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

Proper time … . . 65 minutes

Bonus given first time job is done. 108 minutes

It is of the greatest importance that the man who has charge of

assigning tasks should be perfectly straightforward in all of his

dealings with the men. Neither in this nor in any other branch of the

management should a man make any pretense of having more knowledge than

he really possesses. He should impress the workmen with the fact that he

is dead in earnest, and that he fully intends to know all about it some

day; but he should make no claim to omniscience, and should always be

ready to acknowledge and correct an error if he makes one. This

combination of determination and frankness establishes a sound and

healthy relation between the management and men.

There is no class of work which cannot be profitably submitted to time

study, by dividing it into its time elements, except such operations as

take place in the head of the worker; and the writer has even seen a

time study made of the speed of an average and first-class boy in

solving problems in mathematics.

Clerk work can well be submitted to time study, and a daily task

assigned in work of this class which at first appears to be very

miscellaneous in its character.

One of the needs of modern management is that of literature on the

subject of time study. The writer quotes as follows from his paper on “A

Piece Rate System,” written in 1895:

“Practically the greatest need felt in an establishment wishing to start

a rate-fixing department is the lack of data as to the proper rate of

speed at which work should be done. There are hundreds of operations

which are common to most large establishments, yet each concern studies

the speed problem for itself, and days of labor are wasted in what

should be settled once for all, and recorded in a form which is

available to all manufacturers.

“What is needed is a handbook on the speed with which work can be done,

similar to the elementary engineering handbooks. And the writer ventures

to predict that such a book will before long be forthcoming. Such a book

should describe the best method of making, recording, tabulating, and

indexing time observations, since much time and effort are wasted by the

adoption of inferior methods.”

Unfortunately this prediction has not yet been realized. The writer’s

chief object in inducing Mr. Thompson to undertake a scientific time

study of the various building trades and to join him in a publication of

this work was to demonstrate on a large scale not only the desirability

of accurate time study, but the efficiency and superiority of the method

of studying elementary units as outlined above. He trusts that his

object may be realized and that the publication of this book may be

followed by similar works on other trades and more particularly on the

details of machine shop practice, in which he is especially interested.

As a machine shop has been chosen to illustrate the application of such

details of scientific management as time study, the planning department,

functional foremanship, instruction cards, etc., the description would

be far from complete without at least a brief reference to the methods

employed in solving the time problem for machine tools.

The study of this subject involved the solution of four important

problems:

First. The power required to cut different kinds of metals with tools of

various shapes when using different depths of cut and coarseness of

feed, and also the power required to feed the tool under varying

conditions.

Second. An investigation of the laws governing the cutting of metals

with tools, chiefly with the object of determining the effect upon the

best cutting speed of each of the following variables:

(a) The quality of tool steel and treatment of tools (i.e., in heating,

forging, and tempering them).

(b) The shape of tool (i.e., the curve or line of the cutting edge, the

lip angle, and clearance angle)

(c) The duration of cut or the length of time the tool is required to

last before being re-ground.

(d) The quality or hardness of the metal being cut (as to its effect on

cutting speed).

(e) The depth of the cut.

(f) The thickness of the feed or shaving

(g) The effect on cutting speed of using water or other cooling medium

on the tool.

Third. The best methods of analyzing the driving and feeding power of

machine tools and, after considering their limitations as to speeds and

feeds, of deciding upon the proper counter-shaft or other general

driving speeds.

Fourth. After the study of the first, second, and third problems had

resulted in the discovery of certain clearly defined laws, which were

expressed by mathematical formulae, the last and most difficult task of

all lay in finding a means for solving the entire problem which should

be so practical and simple as to enable an ordinary mechanic to answer

quickly and accurately for each machine in the shop the question, “What

driving speed, feed, and depth of cut will in each particular case do

the work in the quickest time?”

In 1881, in the machine shop of the Midvale Steel Company, the writer

began a systematic study of the laws involved in the first and second

problems above referred to by devoting the entire time of a large

vertical boring mill to this work, with special arrangements for varying

the drive so as to obtain any desired speed. The needed uniformity of

the metal was obtained by using large locomotive tires of known chemical

composition, physical properties and hardness, weighing from 1,500 to

2,000 pounds.

