Shop Management - Frederick Winslow Taylor (top 10 non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
- Author: Frederick Winslow Taylor
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orders and its apparent red tape, looks like a waste of money; while the
ordinary management in which the planning is mainly done by the workmen
themselves, with the help of one or two foremen, seems simple and
economical in the extreme.
The writer, however, while still a young man, had all lingering doubt as
to the value of a drafting room dispelled by seeing the chief engineer,
the foreman of the machine shop, the foreman of the foundry, and one or
two workmen, in one of our large and successful engineering
establishments of the old school, stand over the cylinder of an engine
which was being built, with chalk and dividers, and discuss for more
than an hour the proper size and location of the studs for fastening on
the cylinder head. This was simplicity, but not economy. About the same
time he became thoroughly convinced of the necessity and economy of a
planning department with time study, and with written instruction cards
and returns. He saw over and over again a workman shut down his machine
and hunt up the foreman to inquire, perhaps, what work to put into his
machine next, and then chase around the shop to find it or to have a
special tool or template looked up or made. He saw workmen carefully
nursing their jobs by the hour and doing next to nothing to avoid making
a record, and he was even more forcibly convinced of the necessity for a
change while he was still working as a machinist by being ordered by the
other men to slow down to half speed under penalty of being thrown over
the fence.
No one now doubts the economy of the drafting room, and the writer
predicts that in a very few years from now no one will doubt the economy
and necessity of the study of unit times and of the planning department.
Another point of analogy between modern engineering and modern
management lies in the fact that modern engineering proceeds with
comparative certainty to the design and construction of a machine or
structure of the maximum efficiency with the minimum weight and cost of
materials, while the old style engineering at best only approximated
these results and then only after a series of breakdowns, involving the
practical reconstruction of the machine and the lapse of a long period
of time. The ordinary system of management, owing to the lack of exact
information and precise methods, can only approximate to the desired
standard of high wages accompanied by low labor cost and then only
slowly, with marked irregularity in results, with continued opposition,
and, in many cases, with danger from strikes. Modern management, on the
other hand, proceeds slowly at first, but with directness and precision,
step by step, and, after the first few object lessons, almost without
opposition on the part of the men, to high wages and low labor cost; and
as is of great importance, it assigns wages to the men which are
uniformly fair. They are not demoralized, and their sense of justice
offended by receiving wages which are sometimes too low and at other
times entirely too high.
One of the marked advantages of scientific management lies in its
freedom from strikes. The writer has never been opposed by a strike,
although he has been engaged for a great part of his time since 1883 in
introducing this type of management in different parts of the country
and in a great variety of industries. The only case of which the writer
management in different parts of the country and in a great variety of
industries. The only case of which the writer can think in which a
strike under this system might be unavoidable would be that in which
most of the employees were members of a labor union, and of a union
whose rules were so inflexible and whose members were so stubborn that
they were unwilling to try any other system, even though it assured them
larger wages than their own. The writer has seen, however, several times
after the introduction of this system, the members of labor unions who
were working under it leave the union in large numbers because they
found that they could do better under the operation of the system than
under the laws of the union.
There is no question that the average individual accomplishes the most
when he either gives himself, or some one else assigns him, a definite
task, namely, a given amount of work which he must do within a given
time; and the more elementary the mind and character of the individual
the more necessary does it become that each task shall extend over a
short period of time only. No school teacher would think of telling
children in a general way to study a certain book or subject. It is
practically universal to assign each day a definite lesson beginning on
one specified page and line and ending on another; and the best progress
is made when the conditions are such that a definite study hour or
period can be assigned in. which the lesson must be learned. Most of us
remain, through a great part of our lives, in this respect, grown-up
children, and do our best only under pressure of a task of comparatively
short duration. Another and perhaps equally great advantage of assigning
a daily task as against ordinary piece work lies in the fact that the
success of a good workman or the failure of a poor one is thereby daily
and prominently called to the attention of the management. Many a poor
workman might be willing to go along in a slipshod way under ordinary
piece work, careless as to whether he fell off a little in his output or
not. Very few of them, however, would be willing to record a daily
failure to accomplish their task even if they were allowed to do so by
their foreman; and also since on ordinary piece work the price alone is
specified without limiting the time which the job is to take, a quite
large falling off in output can in many cases occur without coming to
the attention of the management at all. It is for these reasons that the
writer has above indicated “a large daily task” for each man as the
first of four principles which should be included in the best type of
management.
