Shop Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor (top books to read .TXT) 📕

considerable part of their time in partial idleness, talking and half

working, or in actually doing nothing.

Talking while at work was stopped by seating them far apart. The hours

of work were shortened from 10 1/2 per day, first to 9 1/2, and later to

8 1/2; a Saturday half holiday being given them even with the shorter

hours. Two recesses of ten minutes each were given them, in the middle

of the morning and afternoon, during which they were expected to leave

their seats, and were allowed to talk.

The shorter hours and improved conditions made it possible for the girls

to really work steadily, instead of pretending to do so. Piece work was

then introduced, a differential rate being paid, not for an increase in

output, but for greater accuracy in the inspection; the lots inspected

by the over-inspectors forming the basis for the payment of the

differential. The work of each girl was measured every hour, and they

were all informed whether they were keeping up with their tasks, or how

far they had fallen short and an assistant was sent by the foreman to

encourage those who were falling behind, and help them to catch up.

The principle of measuring the performance of each workman against a

standard at frequent intervals, of keeping them informed as to their

progress, and of sending an assistant to help those who were falling

down, was carried out throughout the works, and proved to be most

useful.

The final results of the improved system in the inspecting department

were as follows:

(a) Thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by one hundred and

twenty.

(b) The girls averaged from $6.50 to $9.00 per week instead of $3.50 to

$4.50, as formerly.

(c) They worked only 8 1/2 hours per day, with Saturday a half-holiday,

while they had formerly worked 10 1/2 hours per day.

(d) An accurate comparison of the balls which were inspected under the

old system of day work with those done under piece work, with

over-inspection, showed that, in spite of the large increase in output

per girl, there were 58 per cent more defective balls left in the

product as sold under day work than under piece work. In other words,

the accuracy of inspection under piece work was one-third greater than

that under day work.

That thirty-five girls were able to do the work which formerly required

about one hundred and twenty is due, not only to the improvement in the

work of each girl, owing to better methods, but to the weeding out of

the lazy and unpromising candidates, and the substitution of more

ambitious individuals.

A more interesting illustration of the effect of the improved conditions

and treatment is shown in the following comparison. Records were kept of

the work of ten girls, all “old hands,” and good inspectors, and the

improvement made by these skilled hands is undoubtedly entirely due to

better management. All of these girls throughout the period of

comparison were engaged on the same kind of work, viz.: inspecting

bicycle balls, three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter.

The work of organization began in March, and although the records for

the first three months were not entirely clear, the increased output due

to better day work amounted undoubtedly to about 33 per cent. The

increase per day from June on day work, to July on piece work, the hours

each month being 10 1/2 per day, was 37 per cent. This increase was due

to the introduction of piece work. The increase per day from July to

August (the length of working days in July being 10 1/2 hours, and in

August 9 1/2 hours, both months piece work) was 33 per cent.

The increase from August to September (the length of working day in

August being 9 1/2 hours, and in September 8 1/2 hours) was 0.08 per

cent This means that the girls did practically the same amount of work

per day in September, in 8 1/2 hours, that they did in August in 9 1/2

hours.

To summarize: the same ten girls did on an average each day in

September, on piece work, when only working 8 1/2 hours per day, 2.42

times as much, or nearly two and one-half times as much, in a day (not

per hour, the increase per hour was of course much greater) as they had

done when working on day work in March with a working day of 10 1/2

hours. They earned $6.50 to $9.00 per week on piece work, while they had

only earned $3.50 to $4.50 on day work. The accuracy of inspection under

piece work was one-third greater than under day work.

The time study for this work was done by my friend, Sanford E. Thompson,

C. E. who also had the actual management of the girls throughout the

period of transition. At this time Mr. H. L. Gantt was general

superintendent of the company, and the work of systematizing was under

the general direction of the writer. It is, of course, evident that the

nature of the organizations required to manage different types of

business must vary to an enormous extent, from the simple tonnage works

(with its uniform product, which is best managed by a single strong man

who carries all of the details in his head and who, with a few

comparatively cheap assistants, pushes the enterprise through to

success) to the large machine works, doing a miscellaneous business,

with its intricate organization, in which the work of any one man

necessarily counts for but little.

It is this great difference in the type of the organization required

that so frequently renders managers who have been eminently successful

in one line utter failures when they undertake the direction of works of

a different kind. This is particularly true of men successful in tonnage

work who are placed in charge of shops involving much greater detail.