For the greater part of the succeeding 22 years these experiments were

carried on, first at Midvale and later in several other shops, under the

general direction of the writer, by his friends and assistants, six

machines having been at various times especially fitted up for this

purpose.

The exact determination of these laws and their reduction to formulae

have proved a slow but most interesting problem; but by far the most

difficult undertaking has been the development of the methods and

finally the appliances (i.e., slide rules) for making practical use of

these laws after they were discovered.

In 1884 the writer succeeded in making a slow solution of this problem

with the help of his friend, Mr. Geo. M. Sinclair, by indicating the

values of these variables through curves and laying down one set of

curves over another. Later my friend, Mr. H. L. Gantt, after devoting

about 1 1/2 years exclusively to this work, obtained a much more rapid

and simple solution. It was not, however, until 1900, in the works of

the Bethlehem Steel Company, that Mr. Carl G. Barth, with the assistance

of Mr. Gantt and a small amount of help from the writer, succeeded in

developing a slide rule by means of which the entire problem can be

accurately and quickly solved by any mechanic.

The difficulty from a mathematical standpoint of obtaining a rapid and

accurate solution of this problem will be appreciated when it is

remembered that twelve independent variables enter into each problem,

and that a change in any of these will affect the answer. The

instruction card can be put to wide and varied use. It is to the art of

management what the drawing is to engineering, and, like the latter,

should vary in size and form according to the amount and variety of the

information which it is to convey. In some cases it should consist of a

pencil memorandum on a small piece of paper which will be sent directly

to the man requiring the instructions, while in others it will be in the

form of several pages of typewritten matter, properly varnished and

mounted, and issued under the check or other record system, so that it

can be used time after time. A description of an instruction card of

this kind may be useful.

After the writer had become convinced of the economy of standard methods

and appliances, and the desirability of relieving the men as far as

possible from the necessity of doing the planning, while master mechanic

at Midvale, he tried to get his assistant to write a complete

instruction card for overhauling and cleaning the boilers at regular

periods, to be sure that the inspection was complete, and that while the

work was thoroughly done, the boilers should be out of use as short a

time as possible, and also to have the various elements of this work

done on piece work instead of by the day. His assistant, not having

undertaken work of this kind before, failed at it, and the writer was

forced to do it himself. He did all of the work of chipping, cleaning,

and overhauling a set of boilers and at the same time made a careful

time study of each of the elements of the work. This time study showed

that a great part of the time was lost owing to the constrained position

of the workman. Thick pads were made to fasten to the elbows, knees, and

hips; special tools and appliances were made for the various details of

the work; a complete list of the tools and implements was entered on the

instruction card, each tool being stamped with its own number for

identification, and all were issued from the tool room in a tool box so

as to keep them together and save time. A separate piece work price was

fixed for each of the elements of the job and a thorough inspection of

each part of the work secured as it was completed.

The instruction card for this work filled several typewritten pages, and

described in detail the order in which the operations should be done and

the exact details of each man’s work, with the number of each tool

required, piece work prices, etc.

The whole scheme was much laughed at when it first went into use, but

the trouble taken was fully justified, for the work was better done than

ever before, and it cost only eleven dollars to completely overhaul a

set of 300 H.P. boilers by this method, while the average cost of doing

the same work on day work without an instruction card was sixty-two

dollars.

Regarding the personal relations which should be maintained between

employers and their men, the writer quotes the following paragraphs from

a paper written in 1895. Additional experience has only served to

confirm and strengthen these views; and although the greater part of

this time, in his work of shop organization, has been devoted to the

difficult and delicate task of inducing workmen to change their ways of

doing things he has never been opposed by a strike.

“There has never been a strike by men working under this system,

although it has been applied at the Midvale Steel Works for the past

ten years; and the steel business has proved during this period the

most fruitful field for labor organizations and strikes. And this

notwithstanding the fact that the Midvale Company has never prevented

its men from joining any labor organization. All of the best men in the

company saw clearly that the success of a labor organization meant the

lowering of their wages in order that the inferior men might earn more,

and, of course, could not be persuaded to join.

“I attribute a great part of this success in avoiding strikes to the

high wages which the best men were able to earn with the differential

rates, and to the pleasant feeling fostered by this system; but this is

by no means the whole cause. It has for years been the policy