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

specified time (according to the system employed); and further, when

necessary, refers them by name to the man who will give them especial

directions. This instruction card is filled in by one or more members of

the planning department, according to the nature and complication of the

instructions, and bears the same relation to the planning room that the

drawing does to the drafting room. The man who sends it into the shop

and who, in case difficulties are met with in carrying out the

instructions, sees that the proper man sweeps these difficulties away,

is called the instruction card foreman.

Time and Cost Clerk. This man sends to the men through the “time ticket”

all the information they need for recording their time and the cost of

the work, and secures proper returns from them. He refers these for

entry to the cost and time record clerks in the planning room.

Shop Disciplinarian. In case of insubordination or impudence, repeated

failure to do their duty, lateness or unexcused absence, the shop

disciplinarian takes the workman or bosses in hand and applies the

proper remedy. He sees that a complete record of each man’s virtues and

defects is kept. This man should also have much to do with readjusting

the wages of the workmen. At the very least, he should invariably be

consulted before any change is made. One of his important functions

should be that of peace-maker.

Thus, under functional foremanship, we see that the work which, under

the military type of organization, was done by the single gang boss, is

subdivided among eight men: (1) route clerks, (2) instruction card

clerks, (3) cost and time clerks, who plan and give directions from the

planning room; (4) gang bosses, (5) speed bosses, (6) inspectors, (7)

repair bosses, who show the men how to carry out their instructions, and

see that the work is done at the proper speed; and (8) the shop

disciplinarian, who performs this function for the entire establishment.

The greatest good resulting from this change is that it becomes possible

in a comparatively short time to train bosses who can really and fully

perform the functions demanded of them, while under the old system it

took years to train men who were after all able to thoroughly perform

only a portion of their duties. A glance at the nine qualities needed

for a well rounded man and then at the duties of these functional

foremen will show that each of these men requires but a limited number

of the nine qualities in order to successfully fill his position; and

that the special knowledge which he must acquire forms only a small part

of that needed by the old style gang boss. The writer has seen men taken

(some of them from the ranks of the workmen, others from the old style

bosses and others from among the graduates of industrial schools,

technical schools and colleges) and trained to become efficient

functional foremen in from six to eighteen months. Thus it becomes

possible with functional foremanship to thoroughly and completely equip

even a new company starting on a large scale with competent officers in

a reasonable time, which is entirely out of the question under the old

system. Another great advantage resulting from functional or divided

foremanship is that it becomes entirely practicable to apply the four

leading principles of management to the bosses as well as to the

workmen. Each foreman can have a task assigned him which is so

accurately measured that he will be kept fully occupied and still will

daily be able to perform his entire function. This renders it possible

to pay him high wages when he is successful by giving him a premium

similar to that offered the men and leave him with low pay when he

fails.

The full possibilities of functional foremanship, however, will not have

been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop are run by

men who are of smaller calibre and attainments, and who are therefore

cheaper than those required under the old system. The adoption of

standard tools, appliances, and methods throughout the shop, the

planning done in the planning room and the detailed instructions sent

them from this department, added to the direct help received from the

four executive bosses, permit the use of comparatively cheap men even on

complicated work. Of the men in the machine shop of the Bethlehem Steel

Company engaged in running the roughing machines, and who were working

under the bonus system when the writer left them, about 95 per cent were

handy men trained up from laborers. And on the finishing machines,

working on bonus, about 25 per cent were handy men.

To fully understand the importance of the work which was being done by

these former laborers, it must be borne in mind that a considerable part

of their work was very large and expensive. The forgings which they were

engaged in roughing and finishing weighed frequently many tons. Of

course they were paid more than laborer’s wages, though not as much as

skilled machinists. The work in this shop was most miscellaneous in its

nature.

Functional foremanship is already in limited use in many of the best

managed shops. A number of managers have seen the practical good that

arises from allowing two or three men especially trained in their

particular lines to deal directly with the men instead of at second hand

through the old style gang boss as a mouthpiece. So deep rooted,

however, is the conviction that the very foundation of management rests

in the military type as represented by the principle that no workman can

work under two bosses at the same time, that all of the managers who are

making limited use of the functional plan seem to feel it necessary to

apologize for or explain away their use of it; as not really in this

particular case being a violation of that principle. The writer has

never yet found one, except among the works which he had assisted in

organizing, who came out squarely and acknowledged that he was using

functional foremanship because it was the right principle.

