The Psychology of Management
by Lillian Moller Gilbreth · English · Gutenberg #16256 · 555,843 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Psychology of Management
Author: Lillian Moller Gilbreth
Release date: July 10, 2005 [eBook #16256]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT ***
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THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF
MANAGEMENT
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK * BOSTON * CHICAGO * DALLAS
ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON * BOMBAY * CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF
MANAGEMENT
_The Function of the Mind in Determining,
Teaching and Installing Methods
of Least Waste_
BY
L.M. GILBRETH, PH.D.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
1914,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
----------
Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1914
TO MY
FATHER AND MOTHER
====================================================================
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
DESCRIPTION AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF MANAGEMENT ............................................. 1
Definition of Psychology of Management--Importance of
the Subject--Purpose of this Book--Definition of
Management--The Three Types of Management--Possible
Psychological Studies of Management--Plan of Psychological
Study Here Used--Underlying Ideas or Divisions of
Scientific Management--Outline of Method of
Investigation--Conclusions to be Reached.
CHAPTER II
INDIVIDUALITY ............................................... 21
Definition of Individuality--Place of Individuality in
Psychology--Individuality Under Traditional
Management--Individuality Under Transitory
Management--Individuality Under Scientific
Management--Selection of Workers--Separating
Output--Recording Output Separately--Individual
Tasks--Individual Instruction Cards--Individual
Teaching--Individual Incentives--Individual
Welfare--Summary: (a) Effect of Individuality upon Work;
(b) Effect of Individuality upon Worker.
CHAPTER III
FUNCTIONALIZATION ........................................... 52
Definition of Functionalization--Psychological Use of
Functionalization--Functionalization in Traditional
Management--Functionalization Under Transitory
Management--Functionalization Under Scientific
Management--Separating the Planning From the
Performing--Functionalized Foremanship--The Function of
Order of Work and Route Clerk--The Function of Instruction
Card Clerk--The Function of Time and Cost Clerk--The
Function of Disciplinarian--The Function of Gang Boss--The
Function of Speed Boss--The Function of Repair Boss--The
Function of Inspector--Functionalizing the
Worker--Functionalizing the Work Itself--Summary: (a)
Effect of Functionalization upon the Work; (b) Effect of
Functionalization upon the Worker.
CHAPTER IV
MEASUREMENT ................................................. 90
Definition of Measurement--Importance of Measurement in
Psychology--Relation of Measurement in Psychology to
Measurement in Management--Importance of Measurement in
Management--Measurement in Traditional
Management--Measurement in Transitory
Management--Measurement in Scientific
Management--Qualifications of the Observer--Methods of
Observation--Definitions of Motion Study and Time
Study--Methods of Motion Study and Time Study--Summary:
(a) Effect of Measurement on the Work; (b) Effect of
Measurement on the Worker; (c) Future Results to be
Expected; (d) First Step Toward Obtaining These Results.
CHAPTER V
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS ...................................... 123
Definition of Analysis--Definition of Synthesis--Use of
Analysis and Synthesis by Psychology--Importance of
Analysis and Synthesis in Management--Place in Traditional
Management--Place in Transitory Management--Place in
Scientific Management--The Work of the
Analyst--Determining Factor in Amount of Analysis--Field
of Psychology in Analysis--Qualifications of an
Analyst--Worker's Interest in Analysis--The Work of the
Synthesist--Results of Synthesist's Work--The
Task--Discussion of the Name "Task"--Definition of "Task"
in Scientific Management--Field of Application of the Task
Idea--Qualifications of the Synthesist--Summary: (a)
Effect of Analysis and Synthesis on the Work; (b) Effect
of Analysis and Synthesis on the Worker.
CHAPTER VI
STANDARDIZATION ............................................. 139
Definition of Standardization--Relation of the Standard
to the Task and the Incentive--Relation of the Standard to
Psychology--Purpose of Standardization--Standardization
Under Traditional Management--Standardization Under
Transitory Management--Value of Systems--Standardization
Under Scientific Management--Relation of Standard to
Measurement--Scope of Standardization Under Scientific
Management--Permanence of Results--Needs of
Standardization Likened to Needs in Field of
Spelling--Standard Nomenclature--Advantages of Mnemonic
Symbols--Standard Phraseology--The Standard Man--Standard
Means of Conveying Information--Definition of the
Instruction Card--Detailed Description of the Instruction
Card--Value of Standard Surroundings--Necessity for Proper
Placing of the Worker--Standard Equipment--Standard Tools
and Devices--Standard Clothing--Standard Methods--Rest
from Fatigue--Standardization of Work with
Animals--Standard Quality--Standard "Method of
Attack"--Summary: (a) Effect of Standardization on the
Work; (b) Effect of Standardization on the Worker; (c)
Progress of Standardization Assured.
CHAPTER VII
RECORDS AND PROGRAMMES ...................................... 183
Definition of Record--Records Under Traditional
Management--Records Under Transitory Management--Records
Under Scientific Management--Criterion of Records--Records
of Work and Workers--Records of Initiative--Records of
Good Behavior--Records of Achievement--Records of
"Exceptions"--Posting of Records--Summary of Results of
Records to Work and Worker--Definition of
Programme--Programmes Under Traditional
Management--Programmes Under Transitory
Management--Programmes Under Scientific
Management--Programmes and Routing--Possibility of
Prophecy Under Scientific Management--Summary of Results
of Programmes to Work and Worker--Relation Between Records
and Programmes--Types of Records and
Programmes--Interrelation of Types--Illustrations of
Complexity of Relations--Possibilities of Eliminating
Waste--Derivation of the Programme--Summary: (a) Effect of
Relations Between Records and Programmes on the Work; (b)
Effect on the Worker.
CHAPTER VIII
TEACHING .................................................... 208
Definition of Teaching--Teaching Under Traditional
Management--Faults Due to Lack of Standards--Teaching
Under Transitory Management--Teaching Under Scientific
Management--Importance of Teaching--Conforming of Teaching
to Psychological Laws--Conservation of Valuable Elements
of Traditional and Transitory Management--Scope of
Teaching--Source of Teaching--Methods of
Teaching--Instruction Cards as Teachers--Systems as
Teachers--Drawings, Charts, Plans and
Photographs--Functional Foremen as Teachers--Object
Lessons as Teachers--Training the Senses--Forming Good
Habits--Importance of Teaching Right Motions
First--Stimulating Attention--Forming
Associations--Educating the Memory--Cultivating the
Imagination--Developing the Judgment--Utilizing
Suggestion--Utilizing Native Reactions--Developing the
Will--Adaptability of Teaching--Provision of Places for
Teaching--Measurement of Teaching--Relation of Teaching to
Academic Training and Vocational Guidance--Summary: (a)
Result of Teaching in the Work; (b) Result of Teaching to
the Worker; (c) Results to be Expected in the Future.
