Shop Management - Frederick Winslow Taylor (top 10 non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
- Author: Frederick Winslow Taylor
- Performer: -
Book online «Shop Management - Frederick Winslow Taylor (top 10 non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗». Author Frederick Winslow Taylor
(l) MESSENGER SYSTEM AND POST OFFICE DELIVERY.
The messenger system should be thoroughly organized and records kept
showing which of the boys are the most efficient. This should afford one
of the best opportunities for selecting boys fit to be taught trades, as
apprentices or otherwise. There should be a regular half hourly post
office delivery system for collecting and distributing routine reports
and records and messages in no especial hurry throughout the works.
(m) EMPLOYMENT BUREAU.
The selection of the men who are employed to fill vacancies or new
positions should receive the most careful thought and attention and
should be under the supervision of a competent man who will inquire into
the experience and especial fitness and character of applicants and keep
constantly revised lists of men suitable for the various positions in
the shop. In this section of the planning room. an individual record of
each of the men in the works can well be kept showing his punctuality,
absence without excuse, violation of shop rules, spoiled work or damage
to machines or tools, as well as his skill at various kinds of work;
average earnings, and other good qualities for the use of this
department as well as the shop disciplinarian.
(n) THE SHOP DISCIPLINARIAN.
This man may well be closely associated with the employment bureau and,
if the works is not too large, the two functions can be performed by the
same man. The knowledge of character and of the qualities needed for
various positions acquired in disciplining the men should be useful in
selecting them for employment. This man should, of course, consult
constantly with the various foremen and bosses, both in his function as
disciplinarian arid in the employment of men.
(o) A MUTUAL ACCIDENT INSURANCE ASSOCIATION.
A mutual accident insurance association should be established, to which
the company contributes as well as the men. The object of this
association is twofold: first the relief of men who are injured, and
second, an opportunity of returning to the workmen all fines which are
imposed upon them in disciplining them, and for damage to company’s
property or work spoiled.
(p) RUSH ORDER DEPARTMENT.
Hurrying through parts which have been spoiled or have developed
defects, and also special repair orders for customers, should receive
the attention of one man.
(q) IMPROVEMENT OF SYSTEM OR PLANT.
One man should be especially charged with the work of improvement in the
system and in the running of the plant.
The type of organization described in the foregoing paragraphs has such
an appearance of complication and there are so many new positions
outlined in the planning room which do not exist even in a well managed
establishment of the old school, that it seems desirable to again call
attention to the fact that, with the exception of the study of unit
times and one or two minor functions, each item of work which is
performed in the planning room with the superficial appearance of great
complication must also be performed by the workmen in the shop under the
old type of management, with its single cheap foreman and the appearance
of great simplicity. In the first case, however, the work is done by an
especially trained body of men who work together like a smoothly running
machine, and in the second by a much larger number of men very poorly
trained and ill-fitted for this work, and each of whom while doing it is
taken away from some other job for which he is well trained. The work
which is now done by one sewing machine, intricate in its appearance,
was formerly done by a number of women with no apparatus beyond a simple
needle and thread.
There is no question that the cost of production is lowered by
separating the work of planning and the brain work as much as possible
from the manual labor. When this is done, however, it is evident that
the brain workers must be given sufficient work to keep them fully busy
all the time. They must not be allowed to stand around for a
considerable part of their time waiting for their particular kind of
work to come along, as is so frequently the case.
The belief is almost universal among manufacturers that for economy the
number of brain workers, or non-producers, as they are called, should be
as small as possible in proportion to the number of producers, i.e.,
those who actually work with their hands. An examination of the most
successful establishments will, however, show that the reverse is true.
A number of years ago the writer made a careful study of the proportion
of producers to non-producers in three of the largest and most
successful companies in the world, who were engaged in doing the same
work in a general way. One of these companies was in France, one in
Germany, and one in the United States. Being to a certain extent rivals
in business and situated in different countries, naturally neither one
had anything to do with the management of the other. In the course of
his investigation, the writer found that the managers had never even
taken the trouble to ascertain the exact proportion of non-producers to
producers in their respective works; so that the organization of each
company was an entirely independent evolution.
By non-producers the writer means such employees as all of the general
officers, the clerks, foremen, gang bosses, watchmen, messenger boys,
draftsmen, salesmen, etc.; and by “producers,” only those who actually
work with their hands.
