Shop Management Part 3

A careful inquiry into the condition of these men when away from work developed the fact that out of the whole gang only two were said to be drinking men. This does not, of course, imply that many of them did not take an occasional drink. The fact is that a steady drinker would find it almost impossible to keep up with the pace which was set, so that they were practically all sober. Many if not most of them were saving money, and they all lived better than they had before. The results attained under this system were most satisfactory both to employer and workmen, and show in a convincing way the possibility of uniting high wages with a low labor cost.

This is virtually a labor union of first-cla.s.s men, who are united together to secure the extra high wages, which belong to them by right and which in this case are begrudged them by none, and which will be theirs through dull times as well as periods of activity. Such a union commands the unqualified admiration and respect of all cla.s.ses of the community; the respect equally of workmen, employers, political economists, and philanthropists. There are no dues for membership, since all of the expenses are paid by the company. The employers act as officers of the Union, to enforce its rules and keep its records, since the interests of the company are identical and bound up with those of the men. It is never necessary to plead with, or persuade men to join this Union, since the employers themselves organize it free of cost; the best workmen in the community are always anxious to belong to it. The feature most to be regretted about it is that the membership is limited.

The words "labor union" are, however, unfortunately so closely a.s.sociated in the minds of most people with the idea of disagreement and strife between employers and men that it seems almost incongruous to apply them to this case. Is not this, however, the ideal "labor union,"

with character and special ability of a high order as the only qualifications for membership.

It is a curious fact that with the people to whom the writer has described this system, the first feeling, particularly among those more philanthropically inclined, is one of pity for the inferior workmen who lost their jobs in order to make way for the first-cla.s.s men. This sympathy is entirely misplaced. There was such a demand for labor at the time that no workman was obliged to be out of work for more than a day or two, and so the poor workmen were practically as well off as ever.

The feeling, instead of being one of pity for the inferior workmen, should be one of congratulation and rejoicing that many first-cla.s.s men--who through unfortunate circ.u.mstances had never had the opportunity of proving their worth--at last were given the chance to earn high wages and become prosperous.

What the writer wishes particularly to emphasize is that this whole system rests upon an accurate and scientific study of unit times, which is by far the most important element in scientific management. With it, greater and more permanent results can be attained even under ordinary day work or piece work than can be reached under any of the more elaborate systems without it.

In 1895 the writer read a paper before The American Society of Mechanical Engineers ent.i.tled "A Piece Rate System." His chief object in writing it was to advocate the study of unit times as the foundation of good management. Unfortunately, he at the same time described the "differential rate" system of piece work, which had been introduced by him in the Midvale Steel Works. Although he called attention to the fact that the latter was entirely of secondary importance, the differential rate was widely discussed in the journals of this country and abroad while practically nothing was said about the study of "unit times."

Thirteen members of the Society discussed the piece rate system at length, and only two briefly referred to the study of the "unit times."

The writer most sincerely trusts that his leading object in writing this book will not be overlooked, and that scientific time study will receive the attention which it merits. Bearing in mind the Bethlehem yard labor as an ill.u.s.tration of the application of the study of unit times as the foundation of success in management, the following would seem to him a fair comparison of the older methods with the more modern plan.

For each job there is the quickest time in which it can be done by a first-cla.s.s man. This time may be called the "quickest time," or the "standard time" for the job. Under all the ordinary systems, this "quickest time" is more or less completely shrouded in mist. In most cases, however, the workman is nearer to it and sees it more clearly than the employer.

Under ordinary piece work the management watch every indication given them by the workmen as to what the "quickest time" is for each job, and 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 a.s.sistance 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-cla.s.s 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 circ.u.mscribed 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-cla.s.s 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 a.s.sign 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 a.n.a.logy 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 mult.i.tude 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 written orders and its apparent red tape, looks like a waste of money; while the ordinary management in which the planning is mainly done by the workmen themselves, with the help of one or two foremen, seems simple and economical in the extreme.

The writer, however, while still a young man, had all lingering doubt as to the value of a drafting room dispelled by seeing the chief engineer, the foreman of the machine shop, the foreman of the foundry, and one or two workmen, in one of our large and successful engineering establishments of the old school, stand over the cylinder of an engine which was being built, with chalk and dividers, and discuss for more than an hour the proper size and location of the studs for fastening on the cylinder head. This was simplicity, but not economy. About the same time he became thoroughly convinced of the necessity and economy of a planning department with time study, and with written instruction cards and returns. He saw over and over again a workman shut down his machine and hunt up the foreman to inquire, perhaps, what work to put into his machine next, and then chase around the shop to find it or to have a special tool or template looked up or made. He saw workmen carefully nursing their jobs by the hour and doing next to nothing to avoid making a record, and he was even more forcibly convinced of the necessity for a change while he was still working as a machinist by being ordered by the other men to slow down to half speed under penalty of being thrown over the fence.

No one now doubts the economy of the drafting room, and the writer predicts that in a very few years from now no one will doubt the economy and necessity of the study of unit times and of the planning department.