CHAPTER IX
INCENTIVES .................................................. 271
Definition of Incentive--Importance of
Incentives--Direct and Indirect Incentives--Definition of
Reward--Definition of Punishment--Nature of Direct
Incentives--The Reward Under Traditional Management--The
Punishment Under Traditional Management--The Direct
Incentive Under Traditional Management--Incentives Under
Transitory Management--Rewards Under Scientific
Management--Promotion and Pay--Relation of Wages and
Bonus--Day Work--Piece Work--Task Wage--Gain
Sharing--Premium Plan--Profit Sharing--Differential Rate
Piece--Task Work with a Bonus--Differential Bonus--Three
Rate--Three Rate with Increased Rate--Other
Rewards--Negative and Positive Punishments--Fines and
Their Disposal--Assignment to Less Pleasant
Work--Discharge and Its Elimination--Use of Direct
Incentives--Summary: (a) Effect of Incentives upon the
Work; (b) Effect of Incentives upon the Worker.
CHAPTER X
WELFARE ..................................................... 311
Definition of Welfare--"Welfare" and "Welfare
Work"--Welfare Under Traditional Management--Welfare Work
Under Traditional Management--Welfare Under Transitory
Management--Welfare Work Under Transitory
Management--Welfare Under Scientific Management--Physical
Improvement--Mental Development--Moral
Development--Interrelation of Physical, Mental and Moral
Development--Welfare Work Under Scientific
Management--Summary: (a) Result of Welfare to the Work;
(b) Result of Welfare to the Worker.
INDEX ....................................................... 333
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT
CHAPTER I
DESCRIPTION AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF
DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT.--The Psychology of
Management, as here used, means,--the effect of the mind that is
directing work upon that work which is directed, and the effect of
this undirected and directed work upon the mind of the worker.
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.--Before defining the terms that will
be used more in detail, and outlining the method of treatment to be
followed, it is well to consider the importance of the subject
matter of this book, for upon the reader's interest in the subject,
and his desire, from the outset, to follow what is said, and to
respond to it, rests a large part of the value of this book.
VALUE OF PSYCHOLOGY.--First of all, then, what is there in the
subject of psychology to demand the attention of the manager?
Psychology, in the popular phrase, is "the study of the mind."
It has for years been included in the training of all teachers, and
has been one of the first steps for the student of philosophy; but
it has not, usually, been included among the studies of the young
scientific or engineering student, or of any students in other lines
than Philosophy and Education. This, not because its value as a
"culture subject" was not understood, but because the course of the
average student is so crowded with technical preparation necessary
to his life work, and because the practical value of psychology has
not been recognized. It is well recognized that the teacher must
understand the working of the mind in order best to impart his
information in that way that will enable the student to grasp it
most readily. It was not recognized that every man going out into
the world needs all the knowledge that he can get as to the working
of the human mind in order not only to give but to receive
information with the least waste and expenditure of energy, nor was
it recognized that in the industrial, as well as the academic world,
almost every man is a teacher.
VALUE OF MANAGEMENT.--The second question demanding attention
is;--Of what value is the study of management?
The study of management has been omitted from the student's
training until comparatively recently, for a very different reason
than was psychology. It was never doubted that a knowledge of
management would be of great value to anyone and everyone, and many
were the queer schemes for obtaining that knowledge after
graduation. It was doubted that management could be studied
otherwise than by observation and practice.[1] Few teachers, if any,
believed in the existence, or possibility, of a teaching science of
management. Management was assumed by many to be an art, by even
more it was thought to be a divinely bestowed gift or talent, rather
than an acquired accomplishment. It was common belief that one could
learn to manage only by going out on the work and watching other
managers, or by trying to manage, and not by studying about
management in a class room or in a text book; that watching a good
manager might help one, but no one could hope really to succeed who
had not "the knack born in him."
With the advent of "Scientific Management," and its
demonstration that the best management is founded on laws that have
been determined, and can be taught, the study of management in the
class room as well as on the work became possible and actual.[2]
VALUE OF PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT.--Third, we must consider the
value of the study of the psychology of management.[3]
This question, like the one that precedes it, is answered by
Scientific Management. It has demonstrated that the emphasis in
successful management lies on the _man_, not on the _work_; that
efficiency is best secured by placing the emphasis on the man, and
modifying the equipment, materials and methods to make the most of
the man. It has, further, recognized that the man's mind is a
controlling factor in his efficiency, and has, by teaching, enabled
the man to make the most of his powers.[4] In order to understand
this teaching element that is such a large part of management, a
knowledge of psychology is imperative; and this study of psychology,
as it applies to the work of the manager or the managed, is exactly
what the "psychology of management" is.
FIVE INDICATIONS OF THIS VALUE.--In order to realize the
importance of the psychology of management it is necessary to
consider the following five points:--
1. Management is a life study of every man who works with other
men. He must either manage, or be managed, or both; in any case, he
can never work to best advantage until he understands both the
psychological and managerial laws by which he governs or is governed.
2. A knowledge of the underlying laws of management is the most
important asset that one can carry with him into his life work, even
though he will never manage any but himself. It is useful,
practical, commercially valuable.
3. This knowledge is to be had _now_. The men who have it are
ready and glad to impart it to all who are interested and who will
pass it on.[5] The text books are at hand now. The opportunities for
practical experience in Scientific Management will meet all demands
as fast as they are made.
4. The psychology of, that is, the mind's place in management is
only one part, element or variable of management; one of numerous,
almost numberless, variables.
5. It is a division well fitted to occupy the attention of the
beginner, as well as the more experienced, because it is a most
excellent place to start the study of management. A careful study of
the relations of psychology to management should develop in the
student a method of attack in learning his selected life work that
should help him to grasp quickly the orderly array of facts that the
other variables, as treated by the great managers, bring to him.
PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK.--It is scarcely necessary to mention that
this book can hope to do little more than arouse an interest in the
subject and point the way to the detailed books where such an
interest can be more deeply aroused and more fully satisfied.
WHAT THIS BOOK WILL NOT DO.--It is not the purpose of this book
to give an exhaustive treatment of psychology. Neither is it
possible in this book to attempt to give a detailed account of
management in general, or of the Taylor plan of "Scientific
Management" so-called, in particular. All of the literature on the
subject has been carefully studied and reviewed for the purpose of
writing this book,--not only what is in print, but considerable that
is as yet in manuscript. No statement has been made that is not
along the line of the accepted thought and standardized practice of
the authorities. The foot notes have been prepared with great care.
By reading the references there given one can verify statements in
the text, and can also, if he desires, inform himself at length on
any branch of the subject that especially interests him.
WHAT THIS BOOK WILL DO.--This book aims not so much to
instruct as to arouse an interest in its subject, and to point
the way whence instruction comes. If it can serve as an
introduction to psychology and to management, can suggest the
relation of these two fields of inquiries and can ultimately
enroll its readers as investigators in a resultant great field of
inquiry, it will have accomplished its aim.
DEFINITION OF MANAGEMENT.--To discuss this subject more
in detail--
First: What is "Management"?
