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

endeavor continually to force the men toward this “standard time,” while

the workmen constantly use every effort to prevent this from being done

and to lead the management in the wrong direction. In spite of this

conflict, however, the “standard time” is gradually approached.

Under the Towne-Halsey plan the management gives up all direct effort to

reach this “quickest time,” but offers mild inducements to the workmen

to do so, and turns over the whole enterprise to them. The workmen,

peacefully as far as the management is concerned, but with considerable

pulling and hauling among themselves, and without the assistance of a

trained guiding hand, drift gradually and slowly in the direction of the

“standard time,” but rarely approach it closely.

With accurate time study as a basis, the “quickest time” for each job

is at all times in plain sight of both employers and workmen, and is

reached with accuracy, precision, and speed, both sides pulling hard in

the same direction under the uniform simple and just agreement that

whenever a first-class man works his best he will receive from 30 to 100

per cent more than the average of his trade.

Probably a majority of the attempts that are made to radically change

the organization of manufacturing companies result in a loss of money to

the company, failure to bring about the change sought for, and a return

to practically the original organization. The reason for this being that

there are but few employers who look upon management as an art, and that

they go at a difficult task without either having understood or

appreciated the time required for organization or its cost, the troubles

to be met with, or the obstacles to be overcome, and without having

studied the means to be employed in doing so.

Before starting to make any changes in the organization of a company the

following matters should be carefully considered: First, the importance

of choosing the general type of management best suited to the particular

case. Second, that in all cases money must be spent, and in many cases a

great deal of money, before the changes are completed which result in

lowering cost. Third, that it takes time to reach any result worth

aiming at. Fourth, the importance of making changes in their proper

order, and that unless the right steps are taken, and taken in their

proper sequence, there is great danger from deterioration in the quality

of the output and from serious troubles with the workmen, often

resulting in strikes.

As to the type of management to be ultimately aimed at, before any

changes whatever are made, it is necessary, or at least highly

desirable, that the most careful consideration should be given to the

type to be chosen; and once a scheme is decided upon it should be

carried forward step by step without wavering or retrograding. Workmen

will tolerate and even come to have great respect for one change after

another made in logical sequence and according to a consistent plan. It

is most demoralizing, however, to have to recall a step once taken,

whatever may be the cause, and it makes any further changes doubly

difficult.

The choice must be made between some of the types of management in

common use, which the writer feels are properly designated by the word

“drifting,” and the more modern scientific management based on an

accurate knowledge of how long it should take to do the work. If, as is

frequently the case, the managers of an enterprise find themselves so

overwhelmed with other departments of the business that they can give

but little thought to the management of the shop, then some one of the

various “drifting” schemes should be adopted; and of these the writer

believes the Towne-Halsey plan to be the best, since it drifts safely

and peacefully though slowly in the right direction; yet under it the

best results can never be reached. The fact, however, that managers are

in this way overwhelmed by their work is the best proof that there is

something radically wrong with the plan of their organization and in

self defense they should take immediate steps toward a more thorough

study of the art.

It is not at all generally realized that whatever system may be used,

—providing a business is complex in its nature—the building up of an

efficient organization is necessarily slow and sometimes very expensive.

Almost all of the directors of manufacturing companies appreciate the

economy of a thoroughly modern, up-to-date, and efficient plant, and are

willing to pay for it. Very few of them, however, realize that the best

organization, whatever its cost may be, is in many cases even more

important than the plant; nor do they clearly realize that no kind of an

efficient organization can be built up without spending money. The

spending of money for good machinery appeals to them because they can

see machines after they are bought; but putting money into anything so

invisible, intangible, and to the average man so indefinite, as an

organization seems almost like throwing it away.

There is no question that when the work to be done is at all

complicated, a good organization with a poor plant will give better

results than the best plant with a poor organization. One of the most

successful manufacturers in this country was asked recently by a number

of financiers whether he thought that the difference between one style

of organization and another amounted to much providing the company had

an up-to-date plant properly located. His answer was, “If I had to

choose now between abandoning my present organization and burning down

all of my plants which have cost me millions, I should choose the

latter. My plants could be rebuilt in a short while with borrowed money,

but I could hardly replace my organization in a generation.”

