Shop Management - Frederick Winslow Taylor (top 10 non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
- Author: Frederick Winslow Taylor
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which the work shall be done that such an amount of bickering,
quarreling, and often hard feeling exists between the two sides.
The essence of task management lies in the fact that the control of the
speed problem rests entirely with the management; and, on the other
hand, the true strength of the Towne-Halsey system rests upon the fact
that under it the question of speed is settled entirely by the men
without interference on the part of the management. Thus in both cases,
though from diametrically opposite causes, there is undivided control,
and this is the chief element needed for harmony.
The writer has seen many jobs successfully nursed in several of our
large and well managed establishments under these drifting systems, for
a term of ten to fifteen years, at from one-third to one-quarter speed.
The workmen, in the meanwhile, apparently enjoyed the confidence of
their employers, and in many cases the employers not only suspected the
deceit, but felt quite sure of it.
The great defect, then, common to all the ordinary systems of management
(including the Towne-Halsey system, the best of this class) is that
their starting-point, their very foundation, rests upon ignorance and
deceit, and that throughout their whole course in the one element which
is most vital both to employer and workmen, namely, the speed at which
work is done, they are allowed to drift instead of being intelligently
directed and controlled.
The writer has found, through an experience of thirty years, covering a
large variety in manufactures, as well as in the building trades,
structural and engineering work, that it is not only practicable but
comparatively easy to obtain, through a systematic and scientific time
study, exact information as to how much of any given kind of work either
a first-class or an average man can do in a day, and with this
information as a foundation, he has over and over again seen the fact
demonstrated that workmen of all classes are not only willing, but glad
to give up all idea of soldiering, and devote all of their energies to
turning out the maximum work possible, providing they are sure of a
suitable permanent reward.
With accurate time knowledge as a basis, surprisingly large results can
be obtained under any scheme of management from day work up; there is no
question that even ordinary day work resting upon this foundation will
give greater satisfaction than any of the systems in common use,
standing as they do upon soldiering as a basis.
To many of the readers of this book both the fundamental objects to be
aimed at, namely, high wages with low labor cost, and the means
advocated by the writer for attaining this end; namely, accurate time
study, will appear so theoretical and so far outside of the range of
their personal observation and experience that it would seem desirable,
before proceeding farther, to give a brief illustration of what has been
accomplished in this line.
The writer chooses from among a large variety of trades to which these
principles have been applied, the yard labor handling raw materials in
the works of the Bethlehem Steel Company at South Bethlehem, Pa., not
because the results attained there have been greater than in many other
instances, but because the case is so elementary that the results are
evidently due to no other cause than thorough time study as a basis,
followed by the application of a few simple principles with which all of
us are familiar.
In almost all of the other more complicated cases the large increase in
output is due partly to the actual physical changes, either in the
machines or small tools and appliances, which a preliminary time study
almost always shows to be necessary, so that for purposes of
illustration the simple case chosen is the better, although the gain
made in the more complicated cases is none the less legitimately due to
the system.
Up to the spring of the year 1899, all of the materials in the yard of
the Bethlehem Steel Company had been handled by gangs of men working by
the day, and under the foremanship of men who had themselves formerly
worked at similar work as laborers. Their management was about as good
as the average of similar work, although it was bad all of the men being
paid the ruling wages of laborers in this section of the country,
namely, $1.15 per day, the only means of encouraging or disciplining
them being either talking to them or discharging them; occasionally,
however, a man was selected from among these men and given a better
class of work with slightly higher wages in some of the companies’
shops, and this had the effect of slightly stimulating them. From four
to six hundred men were employed on this class of work throughout the
year.
The work of these men consisted mainly of unloading from railway cars
and shoveling on to piles, and from these piles again loading as
required, the raw materials used in running three blast furnaces and
seven large open-hearth furnaces, such as ore of various kinds, varying
from fine, gravelly ore to that which comes in large lumps, coke,
limestone, special pig, sand, etc., unloading hard and soft coal for
boilers gas-producers, etc., and also for storage and again loading the
stored coal as required for use, loading the pig-iron produced at the
furnaces for shipment, for storage, and for local use, and handling
billets, etc., produced by the rolling mills. The work covered a large
variety as laboring work goes, and it was not usual to keep a man
continuously at the same class of work.