"Management," as defined by the Century Dictionary, is "the
art of managing by direction or regulation."
Successful management of the old type was an art based on no
measurement. Scientific Management is an art based upon a
science,--upon laws deducted from measurement. Management continues
to be what it has always been,--the _art_ of directing activity.
CHANGE IN THE ACCEPTED MEANING.--"Management," until recent
years, and the emphasis placed on Scientific Management was
undoubtedly associated, in the average mind, with the _managing_
part of the organization only, neglecting that vital part--the best
interests of the managed, almost entirely. Since we have come to
realize that management signifies the relationship between the
managing and the managed in doing work, a new realization of its
importance has come about.[6]
INADEQUACY OF THE TERMS USED.--It is unfortunate that the
English language is so poor in synonyms in this field that the same
word must have two such different and conflicting meanings, for,
though the new definition of management be accepted, the "Fringe" of
associations that belong to the old are apt to remain.[7] The
thoughts of "knack, aptitude, tact, adroitness,"--not to speak of
the less desirable "Brute Force," "shrewdness, subtlety, cunning,
artifice, deceit, duplicity," of the older idea of management remain
in the background of the mind and make it difficult, even when one
is convinced that management is a science, to think and act as if
it were.
It must be noticed and constantly remembered that one of the
greatest difficulties to overcome in studying management and its
development is the meaning of the terms used. It is most
unfortunate that the new ideas have been forced to content
themselves with old forms as best they may.
PSYCHOLOGICAL INTEREST OF THE TERMS.--Psychology could ask no
more interesting subject than a study of the mental processes that
lie back of many of these terms. It is most unfortunate for the
obtaining of clearness, that new terms were not invented for the new
ideas. There is, however, an excellent reason for using the old
terms. By their use it is emphasized that the new thought is a
logical outgrowth of the old, and experience has proved that this
close relationship to established ideas is a powerful argument for
the new science; but such terms as "task," "foreman," "speed boss,"
"piece-rate" and "bonus," as used in the science of management,
suffer from misunderstanding caused by old and now false
associations. Furthermore, in order to compare old and new
interpretations of the ideas of management, the older terms of
management should have their traditional meanings only. The two sets
of meanings are a source of endless confusion, unwarranted
prejudice, and worse. This is well recognized by the authorities
on Management.
THE THREE TYPES OF MANAGEMENT.--We note this inadequacy of
terms again when we discuss the various _types_ of Management.
We may divide all management into three types--
(1) Traditional
(2) Transitory
(3) Scientific, or measured functional.[8]
Traditional Management, the first, has been variously called
"Military," "Driver," the "Marquis of Queensberry type," "Initiative
and Incentive Management," as well as "Traditional" management.
DEFINITION OF THE FIRST TYPE.--In the first type, the power of
managing lies, theoretically at least, in the hands of one man, a
capable "all-around" manager. The line of authority and of
responsibility is clear, fixed and single. Each man comes in direct
contact with but one man above him. A man may or may not manage more
than one man beneath him, but, however this may be, he is managed by
but one man above him.
PREFERABLE NAME FOR THE FIRST TYPE.--The names "Traditional," or
"Initiative and Incentive," are the preferable titles for this form
of management. It is true they lack in specificness, but the other
names, while aiming to be descriptive, really emphasize one feature
only, and in some cases with unfortunate results.
THE NAME "MILITARY" INADVISABLE.--The direct line of authority
suggested the name "Military,"[9] and at the time of the adoption of
that name it was probably appropriate as well as complimentary.[10]
Appropriate in the respect referred to only, for the old type of
management varied so widely in its manifestations that the
comparison to the procedure of the Army was most inaccurate.
"Military" has always been a synonym for "systematized", "orderly,"
"definite," while the old type of management was more often quite
the opposite of the meaning of all these terms. The term "Military
Management" though often used in an uncomplimentary sense would,
today, if understood, be more complimentary than ever it was in the
past. The introduction of various features of Scientific Management
into the Army and Navy,--and such features are being incorporated
steadily and constantly,--is raising the standard of management
there to a high degree. This but renders the name "Military"
Management for the old type more inaccurate and misleading.
It is plain that the stirring associations of the word
"military" make its use for the old type, by advocates of the old
type, a weapon against Scientific Management that only the careful
thinker can turn aside.
THE NAMES "DRIVER" AND "MARQUIS OF QUEENSBERRY"
UNFORTUNATE.--The name "Driver" suggests an opposition between the
managers and the men, an opposition which the term "Marquis of
Queensberry" emphasizes. This term "Marquis of Queensberry" has been
given to that management which is thought of as a mental and
physical contest, waged "according to the rules of the game." These
two names are most valuable pictorially, or in furnishing oratorical
material. They are constant reminders of the constant desire of the
managers to get all the work that is possible out of the men, but
they are scarcely descriptive in any satisfactory sense, and the
visions they summon, while they are perhaps definite, are certainly,
for the inexperienced in management, inaccurate. In other words,
they usually lead to imagination rather than to perception.
THE NAME "INITIATIVE AND INCENTIVE" AUTHORITATIVE.--The term
"Initiative and Incentive" is used by Dr. Taylor, and is fully
described by him.[11] The words themselves suggest, truly, that he
gives the old form of management its due. He does more than this. He
points out in his definition of the terms the likenesses between the
old and new forms.
THE NAME "TRADITIONAL" BRIEF AND DESCRIPTIVE.--The only excuses
for the term "Traditional," since Dr. Taylor's term is available,
are its brevity and its descriptiveness. The fact that it is
indefinite is really no fault in it, as the subject it describes is
equally indefinite. The "fringe"[12] of this word is especially
good. It calls up ideas of information handed down from generation
to generation orally, the only way of teaching under the old type of
management. It recalls the idea of the inaccurate perpetuation of
unthinking custom, and the "myth" element always present in
tradition,--again undeniable accusations against the old type of
management. The fundamental idea of the tradition, that it is
_oral_, is the essence of the difference of the old type of
management from science, or even system, which must be written.
It is not necessary to make more definite here the content of
this oldest type of management, rather being satisfied with the
extent, and accepting for working use the name "Traditional" with
the generally accepted definition of that name.
DEFINITION OF THE SECOND TYPE OF MANAGEMENT.--The second type of
management is called "Interim" or "Transitory" management. It
includes all management that is consciously passing into Scientific
Management and embraces all stages, from management that has
incorporated one scientifically derived principle, to management
that has adopted all but one such principle.
PREFERABLE NAME FOR SECOND TYPE OF MANAGEMENT.--Perhaps the name
"Transitory" is slightly preferable in that, though the element of
temporariness is present in both words, it is more strongly
emphasized in the latter. The usual habit of associating with it the
ideas of "fleeting, evanescent, ephemeral, momentary, short-lived,"
may have an influence on hastening the completion of the installing
of Scientific Management.
