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

now going on throughout the country from failure to adopt and maintain

standards for all small details is simply enormous.

It is, however, a good sign for the future that a firm such as Messrs.

Dodge & Day of Philadelphia, who are making a specialty of standardizing

machine shop details, find their time fully occupied.

What may be called the “exception principle” in management is coming

more and more into use, although, like many of the other elements of

this art, it is used in isolated cases, and in most instances without

recognizing it as a principle which should extend throughout the entire

field. It is not an uncommon sight, though a sad one, to see the manager

of a large business fairly swamped at his desk with an ocean of letters

and reports, on each of which he thinks that he should put his initial

or stamp. He feels that by having this mass of detail pass over his desk

he is keeping in close touch with the entire business. The exception

principle is directly the reverse of this. Under it the manager should

receive only condensed, summarized, and invariably comparative reports,

covering, however, all of the elements entering into the management, and

even these summaries should all be carefully gone over by an assistant

before they reach the manager, and have all of the exceptions to the

past averages or to the standards pointed out, both the especially good

and especially bad exceptions, thus giving him in a few minutes a full

view of progress which is being made, or the reverse, and leaving him

free to consider the broader lines of policy and to study the character

and fitness of the important men under him. The exception principle can

be applied in many ways, and the writer will endeavor to give some

further illustrations of it later.

The writer has dwelt at length upon the desirability of concentrating as

much as possible clerical and brain work in the planning department.

There is, however, one such important exception to this rule that it

would seem desirable to call attention to it. As already stated, the

planning room gives its orders and instructions to the men mainly in

writing and of necessity must also receive prompt and reliable written

returns and reports which shall enable its members to issue orders for

the next movement of each piece, lay out the work for each man for the

following day, properly post the balance of work and materials accounts,

enter the records on cost accounts and also enter the time and pay of

each man on the pay sheet. There is no question that all of this

information can be given both better and cheaper by the workman direct

than through the intermediary of a walking time keeper, providing the

proper instruction and report system has been introduced in the works

with carefully ruled and printed instruction and return cards, and

particularly providing a complete mnemonic system of symbols has been

adopted so as to save the workmen the necessity of doing much writing.

The principle to which the writer wishes to call particular attention is

that the only way in which workmen can be induced to write out all of

this information accurately and promptly is by having each man write his

own time while on day work and pay when on piece work on the same card

on which he is to enter the other desired information, and then refusing

to enter his pay on the pay sheet until after all of the required

information has been correctly given by him. Under this system as soon

as a workman completes a job and at quitting time, whether the job is

completed or not, he writes on a printed time card all of the

information needed by the planning room in connection with that job,

signs it and forwards it at once to the planning room. On arriving in

the planning room each time card passes through the order of work or

route clerk, the balance clerk, the cost clerk, etc., on its way to the

pay sheet, and unless the workman has written the desired information

the card is sent back to him, and he is apt to correct and return it

promptly so as to have his pay entered up. The principle is clear that

if one wishes to have routine clerical work done promptly and correctly

it should somehow be attached to the pay card of the man who is to give

it. This principle, of course, applies to the information desired from

inspectors, gang bosses and others as well as workmen, and to reports

required from various clerks. In the case of reports, a pay coupon can

be attached to the report which will be detached and sent to the pay

sheet as soon as the report has been found correct.