It is evident, however, that it is useless to assign a task unless at
the same time adequate measures are taken to enforce its accomplishment.
As Artemus Ward says, “I can call the spirits from the windy deep, but
damn `em they won’t come!” It is to compel the completion of the daily
task then that two of the other principles are required, namely, “high
pay for success” and “loss in case of failure.” The advantage of Mr. H.
L. Gantt’s system of “task work with a bonus,” and the writer’s
“differential rate piece work” over the other systems lies in the fact
that with each of these the men automatically and daily receive either
an extra reward in case of complete success, or a distinct loss in case
they fall off even a little.
The four principles above referred to can be successfully applied either
under day work, piece work, task work with a bonus, or differential rate
piece work, and each of these systems has its own especial conditions
under which it is to be preferred to either of the other three. In no
case, however, should an attempt be made to apply these principles
unless accurate and thorough time study has previously been made of
every item entering into the day’s task.
They should be applied under day work only when a number of
miscellaneous jobs have to be done day after day, none of which can
occupy the entire time of a man throughout the whole of a day and when
the time required to do each of these small jobs is likely to vary
somewhat each day. In this case a number of these jobs can be grouped
into a daily task which should be assigned, if practicable, to one man,
possibly even to two or three, but rarely to a gang of men of any size.
To illustrate: In a small boiler house in which there is no storage room
for coal, the work of wheeling the coal to the fireman, wheeling out the
ashes, helping clean fires and keeping the boiler room and the outside
of the boilers clean can be made into the daily task for a man, and if
these items do not sum up into a full day’s work, on the average, other
duties can be added until a proper task is assured. Or, the various
details of sweeping, cleaning, and keeping a certain section of a shop
floor windows, machines, etc., in order can be united to form a task.
Or, in a small factory which turns out a uniform product and in uniform
quantities day after day, supplying raw materials to certain parts of
the factory and removing finished product from others may be coupled
with other definite duties to form a task. The task should call for a
large day’s work, and the man should be paid more than the usual day’s
pay so that the position will be sought for by first-class, ambitious
men. Clerical work can very properly be done by the task in this way,
although when there is enough of it, piece work at so much per entry is
to be preferred.
In all cases a clear cut, definite inspection of the task is desirable
at least once a day and sometimes twice. When a shop is not running at
night, a good time for this inspection is at seven o’clock in the
morning, for instance. The inspector should daily sign a printed card,
stating that he has inspected the work done by –-, and enumerating the
various items of the task. The card should state that the workman has
satisfactorily performed his task, “except the following items,” which
should be enumerated in detail.
When men are working on task work by the day they should be made to
start to work at the regular starting hour. They should, however, have
no regular time for leaving. As soon as the task is finished they should
be allowed to go home; and, on the other hand, they should be made to
stay at work until their task is done, even if it lasts into the night,
no deduction being made for shorter hours nor extra pay allowed for
overtime. It is both inhuman and unwise to ask a man, working on task
work, to stay in the shop after his task is finished “to maintain the
discipline of the shop,” as is frequently done. It only tends to make
men eye servants.
An amusing instance of the value of task work with freedom to leave when
the task is done was given the writer by his friend, Mr. Chas. D.
Rogers, for many years superintendent of the American Screw Works, of
Providence, R. I., one of the greatest mechanical geniuses and most
resourceful managers that this country has produced, but a man who,
owing to his great modesty, has never been fully appreciated outside of
those who know him well. Mr. Rogers tried several modifications of day
and piece work in an unsuccessful endeavor to get the children who were
engaged in sorting over the very small screws to do a fair day’s work.
He finally met with great success by assigning to each child a fair
day’s task and allowing him to go home and play as soon as his task was
done. Each child’s playtime was his own and highly prized while the
greater part of his wages went to his parents.
Piece work embodying
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