DEFINITION OF THE THIRD TYPE OF MANAGEMENT.--The third form of
management is called "Ultimate," "measured Functional," or
"Scientific," management, and might also be called,--but for the
objection of Dr. Taylor, the "Taylor Plan of Management." This
differs from the first two types mentioned in that it is a definite
plan of management synthesized from scientific analysis of the data
of management. In other words, Scientific Management is that
management which is a science, i.e., which operates according to
known, formulated, and applied laws.[13]
PREFERABLE NAME OF THE THIRD TYPE OF MANAGEMENT.--The name
"Ultimate" has, especially to the person operating under the
transitory stage, all the charm and inspiration of a goal. It has
all the incentives to accomplishment of a clearly circumscribed
task. Its very definiteness makes it seem possible of attainment. It
is a great satisfaction to one who, during a lifetime of managing
effort, has tried one offered improvement after another to be
convinced that he has found the right road at last. The name is,
perhaps, of greatest value in attracting the attention of the
uninformed and, as the possibilities of the subject can fulfill the
most exacting demands, the attention once secured can be held.
The name "measured functional" is the most descriptive, but
demands the most explanation. The principle of functionalization is
one of the underlying, fundamental principles of Scientific
Management. It is not as necessary to stop to define it here, as it
is necessary to discuss the definition, the principle, and the
underlying psychology, at length later.
The name "scientific" while in some respects not as appropriate
as are any of the other names, has already received the stamp of
popular approval. In derivation it is beyond criticism. It also
describes exactly, as has been said, the difference between the
older forms of management and the new. Even its "fringe" of
association is, or at least was when first used, all that could be
desired; but the name is, unfortunately, occasionally used
indiscriminately for any sort of system and for schemes of operation
that are not based on time study. It has gradually become identified
more or less closely with
1. the Taylor Plan of Management
2. what we have defined as the "Transitory" plan of
management
3. management which not only is not striving to be
scientific, but which confounds "science" with "system."
Both its advocates and opponents have been guilty of
misuse of the word. Still, in spite of this, the very fact
that the word has had a wide use, that it has become
habitual to think of the new type of management as
"Scientific," makes its choice advisable. We shall use it,
but restrict its content. With us "Scientific Management"
is used to mean the complete Taylor plan of management,
with no modifications and no deviations.
We may summarize by saying that:
1. the popular name is Scientific Management,
2. the inspiring name is Ultimate management,
3. the descriptive name is measured Functional management,
4. the distinctive name is the Taylor Plan of Management.
For the purpose of this book, Scientific Management is, then,
the most appropriate name. Through its use, the reader is enabled to
utilize all his associations, and through his study he is able to
restrict and order the content of the term.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE THREE TYPES OF MANAGEMENT.--From the
foregoing definitions and descriptions it will be clear that the
three types of management are closely related. Three of the names
given bring out this relationship most clearly. These are
Traditional (i.e., Primitive), Interim, and Ultimate. These show,
also, that the relationship is genetic, i.e., that the second form
grows out of the first, but passes through to the third. The growth
is evolutional.
Under the first type, or in the first stage of management, the
laws or principles underlying right management are usually unknown,
hence disregarded.
In the second stage, the laws are known and installed as fast as
functional foremen can be taught their new duties and the
resistances of human nature can be overcome.[14]
In the third stage the managing is operated in accordance with
the recognized laws of management.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS RELATIONSHIP.--The importance
of the knowledge and of the desire for it can scarcely be
overestimated. This again makes plain the value of the psychological
study of management.
POSSIBLE PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES OF MANAGEMENT.--In making this
psychological study of management, it would be possible to take up
the three types as defined above, separately and in order, and to
discuss the place of the mind in each, at length; but such a
method would not only result in needless repetition, but also in
most difficult comparisons when final results were to be deduced
and formulated.
It would, again, be possible to take up the various elements or
divisions of psychological study as determined by a consensus of
psychologists, and to illustrate each in turn from the three types
of management; but the results from any such method would be apt
to seem unrelated and impractical, i.e., it would be a lengthy
process to get results that would be of immediate, practical use
in managing.
PLAN OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY USED HERE.--It has, therefore,
seemed best to base the discussion that is to follow upon arbitrary
divisions of scientific management, that is--
1. To enumerate the underlying principles on which scientific
management rests.
2. To show in how far the other two types of management vary
from Scientific Management.
3. To discuss the psychological aspect of each principle.
ADVANTAGES OF THIS PLAN OF STUDY.--In this way the reader can
gain an idea of
1. The relation of Scientific Management to the other types
of management.
2. The structure of Scientific Management.
3. The relation between the various elements of Scientific
Management.
4. The psychology of management in general, and of the three
types of management in particular.
UNDERLYING IDEAS AND DIVISIONS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--These
underlying ideas are grouped under nine divisions, as follows:--
1. Individuality.
2. Functionalization.
3. Measurement.
4. Analysis and Synthesis.
5. Standardization.
6. Records and Programmes.
7. Teaching.
8. Incentives.
9. Welfare.
It is here only necessary to enumerate these divisions. Each
will be made the subject of a chapter.
DERIVATION OF THESE DIVISIONS.--These divisions lay no claim to
being anything but underlying ideas of Scientific Management, that
embrace varying numbers of established elements that can easily be
subjected to the scrutiny of psychological investigation.
The discussion will be as little technical as is possible, will
take nothing for granted and will cite references at every step.
This is a new field of investigation, and the utmost care is
necessary to avoid generalizing from insufficient data.
DERIVATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--There has been much
speculation as to the age and origin of Scientific Management. The
results of this are interesting, but are not of enough practical
value to be repeated here. Many ideas of Scientific Management can
be traced back, more or less clearly and directly, to thinkers of
the past; but the Science of Management, as such, was discovered,
and the deduction of its laws, or "principles," made possible when
Dr. Frederick W. Taylor discovered and applied Time Study. Having
discovered this, he constructed from it and the other fundamental
principles a complete whole.
Mr. George Iles in that most interesting and instructive of
books, "Inventors at Work,"[15] has pointed out the importance, to
development in any line of progress or science, of measuring devices
and methods. Contemporaneous with, or previous to, the discovery of
the device or method, must come the discovery or determination of
the most profitable unit of measurement which will, of itself, best
show the variations in efficiency from class. When Dr. Taylor
discovered units of measurement for determining, _prior to
performance_, the amount of any kind of work that a worker could do
and the amount of rest he must have during the performance of that
work, then, and not until then, did management become a science. On
this hangs the science of management.[16]
OUTLINE OF METHOD OF INVESTIGATION.--In the discussion of each
of the nine divisions of Scientific Management, the following topics
must be treated:
1. Definition of the division and its underlying idea.
2. Appearance and importance of the idea in Traditional and
Transitory Management.
3. Appearance and importance of the idea in Scientific
Management.
4. Elements of Scientific Management which show the effects
of the idea.