The writer introduced five of the elements of functional foremanship

into the management of the small machine shop of the Midvale Steel

Company of Philadelphia while he was foreman of that shop in 1882-1883:

(1) the instruction card clerk, (2) the time clerk, (3) the inspector,

(4) the gang boss, and (5) the shop disciplinarian. Each of these

functional foremen dealt directly with the workmen instead of giving

their orders through the gang boss. The dealings of the instruction card

clerk and time clerk with the workmen were mostly in writing, and the

writer himself performed the functions of shop disciplinarian, so that

it was not until he introduced the inspector, with orders to go straight

to the men instead of to the gang boss, that he appreciated the

desirability of functional foremanship as a distinct principle in

management. The prepossession in favor of the military type was so

strong with the managers and owners of Midvale that it was not until

years after functional foremanship was in continual use in this shop

that he dared to advocate it to his superior officers as the correct

principle.

Until very recently in his organization of works he has found it best to

first introduce five or six of the elements of functional foremanship

quietly, and get them running smoothly in a shop before calling

attention to the principle involved. When the time for this announcement

comes, it invariably acts as the proverbial red rag on the bull. It was

some years later that the writer subdivided the duties of the “old gang

boss” who spent his whole time with the men into the four functions of

(1) speed boss, (2) repair boss, (3) inspector, and (4) gang boss, and

it is the introduction of these four shop bosses directly helping the

men (particularly that of the speed boss) in place of the single old

boss, that has produced the greatest improvement in the shop.

When functional foremanship is introduced in a large shop, it is

desirable that all of the bosses who are performing the same function

should have their own foreman over them; for instance, the speed bosses

should have a speed foreman over them, the gang bosses, a head gang

boss; the inspectors, a chief inspector, etc., etc. The functions of

these over-foremen are twofold. The first part of their work is to teach

each of the bosses under them the exact nature of his duties, and at the

start, also to nerve and brace them up to the point of insisting that

the workmen shall carry out the orders exactly as specified on the

instruction cards. This is a difficult task at first, as the workmen

have been accustomed for years to do the details of the work to suit

themselves, and many of them are intimate friends of the bosses and

believe they know quite as much about their business as the latter. The

second function of the over-foreman is to smooth out the difficulties

which arise between the different types of bosses who in turn directly

help the men. The speed boss, for instance, always follows after the

gang boss on any particular job in taking charge of the workmen. In this

way their respective duties come in contact edgeways, as it were, for a

short time, and at the start there is sure to be more or less friction

between the two. If two of these bosses meet with a difficulty which

they cannot settle, they send for their respective over-foremen, who are

usually able to straighten it out. In case the latter are unable to

agree on the remedy, the case is referred by them to the assistant

superintendent, whose duties, for a certain time at least, may consist

largely in arbitrating such difficulties and thus establishing the

unwritten code of laws by which the shop is governed. This serves as one

example of what is called the “exception principle” in management, which

is referred to later.

Before leaving this portion of the subject the writer wishes to call

attention to the analogy which functional foremanship bears to the

management of a large, up-to-date school. In such a school the children

are each day successively taken in hand by one teacher after another who

is trained in his particular specialty, and they are in many cases

disciplined by a man particularly trained in this function. The old

style, one teacher to a class plan is entirely out of date.

The writer has found that better results are attained by placing the

planning department in one office, situated, of course, as close to the

center of the shop or shops as practicable, rather than by locating its

members in different places according to their duties. This department

performs more or less the functions of a clearing house. In doing their

various duties, its members must exchange information frequently, and

since they send their orders to and receive their returns from the men

in the shop, principally in writing, simplicity calls for the use, when

possible, of a single piece of paper for each job for conveying the

instructions of the different members of the planning room to the men

and another similar paper for receiving the returns from the men to the

department. Writing out these orders and acting promptly on receipt of

the returns and recording same requires the members of the department to

be close together. The large machine shop of the Bethlehem Steel Company

was more than a quarter of a mile long, and this was successfully run

from a single planning room situated close to it. The manager,

superintendent, and their assistants should, of course, have their

offices adjacent to the planning room and, if practicable,