In selecting an organization for illustration, it would seem best to

choose one of the most elaborate. The manner in which this can be

simplified to suit a less intricate case will readily suggest itself to

any one interested in the subject. One of the most difficult works to

organize is that of a large engineering establishment building

miscellaneous machinery, and the writer has therefore chosen this for

description.

Practically all of the shops of this class are organized upon what may

be called the military plan. The orders from the general are transmitted

through the colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants and noncommissioned

officers to the men. In the same way the orders in industrial

establishments go from the manager through superintendents, foremen of

shops, assistant foremen and gang bosses to the men. In an establishment

of this kind the duties of the foremen, gang bosses, etc., are so

varied, and call for an amount of special information coupled with such

a variety of natural ability, that only men of unusual qualities to

start with, and who have had years of special training, can perform them

in a satisfactory manner. It is because of the difficulty—almost the

impossibility of getting suitable foremen and gang bosses, more than for

any other reason, that we so seldom hear of a miscellaneous machine

works starting in on a large scale and meeting with much, if any,

success for the first few years. This difficulty is not fully realized

by the managers of the old well established companies, since their

superintendents and assistants have grown up with the business, and have

been gradually worked into and fitted for their especial duties through

years of training and the process of natural selection. Even in these

establishments, however, this difficulty has impressed itself upon the

managers so forcibly that most of them have of late years spent

thousands of dollars in re-grouping their machine tools for the purpose

of making their foremanship more effective. The planers have been placed

in one group, slotters in another, lathes in another, etc., so as to

demand a smaller range of experience and less diversity of knowledge

from their respective foremen.

For an establishment, then, of this kind, starting up on a large scale,

it may be said to be an impossibility to get suitable superintendents

and foremen.

The writer found this difficulty at first to be an almost insurmountable

obstacle to his work in organizing manufacturing establishments; and

after years of experience, overcoming the opposition of the heads of

departments and the foremen and gang bosses, and training them to their

new duties, still remains the greatest problem in organization. The

writer has had comparatively little trouble in inducing workmen to

change their ways and to increase their speed, providing the proper

object lessons are presented to them, and time enough is allowed for

these to produce their effect. It is rarely the case, however, that

superintendents and foremen can find any reasons for changing their

methods, which, as far as they can see, have been successful. And

having, as a rule, obtained their positions owing to their unusual force

of character, and being accustomed daily to rule other men, their

opposition is generally effective.

In the writer’s experience, almost all shops are under-officered.

Invariably the number of leading men employed is not sufficient to do

the work economically. Under the military type of organization, the

foreman is held responsible for the successful running of the entire

shop, and when we measure his duties by the standard of the four leading

principles of management above referred to, it becomes apparent that in

his case these conditions are as far as possible from being fulfilled.

His duties may be briefly enumerated in the following way. He must lay

out the work for the whole shop, see that each piece of work goes in the

proper order to the right machine, and that the man at the machine knows

just what is to be done and how he is to do it. He must see that the

work is not slighted, and that it is done fast, and all the while he

must look ahead a month or so, either to provide more men to do the work

or more work for the men to do. He must constantly discipline the men

and readjust their wages, and in addition to this must fix piece work

prices and supervise the timekeeping.

The first of the four leading principles in management calls for a

clearly defined and circumscribed task. Evidently the foreman’s duties

are in no way clearly circumscribed. It is left each day entirely to his

judgment what small part of the mass of duties before him it is most

important for him to attend to, and he staggers along under this

fraction of the work for which he is responsible, leaving the balance to

be done in many cases as the gang bosses and workmen see fit. The second

principle calls for such conditions that the daily task can always be

accomplished. The conditions in his case are always such that it is

impossible for him to do it all, and he never even makes pretence of

fulfilling his entire task. The third and fourth principles call for

high pay in case the task is successfully done, and low pay in case of

failure. The failure to realize the first two conditions, however,

renders the application of the last two out of the question.

The foreman usually endeavors to lighten his burdens by delegating his

duties to the various assistant foremen or gang bosses in charge of

lathes, planers, milling machines, vise work, etc. Each of these men is

then called upon to perform duties of almost as great variety as those

of the foreman himself. The difficulty in obtaining in one man the

variety of special information and the different mental and