5. Results of the idea upon work and workers.
These topics will be discussed in such order as the particular
division investigated demands. The psychological significance of the
appearance or non-appearance of the idea, and of the effect of the
idea, will be noted. The results will be summarized at the close of
each chapter, in order to furnish data for drawing conclusions at
the close of the discussion.
CONCLUSIONS TO BE REACHED.--These conclusions will include
the following:--
1. "Scientific Management" is a science.
2. It alone, of the Three Types of Management, is a science.
3. Contrary to a widespread belief that Scientific Management
kills individuality, it is built on the basic principle of
recognition of the individual, not only as an economic
unit but also as a personality, with all the
idiosyncrasies that distinguish a person.
4. Scientific Management fosters individuality by
functionalizing work.
5. Measurement, in Scientific Management, is of ultimate
units of subdivision.
6. These measured ultimate units are combined into methods of
least waste.
7. Standardization under Scientific Management applies to all
elements.
8. The accurate records of Scientific Management make
accurate programmes possible of fulfillment.
9. Through the teaching of Scientific Management the
management is unified and made self-perpetuating.
10. The method of teaching of Scientific Management is a
distinct and valuable contribution to Education.
11. Incentives under Scientific Management not only stimulate
but benefit the worker.
12. It is for the ultimate as well as immediate welfare of
the worker to work under Scientific Management.
13. Scientific Management is applicable to all fields of
activity, and to mental as well as physical work.
14. Scientific Management is applicable to self-management as
well as to managing others.
15. It teaches men to coöperate with the management as well
as to manage.
16. It is a device capable of use by all.
17. The psychological element of Scientific Management is the
most important element.
18. Because Scientific Management is psychologically right it
is the ultimate form of management.
19. This psychological study of Scientific Management
emphasizes especially the teaching features.
20. Scientific Management simultaneously
a. increases output and wages and lowers costs.
b. eliminates waste.
c. turns unskilled labor into skilled.
d. provides a system of self-perpetuating welfare.
e. reduces the cost of living.
f. bridges the gap between the college trained and
the apprenticeship trained worker.
g. forces capital and labor to coöperate and to
promote industrial peace.
CHAPTER I FOOTNOTES: ===============================================
1. Charles Babbage, _Economy of Manufacturers._ Preface, p. v.
2. Halbert P. Gillette, Paper No. 1, American Society of
Engineering Contractors.
3. Gillette and Dana, _Cost Keeping and Management_, p. 5.
4. F.B. Gilbreth, _Motion Study_, p. 98.
5. F.W. Taylor, _Principles of Scientific Management_, p. 144.
6. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 16, Am. Soc. M.E., Paper
No. 1003.
7. William James, _Psychology_, Vol. I, p. 258.
8. F.B. Gilbreth, _Cost Reducing System_, Chap. 1.
9. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, _Bulletin No. 5 of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching_, p. 17.
10. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 234, Am. Soc. M.E., Paper
No. 1003.
11. F.W. Taylor, _Principles of Scientific Management_, pp. 33-38.
12. The idea called to mind by the use of a given word.--_Ed._
13. Henry R. Towne, Introduction to _Shop Management_. (Harper &
Bros.)
14. F.W. Taylor, _Principles of Scientific Management_, p. 123.
(Harper & Bros.)
15. Doubleday, Page & Co.
16. F.W. Taylor, _Principles of Scientific Management_, p. 137.
(Harper & Bros.)
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CHAPTER II
INDIVIDUALITY
DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUALITY.--"An individual is a single thing,
a being that is, or is regarded as, a unit. An individual is opposed
to a crowd. Individual action is opposed to associate action.
Individual interests are opposed to common or community interests."
These definitions give us some idea of the extent of individuality.
Individuality is a particular or distinctive characteristic of an
individual; "that quality or aggregate of qualities which
distinguishes one person or thing from another, idiosyncrasy." This
indicates the content.
For our purpose, we may define the study of individuality
as a consideration of the individual as a unit with special
characteristics. That it is a _unit_ signifies that it is one of
many and that it has likeness to the many. That it has _special
characteristics_ shows that it is one of many, but different from
the many. This consideration of individuality emphasizes both the
common element and the diverging characteristics.
INDIVIDUALITY AS TREATED IN THIS CHAPTER.--The recognition of
individuality is the subject of this chapter. The utilization of
this individuality in its deviation from class, is the subject of
the chapter that follows, Functionalization.
INDIVIDUALITY AS CONSIDERED BY PSYCHOLOGY.--Psychology has not
always emphasized the importance of the individual as a unit for
study. Prof. Ladd's definition of psychology, quoted and endorsed by
Prof. James, is "the description and explanation of states of
consciousness, as such."[1] "By states of consciousness," says
James, "are meant such things as sensation, desires, emotions,
cognitions, reasonings, decisions, volitions, and the like." This
puts the emphasis on such divisions of consciousness as,
"attention," "interest," and "will."
With the day of experimental psychology has come the importance
of the individual self as a subject of study,[2] and psychology has
come to be defined, as Calkins defines it, as a "science of the self
as conscious."[3]
We hear much in the talk of today of the "psychology of the
crowd," the "psychology of the mob," and the "psychology of the
type," etc., but the mind that is being measured, and from whose
measurements the laws are being deduced and formulated is, at the
present the _individual_ mind.[4]
The psychology which interested itself particularly in studying
such divisions of mental activity as attention, will, habit, etc.,
emphasizes more particularly the likenesses of minds. It is
necessary to understand thoroughly all of these likenesses before
one can be sure what the differences, or idiosyncrasies, are, and
how important they are, because, while the likenesses furnish the
background, it is the differences that are most often actually
utilized by management. These must be determined in order to compute
and set the proper individual task for the given man from standard
data of the standard, or first-class man.
In any study of the individual, the following facts must
be noted:--
1. The importance of the study of the individual, and the
comparatively small amount of work that has as yet been
done in that field.
2. The difficulty of the study, and the necessity for great
care, not only in the study itself, but in deducing laws
from it.
3. The necessity of considering any one individual trait as
modified by all the other traits of the individual.
4. The importance of the individual as distinct from the
type.
Many students are so interested in studying types and deducing
laws which apply to types in general, that they lose sight of the
fact that the individual is the basis of the study,--that
individuality is that for which they must seek and for which they
must constantly account. As Sully says, we must not emphasize
"_typical developments_ in a new individual," at the expense of
"typical development _in a new individual_."[5] It is the fact that
the development occurs in an individual, and not that the
development is typical, that we should emphasize.
INDIVIDUALITY SELDOM RECOGNIZED UNDER TRADITIONAL
MANAGEMENT.--Under Traditional Management there was little or no
systematized method for the recognition of individuality or
individual fitness.[6] The worker usually was, in the mind of the
manager, one of a crowd, his only distinguishing mark being the
amount of work which he was capable of performing.