Before starting to make any radical changes leading toward an

improvement in the system of management, it is desirable, and for

ultimate success in most cases necessary, that the directors and the

important owners of an enterprise shall be made to understand, at least

in a general way, what is involved in the change. They should be

informed of the leading objects which the new system aims at, such, for

instance, as rendering mutual the interests of employer and employee

through “high wages and low labor cost,” the gradual selection and

development of a body of first class picked workmen who will work extra

hard and receive extra high wages and be dealt with individually instead

of in masses. They should thoroughly understand that this can only be

accomplished through the adoption of precise and exact methods, and

having each smallest detail, both as to methods and appliances,

carefully selected so as to be the best of its kind. They should

understand the general philosophy of the system and should see that, as

a whole, it must be in harmony with its few leading ideas, and that

principles and details which are admirable in one type of management

have no place whatever in another. They should be shown that it pays to

employ an especial corps to introduce a new system just as it pays to

employ especial designers and workmen to build a new plant; that, while

a new system is being introduced, almost twice the number of foremen are

required as are needed to run it after it is in; that all of this costs

money, but that, unlike a new plant, returns begin to come in almost

from the start from improved methods and appliances as they are

introduced, and that in most cases the new system more than pays for

itself as it goes along; that time, and a great deal of time, is

involved in a radical change in management, and that in the case of a

large works if they are incapable of looking ahead and patiently waiting

for from two to four years, they had better leave things just as they

are, since a change of system involves a change in the ideas, point of

view and habits of many men with strong convictions and prejudices, and

that this can only be brought about slowly and chiefly through a series

of object lessons, each of which takes time, and through continued

reasoning; and that for this reason, after deciding to adopt a given

type, the necessary steps should be taken as fast as possible, one after

another, for its introduction. The directors should be convinced that an

increase m the proportion of non-producers to producers means increased

economy and not red tape, providing the non-producers are kept busy at

their respective functions. They should be prepared to lose some of

their valuable men who cannot stand the change and also for the

continued indignant protest of many of their old and trusted employees

who can see nothing but extravagance in the new ways and ruin ahead. It

is a matter of the first importance that, in addition to the directors

of the company, all of those connected with the management should be

given a broad and comprehensive view of the general objects to be

attained and the means which will be employed. They should fully realize

before starting on their work and should never lose sight of the fact

that the great object of the new organization is to bring about two

momentous changes in the men:

First. A complete revolution in their mental attitude toward their

employers and their work.

Second. As a result of this change of feeling such an increase in their

determination and physical activity, and such an improvement in the

conditions under which the work is done as will result in many cases in

their turning out from two to three times as much work as they have done

in the past.

First, then, the men must be brought to see that the new system changes

their employers from antagonists to friends who are working as hard as

possible side by side with them, all pushing in the same direction and

all helping to bring about such an increase in the output and to so

cheapen the cost of production that the men will be paid permanently

from thirty to one hundred per cent more than they have earned in the

past, and that there will still be a good profit left over for the

company. At first workmen cannot see why, if they do twice as much work

as they have done, they should not receive twice the wages. When the

matter is properly explained to them and they have time to think it

over, they will see that in most cases the increase in output is quite

as much due to the improved appliances and methods, to the maintenance

of standards and to the great help which they receive from the men over

them as to their own harder work. They will realize that the company

must pay for the introduction of the improved system, which costs

thousands of dollars, and also the salaries of the additional foremen

and of the clerks, etc., in the planning room as well as tool room and

other expenses and that, in addition, the company is entitled to an

increased profit quite as much as the men are. All but a few of them

will come to understand in a general way that under the new order of

things they are cooperating with their employers to make as great a

saving as possible and that they will receive permanently their fair

share of this gain.

Then after the men acquiesce in the new order of things and are willing

to do their part toward cheapening production, it will take time for

them to change from their old easy-going ways to a higher rate of speed,

and to learn to stay steadily at their work, think ahead and make every

minute count. A certain percentage of them, with the best of intentions,

will fail in this and find that they have no place in the new

organization, while still others, and among them some of the best

workers who are, however, either stupid or stubborn, can never be made

to see that the new system is as good as the old; and these, too, must

drop out. Let no one imagine, however, that this great change in the

mental attitude of the men and the increase in their activity can be

brought about by merely talking to them. Talking will be most useful—in

fact indispensable—and no opportunity should be lost of explaining

matters to them patiently, one man at a time, and giving them every

chance to express their views.

Their real instruction, however, must come through a series of object

lessons. They must be convinced that a great increase in speed is

possible by seeing here and there a man among them increase his