which he is best suited, each man
3527
- preserves his own individuality and is supreme in his particular
3528
- function, and each man at the same time loses none of his originality
3529
- and proper personal initiative, and yet is controlled by and must work
3530
- harmoniously with many other men."
3531
-
3532
- The examples given above of the increase in output realized under the
3533
- new management fairly represent the gain which is possible. They do not
3534
- represent extraordinary or exceptional cases, and have been selected
3535
- from among thousands of similar illustrations which might have been
3536
- given.
3537
-
3538
- Let us now examine the good which would follow the general adoption of
3539
- these principles.
3540
-
3541
- The larger profit would come to the whole world in general.
3542
-
3543
- The greatest material gain which those of the present generation have
3544
- over past generations has come from the fact that the average man in
3545
- this generation, with a given expenditure of effort, is producing two
3546
- times, three times, even four times as much of those things that are of
3547
- use to man as it was possible for the average man in the past to
3548
- produce. This increase in the productivity of human effort is, of
3549
- course, due to many causes, besides the increase in the personal
3550
- dexterity of the man. It is due to the discovery of steam and
3551
- electricity, to the introduction of machinery, to inventions, great and
3552
- small, and to the progress in science and education. But from whatever
3553
- cause this increase in productivity has come, it is to the greater
3554
- productivity of each individual that the whole country owes its greater
3555
- prosperity.
3556
-
3557
- Those who are afraid that a large increase in the productivity of each
3558
- workman will throw other men out of work, should realize that the one
3559
- element more than any other which differentiates civilized from
3560
- uncivilized countries--prosperous from poverty--stricken peoples--is
3561
- that the average man in the one is five or six times as productive as
3562
- the other. It is also a fact that the chief cause for the large
3563
- percentage of the unemployed in England (perhaps the most virile nation
3564
- in the world), is that the workmen of England, more than in any other
3565
- civilized country, are deliberately restricting their output because
3566
- they are possessed by the fallacy that it is against their best interest
3567
- for each man to work as hard as he can.
3568
-
3569
- The general adoption of scientific management would readily in the
3570
- future double the productivity of the average man engaged in industrial
3571
- work. Think of what this means to the whole country. Think of the
3572
- increase, both in the necessities and luxuries of life, which becomes
3573
- available for the whole country, of the possibility of shortening the
3574
- hours of labor when this is desirable, and of the increased
3575
- opportunities for education, culture, and recreation which this implies.
3576
- But while the whole world would profit by this increase in production,
3577
- the manufacturer and the workman will be far more interested in the
3578
- especial local gain that comes to them and to the people immediately
3579
- around them. Scientific management will mean, for the employers and the
3580
- workmen who adopt it--and particularly for those who adopt it first--the
3581
- elimination of almost all causes for dispute and disagreement between
3582
- them. What constitutes a fair day's work will be a question for
3583
- scientific investigation, instead of a subject to be bargained and
3584
- haggled over. Soldiering will cease because the object for soldiering
3585
- will no longer exist. The great increase in wages which accompanies this
3586
- type of management will largely eliminate the wage question as a source
3587
- of dispute. But more than all other causes, the close, intimate
3588
- cooperation, the constant personal contact between the two sides, will
3589
- tend to diminish friction and discontent. It is difficult for two people
3590
- whose interests are the same, and who work side by side in accomplishing
3591
- the same object, all day long, to keep up a quarrel.
3592
-
3593
- The low cost of production which accompanies a doubling of the output
3594
- will enable the companies who adopt this management, particularly those
3595
- who adopt it first, to compete far better than they were able to before,
3596
- and this will so enlarge their markets that their men will have almost
3597
- constant work even in dull times, and that they will earn larger profits
3598
- at all times.
3599
-
3600
- This means increase in prosperity and diminution in poverty, not only
3601
- for their men but for the whole community immediately around them.
3602
-
3603
- As one of the elements incident to this great gain in output, each
3604
- workman has been systematically trained to his highest state of
3605
- efficiency, and has been taught to do a higher class of work than he was
3606
- able to do under the old types of management; and at the same time he
3607
- has acquired a friendly mental attitude toward his employers and his
3608
- whole working conditions, whereas before a considerable part of his time
3609
- was spent in criticism, suspicious watchfulness, and sometimes in open
3610
- warfare. This direct gain to all of those working under the system is
3611
- without doubt the most important single element in the whole problem.
3612
-
3613
- Is not the realization of results such as these of far more importance
3614
- than the solution of most of the problems which are now agitating both
3615
- the English and American peoples? And is it not the duty of those who
3616
- are acquainted with these facts, to exert themselves to make the whole
3617
- community realize this importance?
3618
-
3619
-
3620
-
3621
-
3622
-
3623
-
3624
-
3625
-
3626
-
3627
-
3628
- *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ***
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