Before undertaking the management of these men, the writer was informed
that they were steady workers, but slow and phlegmatic, and that nothing
would induce them to work fast.
The first step was to place an intelligent, college-educated man in
charge of progress in this line. This man had not before handled this
class of labor, although he understood managing workmen. He was not
familiar with the methods pursued by the writer, but was soon taught the
art of determining how much work a first-class man can do in a day. This
was done by timing with a stop watch a first-class man while he was
working fast. The best way to do this, in fact almost the only way in
which the timing can be done with certainty, is to divide the man’s work
into its elements and time each element separately. For example, in the
case of a man loading pig-iron on to a car, the elements should be: (a)
picking up the pig from the ground or pile (time in hundredths of a
minute); (b) walking with it on a level (time per foot walked); (c)
walking with it up an incline to car (time per foot walked); (d)
throwing the pig down (time in hundredths of a minute), or laying it on
a pile (time in hundredths of a minute); (e) walking back empty to get a
load (time per foot walked).
In case of important elements which were to enter into a number of
rates, a large number of observations were taken when practicable on
different first-class men, and at different times, and they were
averaged.
The most difficult elements to time and decide upon in this, as in most
cases, are the percentage of the day required for rest, and the time to
allow for accidental or unavoidable delays.
In the case of the yard labor at Bethlehem, each class of work was
studied as above, each element being timed separately, and, in addition,
a record was kept in many cases of the total amount of work done by the
man in a day. The record of the gross work of the man (who is being
timed) is, in most cases, not necessary after the observer is skilled in
his work. As the Bethlehem time observer was new to this work, the gross
time was useful in checking his detailed observations and so gradually
educating him and giving him confidence in the new methods.
The writer had so many other duties that his personal help was confined
to teaching the proper methods and approving the details of the various
changes which were in all cases outlined in written reports before being
carried out.
As soon as a careful study had been made of the time elements entering
into one class of work, a single first-class workman was picked out and
started on ordinary piece work on this job. His task required him to do
between three and one-half and four times as much work in a day as had
been done in the past on an average.
Between twelve and thirteen tons of pig-iron per man had been carried
from a pile on the ground, up an inclined plank, and loaded on to a
gondola car by the average pig-iron handler while working by the day.
The men in doing this work had worked in gangs of from five to twenty
men.
The man selected from one of these gangs to make the first start under
the writer’s system was called upon to load on piece work from
forty-five to forty-eight tons (2,240 lbs. each) per day.
He regarded this task as an entirely fair one, and earned on an average,
from the start, $1.85 per day, which was 60 per cent more than he had
been paid by the day. This man happened to be considerably lighter than
the average good workman at this class of work. He weighed about 130
pounds. He proved however, to be especially well suited to this job, and
was kept at it steadily throughout the time that the writer was in
Bethlehem, and some years later was still at the same work.
Being the first piece work started in the works, it excited considerable
opposition, both on the part of the workmen and of several of the
leading men in the town, their opposition being based mainly on the old
fallacy that if piece work proved successful a great many men would be
thrown out of work, and that thereby not only the workmen but the whole
town would suffer.
One after another of the new men who were started singly on this job
were either persuaded or intimidated into giving it up. In many cases
they were given other work by those interested in preventing piece work,
at wages higher than the ruling wages. In the meantime, however, the
first man who started on the work earned steadily $1.85 per day, and
this object lesson gradually wore out the concerted opposition, which
ceased rather suddenly after about two months. From this time on there
was no difficulty in getting plenty of good men who were anxious to
start on piece work, and the difficulty lay in making with sufficient
rapidity the accurate time study of the elementary operations or “unit
times” which forms the foundation of this kind of piece work.
Throughout the introduction of piece work, when after a thorough time
study a new section of the work was started, one man only was put on
each new job, and not more than one man was allowed to work at it until
he had demonstrated that the task set was a fair one by earning an
average of $1.85 per day. After a few sections of the work had been
started in this way, the complaint on the part of the better workmen was
that they were not allowed to go on to piece work fast enough. It
required about two years to transfer practically all of the yard labor
from day to piece work. And the larger part of the transfer was made
during the last six months of this time.
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