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

qualities necessary to perform all of the duties demanded of those men

has been clearly summarized in the following list of the nine qualities

which go to make up a well rounded man:

Brains.

Education.

Special or technical knowledge; manual dexterity or strength.

Tact.

Energy.

Grit.

Honesty.

Judgment or common sense and

Good health.

Plenty of men who possess only three of the above qualities can be hired

at any time for laborers’ wages. Add four of these qualities together

and you get a higher priced man. The man combining five of these

qualities begins to be hard to find, and those with six, seven, and

eight are almost impossible to get. Having this fact in mind, let us go

over the duties which a gang boss in charge, say, of lathes or planers,

is called upon to perform, and note the knowledge and qualities which

they call for. First. He must be a good machinist—and this alone calls

for years of special training, and limits the choice to a comparatively

small class of men.

Second. He must be able to read drawings readily, and have sufficient

imagination to see the work in its finished state clearly before him.

This calls for at least a certain amount of brains and education.

Third. He must plan ahead and see that the right jigs, clamps, and

appliances, as well as proper cutting tools, are on hand, and are used

to set the work correctly in the machine and cut the metal at the right

speed and feed. This calls for the ability to concentrate the mind upon

a multitude of small details, and take pains with little, uninteresting

things.

Fourth. He must see that each man keeps his machine clean and in good

order. This calls for the example of a man who is naturally neat and

orderly himself.

Fifth. He must see that each man turns out work of the proper quality.

This calls for the conservative judgment and the honesty which are the

qualities of a good inspector.

Sixth. He must see that the men under him work steadily and fast. To

accomplish this he should himself be a hustler, a man of energy, ready

to pitch in and infuse life into his men by working faster than they do,

and this quality is rarely combined with the painstaking care, the

neatness and the conservative judgment demanded as the third, fourth,

and fifth requirements of a gang boss.

Seventh. He must constantly look ahead over the whole field of work and

see that the parts go to the machines in their proper sequence, and that

the right job gets to each machine.

Eighth. He must, at least in a general way, supervise the timekeeping

and fix piece work rates. Both the seventh and eighth duties call for a

certain amount of clerical work and ability, and this class of work is

almost always repugnant to the man suited to active executive work, and

difficult for him to do; and the rate-fixing alone requires the whole

time and careful study of a man especially suited to its minute detail.

Ninth. He must discipline the men under him, and readjust their wages;

and these duties call for judgment, tact, and judicial fairness.

It is evident, then, that the duties which the ordinary gang boss is

called upon to perform would demand of him a large proportion of the

nine attributes mentioned above; and if such a man could be found he

should be made manager or superintendent of a works instead of gang

boss. However, bearing in mind the fact that plenty of men can be had

who combine four or five of these attributes, it becomes evident that

the work of management should be so subdivided that the various

positions can be filled by men of this caliber, and a great part of the

art of management undoubtedly lies in planning the work in this way.

This can, in the judgment of the writer, be best accomplished by

abandoning the military type of organization and introducing two broad

and sweeping changes in the art of management:

(a) As far as possible the workmen, as well as the gang bosses and

foremen, should be entirely relieved of the work of planning, and of all

work which is more or less clerical in its nature. All possible brain

work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or

laying-out department, leaving for the foremen and gang bosses work

strictly executive in its nature. Their duties should be to see that the

operations planned and directed from the planning room are promptly

carried out in the shop. Their time should be spent with the men,

teaching them to think ahead, and leading and instructing them in their

work.

(b) Throughout the whole field of management the military type of

organization should be abandoned, and what may be called the’

“functional type” substituted in its place. “Functional management”

consists in so dividing the work of management that each man from the

assistant superintendent down shall have as few functions as possible to

perform. If practicable the work of each man in the management should be

confined to the performance of a single leading function. Under the

ordinary or military type, the workmen are divided into groups. The men

in each group receive their orders from one man only, the foreman or

gang boss of that group. This man is the single agent through which the

various functions of the management are brought into contact with the

men. Certainly the most marked outward characteristic of functional

management lies in the fact that each workman, instead of coming in

direct contact with the management at one point only, namely, through

his gang boss, receives his daily orders and help directly from eight

different bosses, each of whom performs his own particular function.