Modern engineering can almost be called an exact science; each year

removes it further from guess work and from rule-of-thumb methods and

establishes it more firmly upon the foundation of fixed principles.

The writer feels that management is also destined to become more of an

art, and that many of the, elements which are now believed to be outside

the field of exact knowledge will soon be standardized tabulated,

accepted, and used, as are now many of the elements of engineering.

Management will be studied as an art and will rest upon well recognized,

clearly defined, and fixed principles instead of depending upon more or

less hazy ideas received from a limited observation of the few

organizations with which the individual may have come in contact. There

will, of course, be various successful types, and the application of the

underlying principles must be modified to suit each particular case. The

writer has already indicated that he thinks the first object in

management is to unite high wages with a low labor cost. He believes

that this object can be most easily attained by the application of the

following principles:

(a) A LARGE DAILY TASK. —Each man in the establishment, high or low,

should daily have a clearly defined task laid out before him. This task

should not in the least degree be vague nor indefinite, but should be

circumscribed carefully and completely, and should not be easy to

accomplish.

(b) STANDARD CONDITIONS. —Each man’s task should call for a full day’s

work, and at the same time the workman should be given such standardized

conditions and appliances as will enable him to accomplish his task with

certainty.

(c) HIGH PAY FOR SUCCESS. —He should be sure of large pay when he

accomplishes his task.

(d) LOSS IN CASE OF FAILURE. —When he fails he should be sure that

sooner or later he will be the loser by it.

When an establishment has reached an advanced state of organization, in

many cases a fifth element should be added, namely: the task should be

made so difficult that it can only be accomplished by a first-class man.

There is nothing new nor startling about any of these principles and yet

it will be difficult to find a shop in which they are not daily violated

over and over again. They call, however, for a greater departure from

the ordinary types of organization than would at first appear. In the

case, for instance, of a machine shop doing miscellaneous work, in order

to assign daily to each man a carefully measured task, a special

planning department is required to lay out all of the work at least one

day ahead. All orders must be given to the men in detail in writing; and

in order to lay out the next day’s work and plan the entire progress of

work through the shop, daily returns must be made by the men to the

planning department in writing, showing just what has been done. Before

each casting or forging arrives in the shop the exact route which it is

to take from machine to machine should be laid out. An instruction card

for each operation must be written out stating in detail just how each

operation on every piece of work is to be done and the time required to

do it, the drawing number, any special tools, jigs, or appliances

required, etc. Before the four principles above referred to can be

successfully applied it is also necessary in most shops to make

important physical changes. All of the small details in the shop, which

are usually regarded as of little importance and are left to be

regulated according to the individual taste of the workman, or, at best,

of the foreman, must be thoroughly and carefully standardized; such.

details, for instance, as the care and tightening of the belts; the

exact shape and quality of each cutting tool; the establishment of a

complete tool room from which properly ground tools, as well as jigs,

templates, drawings, etc., are issued under a good check system, etc.;

and as a matter of importance (in fact, as the foundation of scientific

management) an accurate study of unit times must be made by one or more

men connected with the planning department, and each machine tool must

be standardized and a table or slide rule constructed for it showing how

to run it to the best advantage.

At first view the running of a planning department, together with the

other innovations, would appear to involve a large amount of additional

work and expense, and the most natural question would be is whether the

increased efficiency of the shop more than offsets this outlay? It must

be borne in mind, however, that, with the exception of the study of unit

times, there is hardly a single item of work done in the planning

department which is not already being done in the shop. Establishing a

planning department merely concentrates the planning and much other

brainwork in a few men especially fitted for their task and trained in

their especial lines, instead of having it done, as heretofore, in most

cases by high priced mechanics, well fitted to work at their trades, but

poorly trained for work more or less clerical in its nature.

There is a close analogy between the methods of modern engineering and

this type of management. Engineering now centers in the drafting room as

modern management does in the planning department. The new style

engineering has all the appearance of complication and extravagance,

with its multitude of drawings; the amount of study and work which is

put into each detail; and its corps of draftsmen, all of whom would be

sneered at by the old engineer as “non-producers.” For the same reason,

modern management, with its minute time study and a managing department

in which each operation is carefully planned, with its many