SELECTING WORKERS UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--In selecting
men to do work, there was little or no attempt to study the
individuals who applied for work. The matter of selection was more
of a process of "guess work" than of exact measurement, and the
highest form of test was considered to be that of having the man
actually tried out by being given a chance at the work itself. There
was not only a great waste of time on the work, because men unfitted
to it could not turn it out so successfully, but there also was a
waste of the worker, and many times a positive injury to the worker,
by his being put at work which he was unfitted either to perform, to
work at continuously, or both.
In the most progressive type of Traditional Management there was
usually a feeling, however, that if the labor market offered even
temporarily a greater supply than the work in hand demanded, it was
wise to choose those men to do the work who were best fitted for it,
or who were willing to work for less wages. It is surprising to find
in the traditional type, even up to the present day, how often men
were selected for their strength and physique, rather than for any
special capabilities fitting them for working in, or at, the
particular line of work to be done.
OUTPUT SELDOM SEPARATED UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Under
Traditional Management especially on day work the output of the men
was not usually separated, nor was the output recorded separately,
as can be done even with the work of gangs.
FEW INDIVIDUAL TASKS UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Seldom, if
ever, was an individual task set for a worker on day work, or piece
work, and even if one were set, it was not scientifically
determined. The men were simply set to work alone or in gangs, _as
the work demanded_, and if the foreman was overworked or lazy,
allowed to take practically their own time to do the work. If, on
the other hand, the foreman was a "good driver," the men might be
pushed to their utmost limit of their individual undirected speed,
regardless of their welfare.
LITTLE INDIVIDUAL TEACHING UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Not
having a clear idea either of the present fitness and the future
possibilities of the worker, or the requirements of the work, no
intelligent attempt could be made at efficient individual teaching.
What teaching was done was in the form of directions for all,
concerning the work in general, the directions being given by an
overworked foreman, the holding of whose position often depended
more upon whether his employer made money than upon the way his men
were taught, or worked.
SELDOM AN INDIVIDUAL REWARD UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--As a
typical example of disregard of individuality, the worker in the
household may be cited, and especially the "general housework girl."
Selected with no knowledge of her capabilities, and with little or
no scientific or even systematized knowledge of the work that she is
expected to do, there is little or no thought of a prescribed and
definite task, no teaching specially adapted to the individual needs
of the taught, and no reward in proportion to efficiency.
CAUSE OF THESE LACKS UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--The fault
lies not in any desire of the managers to do poor or wasteful work,
or to treat their workers unfairly,--but in a lack of knowledge and
of accurate methods for obtaining, conserving and transmitting
knowledge. Under Traditional Management no one individual knows
precisely what is to be done. Such management seldom knows how work
could best be done;--never knows how much work each individual can
do.[7] Understanding neither work nor workers, it can not adjust the
one to the other so as to obtain least waste. Having no conception
of the importance of accurate measurement, it has no thought of the
individual as a unit.
INDIVIDUALITY RECOGNIZED UNDER TRANSITORY MANAGEMENT.--
Recognition of individuality is one of the principles first apparent
under Transitory Management.
This is apt to demonstrate itself first of all in causing the
outputs of the workers to "show up" separately, rewarding these
separated outputs, and rewarding each worker for his individual
output.
BENEFITS OF THIS RECOGNITION.--The benefits of introducing these
features first are that the worker, (1) seeing his individual
output, is stimulated to measure it, and (2) receiving compensation
in accordance with his output, is satisfied; and (3) observing that
records are necessary to determine the amount of output and pay, is
glad to have accurate measurement and the other features of
Scientific Management introduced.
INDIVIDUALITY A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF SCIENTIFIC
MANAGEMENT.--Under Scientific Management the individual is the unit
to be measured. Functionalization is based upon utilizing the
particular powers and special abilities of each man. Measurement is
of the individual man and his work. Analysis and synthesis build up
methods by which the individual can best do his work. Standards are
of the work of an individual, a standard man, and the task is always
for an individual, being that percentage of the standard man's task
that the particular individual can do. Records are of individuals,
and are made in order to show and reward individual effort. Specific
individuals are taught those things that they, individually,
require. Incentives are individual both in the cases of rewards and
punishments, and, finally, it is the welfare of the individual
worker that is considered, without the sacrifice of any for the good
of the whole.
INDIVIDUALITY CONSIDERED IN SELECTING WORKERS.--Under Scientific
Management individuality is considered in selecting workers as it
could not be under either of the other two forms of management. This
for several reasons:
1. The work is more specialized, hence requires more
carefully selected men.
2. With standardized methods comes a knowledge to the
managers of the qualifications of the "standard men" who
can best do the work and continuously thrive.
3. Motion study, in its investigation of the worker, supplies
a list of variations in workers that can be utilized in
selecting men.[8]
VARIABLES OF THE WORKER.--This list now includes at least 50 or
60 variables, and shows the possible elements which may demand
consideration. When it is remembered that the individual selected
may need a large or small proportion of most of the variables in
order to do his particular work most successfully, and that every
single one of these variables, as related to the others, may, in
some way affect his output and his welfare in doing his assigned
work, the importance of taking account of individuality in selection
is apparent.
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT NEEDS SUPPORT IN STUDYING WORKERS.--The
best of management is by no means at its ultimate stage in practice
in this field. This, not because of a lack in the laws of
management, but because, so far, Scientific Management has not
received proper support from other lines of activity.
PRESENT LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF APPLICANTS.--At present, the men
who apply to the Industries for positions have no scientifically
determined idea of their own capabilities, neither has there been
any effort in the training or experience of most of those who apply
for work for the first time to show them how fit they really are to
do the work which they wish to do.
SUPPLEMENTS DEMANDED BY SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Before the
worker can be scientifically selected so that his individuality can
be appreciated, Scientific Management must be supplemented in
two ways:--
1. By psychological and physiological study of workers under
it. By such study of the effect of various kinds of
standardized work upon the mind and body, standard
requirements for men who desire to do the work can be
made.
2. By scientific study of the worker made before he comes
into the Industries, the results of which shall show his
capabilities and possibilities.[9]
WHENCE THIS HELP MUST COME.--This study must be made
a. In the Vocational Guidance Work.
b. In the Academic Work,
and in both fields psychological and physiological
investigations are called for.
WORK OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE BUREAUS.--Vocational Guidance
Bureaus are, at present, doing a wonderful work in their line. This
work divides itself into two parts:
1. Determining the capabilities of the boy, that is, seeing
what he is, by nature and training, best fitted to do.
2. Determining the possibilities of his securing work in the
line where he is best fitted to work, that is, studying
the industrial opportunities that offer, and the "welfare"
of the worker under each, using the word welfare in the
broadest sense, of general wellbeing, mental, physical,
moral and financial.
WORK OF ACADEMIC WORLD.--The Academic World is also, wherever it
is progressive, attempting to study the student, and to develop him
so that he can be the most efficient individual. Progressive
educators realize that schools and colleges must stand or fall, as
efficient, as the men they train become successful or unsuccessful
in their vocations, as well as in their personal culture.