Another point of a.n.a.logy between modern engineering and modern management lies in the fact that modern engineering proceeds with comparative certainty to the design and construction of a machine or structure of the maximum efficiency with the minimum weight and cost of materials, while the old style engineering at best only approximated these results and then only after a series of breakdowns, involving the practical reconstruction of the machine and the lapse of a long period of time. The ordinary system of management, owing to the lack of exact information and precise methods, can only approximate to the desired standard of high wages accompanied by low labor cost and then only slowly, with marked irregularity in results, with continued opposition, and, in many cases, with danger from strikes. Modern management, on the other hand, proceeds slowly at first, but with directness and precision, step by step, and, after the first few object lessons, almost without opposition on the part of the men, to high wages and low labor cost; and as is of great importance, it a.s.signs wages to the men which are uniformly fair. They are not demoralized, and their sense of justice offended by receiving wages which are sometimes too low and at other times entirely too high.

One of the marked advantages of scientific management lies in its freedom from strikes. The writer has never been opposed by a strike, although he has been engaged for a great part of his time since 1883 in introducing this type of management in different parts of the country and in a great variety of industries. The only case of which the writer can think in which a strike under this system might be unavoidable would be that in which most of the employees were members of a labor union, and of a union whose rules were so inflexible and whose members were so stubborn that they were unwilling to try any other system, even though it a.s.sured them larger wages than their own. The writer has seen, however, several times after the introduction of this system, the members of labor unions who were working under it leave the union in large numbers because they found that they could do better under the operation of the system than under the laws of the union.

There is no question that the average individual accomplishes the most when he either gives himself, or some one else a.s.signs him, a definite task, namely, a given amount of work which he must do within a given time; and the more elementary the mind and character of the individual the more necessary does it become that each task shall extend over a short period of time only. No school teacher would think of telling children in a general way to study a certain book or subject. It is practically universal to a.s.sign each day a definite lesson beginning on one specified page and line and ending on another; and the best progress is made when the conditions are such that a definite study hour or period can be a.s.signed in. which the lesson must be learned. Most of us remain, through a great part of our lives, in this respect, grown-up children, and do our best only under pressure of a task of comparatively short duration. Another and perhaps equally great advantage of a.s.signing a daily task as against ordinary piece work lies in the fact that the success of a good workman or the failure of a poor one is thereby daily and prominently called to the attention of the management. Many a poor workman might be willing to go along in a slipshod way under ordinary piece work, careless as to whether he fell off a little in his output or not. Very few of them, however, would be willing to record a daily failure to accomplish their task even if they were allowed to do so by their foreman; and also since on ordinary piece work the price alone is specified without limiting the time which the job is to take, a quite large falling off in output can in many cases occur without coming to the attention of the management at all. It is for these reasons that the writer has above indicated "a large daily task" for each man as the first of four principles which should be included in the best type of management.

It is evident, however, that it is useless to a.s.sign a task unless at the same time adequate measures are taken to enforce its accomplishment.

As Artemus Ward says, "I can call the spirits from the windy deep, but d.a.m.n 'em they won't come!" It is to compel the completion of the daily task then that two of the other principles are required, namely, "high pay for success" and "loss in case of failure." The advantage of Mr. H.

L. Gantt's system of "task work with a bonus," and the writer's "differential rate piece work" over the other systems lies in the fact that with each of these the men automatically and daily receive either an extra reward in case of complete success, or a distinct loss in case they fall off even a little.

The four principles above referred to can be successfully applied either under day work, piece work, task work with a bonus, or differential rate piece work, and each of these systems has its own especial conditions under which it is to be preferred to either of the other three. In no case, however, should an attempt be made to apply these principles unless accurate and thorough time study has previously been made of every item entering into the day's task.

They should be applied under day work only when a number of miscellaneous jobs have to be done day after day, none of which can occupy the entire time of a man throughout the whole of a day and when the time required to do each of these small jobs is likely to vary somewhat each day. In this case a number of these jobs can be grouped into a daily task which should be a.s.signed, if practicable, to one man, possibly even to two or three, but rarely to a gang of men of any size.

To ill.u.s.trate: In a small boiler house in which there is no storage room for coal, the work of wheeling the coal to the fireman, wheeling out the ashes, helping clean fires and keeping the boiler room and the outside of the boilers clean can be made into the daily task for a man, and if these items do not sum up into a full day's work, on the average, other duties can be added until a proper task is a.s.sured. Or, the various details of sweeping, cleaning, and keeping a certain section of a shop floor windows, machines, etc., in order can be united to form a task.

Or, in a small factory which turns out a uniform product and in uniform quant.i.ties day after day, supplying raw materials to certain parts of the factory and removing finished product from others may be coupled with other definite duties to form a task. The task should call for a large day's work, and the man should be paid more than the usual day's pay so that the position will be sought for by first-cla.s.s, ambitious men. Clerical work can very properly be done by the task in this way, although when there is enough of it, piece work at so much per entry is to be preferred.

In all cases a clear cut, definite inspection of the task is desirable at least once a day and sometimes twice. When a shop is not running at night, a good time for this inspection is at seven o'clock in the morning, for instance. The inspector should daily sign a printed card, stating that he has inspected the work done by ----, and enumerating the various items of the task. The card should state that the workman has satisfactorily performed his task, "except the following items," which should be enumerated in detail.