In the French and German works there was found to be in each case one
non-producer to between six and seven producers, and in the American
works one non-producer to about seven producers. The writer found that
in the case of another works, doing the same kind of business and whose
management was notoriously bad, the proportion of non-producers to
producers was one non-producer to about eleven producers. These
companies all had large forges, foundries, rolling mills and machine
shops turning out a miscellaneous product, much of which was machined.
They turned out a highly wrought, elaborate and exact finished product,
and did an extensive engineering and miscellaneous machine construction
business.
In the case of a company doing a manufacturing business with a uniform
and simple product for the maximum economy, the number of producers to
each non-producer would of course be larger. No manager need feel
alarmed then when he sees the number of non-producers increasing in
proportion to producers, providing the non-producers are busy all of
their time, and providing, of course, that in each case they are doing
efficient work.
It would seem almost unnecessary to dwell upon the desirability of
standardizing, not only all of the tools, appliances and implements
throughout the works and office, but also the methods to be used in the
multitude of small operations which are repeated day after day. There
are many good managers of the old school, however, who feel that this
standardization is not only unnecessary but that it is undesirable,
their principal reason being that it is better to allow each workman to
develop his individuality by choosing the particular implements and
methods which suit him best. And there is considerable weight in this
contention when the scheme of management is to allow each workman to do
the work as he pleases and hold him responsible for results.
Unfortunately, in ninety-nine out of a hundred such cases only the first
part of this plan is carried out. The workman chooses his own methods
and implements, but is not held in any strict sense accountable unless
the quality of the work is so poor or the quantity turned out is so
small as to almost amount to a scandal. In the type of management
advocated by the writer, this complete standardization of all details
and methods is not only desirable but absolutely indispensable as a
preliminary to specifying the time in which each operation shall be
done, and then insisting that it shall be done within the time allowed.
Neglecting to take the time and trouble to thoroughly standardize all of
such methods and details is one of the chief causes for setbacks and
failure in introducing this system. Much better results can be attained,
even if poor standards be adopted, than can be reached if some of a
given class of implements are the best of their kind while others are
poor. It is uniformity that is required. Better have them uniformly
second class than mainly first with some second and some third class
thrown in at random. In the latter case the workmen will almost always
adopt the pace which conforms to the third class instead of the first or
second. In fact, however, it is not a matter involving any great expense
or time to select in each case standard implements which shall be nearly
the best or the best of their kinds. The writer has never failed to make
enormous gains in the economy of running by the adoption of standards.
It was in the course of making a series of experiments with various air
hardening tool steels with a view to adopting a standard for the
Bethlehem works that Mr. J. Maunsel White, together with the writer,
discovered the Taylor-White process of treating tool steel, which marks
a distinct improvement in the art. The fact that this improvement was
made not by manufacturers of tool steel, but in the course of the
adoption of standards, shows both the necessity and fruitfulness of
methodical and careful investigation in the choice of much neglected
details. The economy to be gained through the adoption of uniform
standards is hardly realized at all by the managers of this country. No
better illustration of this fact is needed than that of the present
condition of the cutting tools used throughout the machine shops of the
United States. Hardly a shop can be found in which tools made from a
dozen different qualities of steel are not used side by side, in many
cases with little or no means of telling one make from another; and in
addition, the shape of the cutting edge of the tool is in most cases
left to the fancy of each individual workman. When one realizes that the
cutting speed of the best treated air hardening steel is for a given
depth of cut, feed and quality of metal being cut, say sixty feet per
minute, while with the same shaped tool made from the best carbon tool
steel and with the same conditions, the cutting speed will be only
twelve feet per minute, it becomes apparent how little the necessity for
rigid standards is appreciated.
Let us take another illustration. The machines of the country are still
driven by belting. The motor drive, while it is coming, is still in the
future. There is not one establishment in one hundred that does not
leave the care and tightening of the belts to the judgment of the
individual who runs the machine, although it is well known to all who
have given any study to the subject that the most skilled machinist
cannot properly tighten a belt without the use of belt clamps fitted
with spring balances to properly register the tension. And the writer
showed in a paper entitled “Notes on Belting” presented to The American
Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1893, giving the results of an
experiment tried on all of the belts in a machine shop and extending
through nine years, in which every detail of the care and tightening and
tension of each belt was recorded, that belts properly cared for
according to a standard method by a trained laborer would average twice
the pulling power and only a fraction of the interruptions to
manufacture of those tightened according to the usual methods.
Comments (0)