NEED FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY IN ALL FIELDS.--In both these
complementary lines of activity, as in Scientific Management itself,
the need for psychological study is evident.[10] Through it, only,
can scientific progress come. Here is emphasized again the
importance of measurement. Through accurate measurement of the mind
and the body only can individuality be recognized, conserved and
developed as it should be.
PREPAREDNESS OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY.--Experimental
psychology has instruments of precision with which to measure and
test the minds and bodies brought to it, and its leading exponents
are so broadening the scope of its activities that it is ready and
glad to plan for investigations.
METHOD OF SELECTION UNDER ULTIMATE MANAGEMENT.--Under Ultimate
Management, the minds of the workers,--and of the managers
too,--will have been studied, and the results recorded from earliest
childhood. This record, made by trained investigators, will enable
vocational guidance directors to tell the child what he is fitted to
be, and thus to help the schools and colleges to know how best to
train him, that is to say, to provide what he will need to know to
do his life work, and also those cultural studies that his
vocational work may lack, and that may be required to build out his
best development as an individual.
It is not always recognized that even the student who can afford
to postpone his technical training until he has completed a general
culture course, requires that his culture course be carefully
planned. Not only must he choose those general courses that will
serve as a foundation for his special study, and that will broaden
and enrich his study, but also he must be provided with a
counter-balance,--with interests that his special work might never
arouse in him. Thus the field of Scientific Management can be
narrowed to determining and preparing standard plans for standard
specialized men, and selecting men to fill these places from
competent applicants.
What part of the specialized training needed by the special work
shall be given in schools and what in the industries themselves can
be determined later. The "twin apprentice" plan offers one solution
of the problem that has proved satisfactory in many places. The
psychological study should determine through which agency knowledge
can best come at any particular stage of mental growth.
EFFECT ON WORKERS OF SUCH SELECTION.--As will be shown at
greater length under "Incentives," Scientific Management aims in
every way to encourage initiative. The outline here given as to how
men must, ultimately, under Scientific Management, be selected
serves to show that, far from being "made machines of," men are
selected to reach that special place where their individuality can
be recognized and rewarded to the greatest extent.
SELECTION UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO-DAY.--At the present
day, the most that Scientific Management can do, in the average
case, is to determine the type of men needed for any particular kind
of work, and then to select that man who seems, from such
observations as can be made, best to conform to the type. The
accurate knowledge of the requirements of the work, and the
knowledge of variables of the worker make even a cursory observation
more rich in results than it would otherwise be. Even such an
apparently obvious observation, as that the very fact that a man
claims that he can do the work implies desire and will on his part
to do it that may overcome many natural lacks,--even this is an
advance in recognizing individuality.
EFFECT OF THIS SELECTION.--The result of this scientific
selection of the workman is not only better work, but also, and more
important from the psychological side, the development of his
individuality. It is not always recognized that the work itself is a
great educator, and that acute cleverness in the line of work to
which he is fitted comes to the worker.
INDIVIDUALITY DEVELOPED BY SEPARATING OUTPUTS.--Under Scientific
Management the work of each man is arranged either so that his
output shows up separately and on the individual records, or, if the
Work is such that it seems best to do it in gangs, the output can
often be so recorded that the individual's output can be computed
from the records.
PURPOSE OF SEPARATING OUTPUTS.--The primary purpose of
separating the output is to see what the man can do, to record this,
and to reward the man according to his work, but this separating of
output has also an individual result, which is even more important
than the result aimed at, and that is the development of
individuality.
Under Traditional Management and the usual "day work," much of
the work is done by gangs and is observed or recorded as of gangs.
Only now and then, when the work of some particular individual shows
up decidedly better or worse than that of his fellows, and when the
foreman or superintendent, or other onlooker, happens to observe
this is the individual appreciated, and then only in the most
inexact, unsystematic manner.
Under Scientific Management, making individual output show up
separately allows of individual recording, tasks, teaching and
rewards.
EFFECT ON ATHLETIC CONTESTS.--Also, with this separation of the
work of the individual under Scientific Management comes the
possibility of a real, scientific, "athletic contest." This athletic
contest, which proves itself so successful in Traditional
Management, even when the men are grouped as gangs and their work is
not recorded or thought of separately, proves itself quite as
efficient or more efficient under Scientific Management, when the
work of the man shows up separately. It might be objected that the
old gang spirit, or it might be called "team" spirit, would
disappear with the separation of the work. This is not so, as will
be noted by a comparison to a baseball team, where each man has his
separate place and his separate work and where his work shows up
separately with separate records, such as "batting average" and
"fielding average." Team spirit is the result of being grouped
together against a common opponent, and it will be the same in any
sort of work when the men are so grouped, or given to understand
that they belong on the same side.
The following twelve rules for an Athletic Contest under
Transitory System are quoted as exemplifying the benefits which
accrue to Individuality.
1. Men must have square deal.
2. Conditions must be similar.
3. Men must be properly spaced and placed.
4. Output must show up separately.
5. Men must be properly started.
6. Causes for delay must be eliminated.
7. Pace maker must be provided.
8. Time for rest must be provided.
9. Individual scores must be kept and posted.
10. "Audience" must be provided.
11. Rewards must be prompt and provided for all
good scores--not for winners only.
12. Appreciation must be shown.[11]
This list shows the effects of many fundamental principles of
Scientific Management,--but we note particularly here that over half
the rules demand that outputs be separated as a prerequisite.
None of the benefits of the Athletic Contest are lost under
Scientific Management. The only restrictions placed are that the men
shall not be grouped according to any distinction that would cause
hatred or ill feeling, that the results shall be ultimately
beneficial to the workers themselves, and that all high scores shall
win high prizes.
As will be brought out later under "Incentives," no competition
is approved under Scientific Management which speeds up the men
uselessly, or which brings any ill feeling between the men or any
feeling that the weaker ones have not a fair chance. All of these
things are contrary to Scientific Management, as well as contrary to
common sense, for it goes without saying that no man is capable of
doing his best work permanently if he is worried by the idea that he
will not receive the square deal, that someone stronger than he will
be allowed to cheat or to domineer over him, or that he will be
speeded up to such an extent that while his work will increase for
one day, the next day his work will fall down because of the effect
of the fatigue of the day before.
The field of the contests is widened, as separating of the work
of the individual not only allows for competition between
individuals, but for the competition of the individual with his own
records. This competition is not only a great, constant and helpful
incentive to every worker, but it is also an excellent means of
developing individuality.
ADVANTAGES TO MANAGERS OF SEPARATING OUTPUT.--The advantages to
the managers of separating the work are that there is a chance to
know exactly who is making the high output, and that the spirit of
competition which prevails when men compare their outputs to their
own former records or others, leads to increased effort.