Four of these bosses are in the planning room and of these three send

their orders to and receive their returns from the men, usually in

writing. Four others are in the shop and personally help the men in

their work, each boss helping in his own particular `line or function

only. Some of these bosses come in contact with each man only once or

twice a day and then for a few minutes perhaps, while others are with

the men all the time, and help each man frequently. The functions of one

or two of these bosses require them to come in contact with each workman

for so short a time each day that they can perform their particular

duties perhaps for all of the men in the shop, and in their line they

manage the entire shop. Other bosses are called upon to help their men

so much and so often that each boss can perform his function for but a

few men, and in this particular line a number of bosses are required,

all performing the same function but each having his particular group of

men to help. Thus the grouping of the men in the shop is entirely

changed, each workman belonging to eight different groups according to

the particular functional boss whom he happens to be working under at

the moment.

The following is a brief description of the duties of the four types of

executive functional bosses which the writer has found it profitable to

use in the active work of the shop: (1) gang bosses, (2) speed bosses,

(3) inspectors, and (4) repair bosses.

The gang boss has charge of the preparation of all work up to the time

that the piece is set in the machine. It is his duty to see that every

man under him has at all times at least one piece of work ahead at his

machine, with all the jigs, templates, drawings, driving mechanism,

sling chains, etc., ready to go into his machine as soon as the piece he

is actually working on is done. The gang boss must show his men how to

set their work in their machines in the quickest time, and see that they

do it. He is responsible for the work being accurately and quickly set,

and should be not only able but willing to pitch in himself and show the

men how to set the work in record time.

The speed boss must see that the proper cutting tools are used for each

piece of work, that the work is properly driven, that the cuts are

started in the right part of the piece, and that the best speeds and

feeds and depth of cut are used. His work begins only after the piece is

in the lathe or planer, and ends when the actual machining ends. The

speed boss must not only advise his men how best to do this work, but he

must see that they do it in the quickest time, and that they use the

speeds and feeds and depth of cut as directed on the instruction card In

many cases he is called upon to demonstrate that the work can be done in

the specified time by doing it himself in the presence of his men.

The inspector is responsible for the quality of the work, and both the

workmen and speed bosses must see that the work is all finished to suit

him. This man can, of course, do his work best if he is a master of the

art of finishing work both well and quickly.

The repair boss sees that each workman keeps his machine clean, free

from rust and scratches, and that he oils and treats it properly, and

that all of the standards established for the care and maintenance of

the machines and their accessories are rigidly maintained, such as care

of belts and shifters, cleanliness of floor around machines, and orderly

piling and disposition of work.

The following is an outline of the duties of the four functional bosses

who are located in the planning room, and who in their various functions

represent the department in its connection with the men. The first three

of these send their directions to and receive their returns from the

men, mainly in writing. These four representatives of the planning

department are, the (1) order of work and route clerk, (2) instruction

card clerk, (3) time and cost clerk, and (4) shop disciplinarian.

Order of Work and Route Clerk. After the route clerk in the planning

department has laid out the exact route which each piece of work is to

travel through the shop from machine to machine in order that it may be

finished at the time it is needed for assembling, and the work done in

the most economical way, the order of work clerk daily writes lists

instructing the workmen and also all of the executive shop bosses as to

the exact order in which the work is to be done by each class of

machines or men, and these lists constitute the chief means for

directing the workmen in this particular function.

Instruction Card Clerks. The “instruction card,” as its name indicates,

is the chief means employed by the planning department for instructing

both the executive bosses and the men in all of the details of their

work. It tells them briefly the general and detail drawing to refer to,

the piece number and the cost order number to charge the work to, the

special jigs, fixtures, or tools to use, where to start each cut, the

exact depth of each cut, and how many cuts to take, the speed and feed

to be used for each cut, and the time within which each operation must

be finished. It also informs them as to the piece rate, the differential

rate, or the premium to be paid for completing the task within