When men are working on task work by the day they should be made to start to work at the regular starting hour. They should, however, have no regular time for leaving. As soon as the task is finished they should be allowed to go home; and, on the other hand, they should be made to stay at work until their task is done, even if it lasts into the night, no deduction being made for shorter hours nor extra pay allowed for overtime. It is both inhuman and unwise to ask a man, working on task work, to stay in the shop after his task is finished "to maintain the discipline of the shop," as is frequently done. It only tends to make men eye servants.

An amusing instance of the value of task work with freedom to leave when the task is done was given the writer by his friend, Mr. Chas. D.

Rogers, for many years superintendent of the American Screw Works, of Providence, R. I., one of the greatest mechanical geniuses and most resourceful managers that this country has produced, but a man who, owing to his great modesty, has never been fully appreciated outside of those who know him well. Mr. Rogers tried several modifications of day and piece work in an unsuccessful endeavor to get the children who were engaged in sorting over the very small screws to do a fair day's work.

He finally met with great success by a.s.signing to each child a fair day's task and allowing him to go home and play as soon as his task was done. Each child's playtime was his own and highly prized while the greater part of his wages went to his parents.

Piece work embodying the task idea can be used to advantage when there is enough work of the same general character to keep a number of men busy regularly; such work, for instance, as the Bethlehem yard labor previously described, or the work of bicycle ball inspection referred to later on. In piece work of this cla.s.s the task idea should always be maintained by keeping it clearly before each man that his average daily earnings must amount to a given high sum (as in the case of the Bethlehem laborers, $1.85 per day), and that failure to average this amount will surely result in his being laid off. It must be remembered that on plain piece work the less competent workmen will always bring what influence and pressure they can to cause the best men to slow down towards their level and that the task idea is needed to counteract this influence. Where the labor market is large enough to secure in a reasonable time enough strictly first-cla.s.s men, the piece work rates should be fixed on such a basis that only a first-cla.s.s man working at his best can earn the average amount called for. This figure should be, in the case of first-cla.s.s men as stated above, from 30 per cent to 100 per cent beyond the wages usually paid. The task idea is emphasized with this style of piece work by two things--the high wages and the laying off, after a reasonable trial, of incompetent men; and for the success of the system, the number of men employed on practically the same cla.s.s of work should be large enough for the workmen quite often to have the object lesson of seeing men laid off for failing to earn high wages and others subst.i.tuted in their places.

There are comparatively few machine shops, or even manufacturing establishments, in which the work is so uniform in its nature as to employ enough men on the same grade of work and in sufficiently close contact to one another to render piece work preferable to the other systems. In the great majority of cases the work is so miscellaneous in its nature as to call for the employment of workmen varying greatly in their natural ability and attainments, all the way, for instance, from the ordinary laborer, through the trained laborer, helper, rough machinist, fitter, machine hand, to the highly skilled special or all-round mechanic. And while in a large establishment there may be often enough men of the same grade to warrant the adoption of piece work with the task idea, yet, even in this case, they are generally so scattered in different parts of the shop that laying off one of their number for incompetence does not reach the others with sufficient force to impress them with the necessity of keeping up with their task.

It is evident then that, in the great majority of cases, the four leading principles in management can be best applied through either task work with a bonus or the differential piece rate in spite of the slight additional clerical work and the increased difficulty in planning ahead incident to these systems of paying wages. Three of the principles of management given above, namely, (a) a large daily task, (b) high pay for success, and (c) loss in case of failure form the very essence of both of these systems and act as a daily stimulant for the men. The fourth principle of management is a necessary preliminary, since without having first thoroughly standardized all of the conditions surrounding work, neither of these two plans can be successfully applied.

In many cases the greatest good resulting from the application of these systems of paying wages is the indirect gain which comes from the enforced standardization of all details and conditions, large and small, surrounding the work. All of the ordinary systems can be and are almost always applied without adopting and maintaining thorough shop standards.

But the task idea can not be carried out without them.

The differential rate piece work is rather simpler in its application than task work with bonus and is the more forceful of the two. It should be used wherever it is practicable, but in no case until after all the accompanying conditions have been perfected and completely standardized and a thorough time study has been made of all of the elements of the work. This system is particularly useful where the same kind of work is repeated day after day, and also whenever the maximum possible output is desired, which is almost always the case in the operation of expensive machinery or of a plant occupying valuable ground or a large building.

It is more forceful than task work with a bonus because it not only pulls the man up from the top but pushes him equally hard from the bottom. Both of these systems give the workman a large extra reward when he accomplishes his full task within the given time. With the differential rate, if for any reason he fails to do his full task, he not only loses the large extra premium which is paid for complete success, but in addition he suffers the direct loss of the piece price for each piece by which he falls short. Failure under the task with a bonus system involves a corresponding loss of the extra premium or bonus, but the workman, since he is paid a given price per hour, receives his ordinary day's pay in case of failure and suffers no additional loss beyond that of the extra premium whether he may have fallen short of the task to the extent of one piece or a dozen.