ADVANTAGES TO WORKERS OF SEPARATING OUTPUT.--As for advantages
to the men:
By separation of the individual work, not only is the man's work
itself shown, but at the same time the work of all other people is
separated, cut away and put aside, and he can locate the man who is
delaying him by, for example, not keeping him supplied with
materials. The man has not only an opportunity to concentrate, but
every possible incentive to exercise his will and his desire to do
things. His attention is concentrated on the fact that he as an
individual is expected to do his very best. He has the moral
stimulus of responsibility. He has the emotional stimulus of
competition. He has the mental stimulus of definiteness. He has,
most valuable of all, a chance to be an entity rather than one of an
undiscriminated gang. This chance to be an individual, or
personality, is in great contradistinction to the popular opinion of
Scientific Management, which thinks it turns men into machines. A
very simple example of the effect of the worker's seeing his output
show up separately in response to and in proportion to his effort
and skill is that of boys in the lumber producing districts chopping
edgings for fire wood. Here the chopping is so comparatively light
that the output increased very rapidly, and the boy delights to "see
his pile of fire wood grow."
With the separation of the work comes not only the opportunity
for the men to see their own work, but also to see that of others,
and there comes with this the spirit of imitation, or the spirit of
friendly opposition, either of which, while valuable in itself is
even more valuable as the by-product of being a life-giving thought,
and of putting life into the work such as there never could be when
the men were working together, more or less objectless, because they
could not see plainly either what they were doing themselves, or
what others were doing.
Separation of the output of the men gives them the greatest
opportunity to develop. It gives them a chance to concentrate their
attention at the work on which they are, because it is not necessary
for them to waste any time to find out what that work is. Their work
stands out by itself; they can put their whole minds to that work;
they can become interested in that work and its outcome, and they
can be positive that what they have done will be appreciated and
recognized, and that it will have a good effect, with no possibility
of evil effect, upon their chance for work and their chance for pay
and promotion in the future. Definiteness of the boundaries, then,
is not only good management in that it shows up the work and that it
allows each man to see, and each man over him, or observing him to
see exactly what has been done,--it has also an excellent effect
upon the worker's mind.
INDIVIDUALITY DEVELOPED BY RECORDING OUTPUT SEPARATELY.--The
spirit of individuality is brought out still more clearly by the
fact that under Scientific Management, output is recorded
separately. This recording of the outputs separately is, usually,
and very successfully, one of the first features installed in
Transitory Management, and a feature very seldom introduced, even
unconscious of its worth, in day work under Traditional Management.
It is one of the great disadvantages of many kinds of work,
especially in this day, that the worker does only a small part of
the finished article and that he has a feeling that what he does is
not identified permanently with the success of the completed whole.
We may note that one of the great unsatisfying features to such arts
as acting and music, is that no matter how wonderful the performer's
efforts, there was no permanent record of them; that the work of the
day dies with the day. He can expect to live only in the minds and
hearts of the hearers, in the accounts of spectators, or in
histories of the stage.
It is, therefore, not strange that the world's best actors and
singers are now grasping the opportunity to make their best efforts
permanent through the instrumentality of the motion picture films
and the talking machine records. This same feeling, minus the glow
of enthusiasm that at least attends the actor during the work, is
present in more or less degree in the mind of the worker.
RECORDS MAKE WORK SEEM WORTH WHILE.--With the feeling that his
work is recorded comes the feeling that the work is really worth
while, for even if the work itself does not last, the records of it
are such as can go on.
RECORDS GIVE INDIVIDUALS A FEELING OF PERMANENCE.--With recorded
individual output comes also the feeling of permanence, of credit
for good performance. This desire for permanence shows itself all
through the work of men in Traditional Management, for example--in
the stone cutter's art where the man who had successfully dressed
the stone from the rough block was delighted to put his own
individual mark on it, even though he knew that that mark probably
would seldom, if ever, be noticed again by anyone after the stone
was set in the wall. It is an underlying trait of the human mind
to desire this permanence of record of successful effort, and
fulfilling and utilizing this desire is a great gain of Scientific
Management.
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF WORKER THROUGH RECORDS.--It is not only
for his satisfaction that the worker should see his records and
realize that his work has permanence, but also for comparison of his
work not only with his own record, but with the work of others. The
value of these comparisons, not only to the management but to the
worker himself, must not be underestimated. The worker gains mental
development and physical skill by studying these comparisons.
ADVANTAGES TO WORKER OF MAKING HIS OWN RECORDS.--These
possibilities of mental development are still further increased when
the man makes his own records. This leads to closer attention, to
more interest in the work, and to a realization of the man as to
what the record really means, and what value it represents. Though
even a record that is made for him and is posted where he can see it
will probably result in a difference in his pay envelope, no such
progress is likely to occur as when the man makes his own record,
and must be conscious every moment of the time exactly where he
stands.
POSSIBILITIES OF MAKING INDIVIDUAL RECORDS.--Records of
individual efficiency are comparatively easy to make when output is
separated. But even when work must be done by gangs or teams of men,
there is provision made in Scientific Management for recording this
gang work in such a way that either the output or the efficiency, or
both, of each man shows up separately. This may be done in several
ways, such as, for example, by recording the total time of delays
avoidable and unavoidable, caused by each man, and from this
computing individual records. This method of recording is
psychologically right, because the recording of the delay will serve
as a warning to the man, and as a spur to him not to cause delay to
others again.
The forcefulness of the "don't" and the "never" have been
investigated by education. Undoubtedly the "do" is far stronger, but
in this particular case the command deduced from the records of
delay to others is, necessarily, in the negative form, and a study
of the psychological results proves most instructive.
BENEFITS TO MANAGERS OF INDIVIDUAL RECORDS.--The value of the
training to the foremen, to the superintendents and to the managers
higher up, who study these records, as well as to the timekeepers,
recorders and clerks in the Time and Cost Department who make the
records, is obvious. There is not only the possibility of
appreciating and rewarding the worker, and thus stimulating him to
further activity, there is also, especially in the Transitory stage,
when men are to be chosen on whom to make Time Study observations,
an excellent chance to compare various methods of doing work and
their results.
INCENTIVES WITH INDIVIDUAL RECORDS.--The greatest value of
recorded outputs is in the appreciation of the work of the
individual that becomes possible. First of all, appreciation by the
management, which to the worker must be the most important of all,
as it means to him a greater chance for promotion and for more pay.
This promotion and additional pay are amply provided for by
Scientific Management, as will be shown later in discussing
Incentives and Welfare.
Not only is the work appreciated by the management and by the
man himself, but also the work becomes possible of appreciation by
others. The form of the record as used in Scientific Management, and
as introduced early in the transitory stage, makes it possible for
many beside those working on the job, if they take the pains to
consult the records, which are best posted in a conspicuous place on
the work, to know and appreciate what the worker is doing. This can
be best illustrated, perhaps, by various methods of recording output
on contracting work,--out-of-door work.
The flag flown by the successful contestants in the athletic
contests, showing which gang or which individual has made the
largest output during the day previous, allows everyone who passes
to appreciate the attainment of that particular worker, or that
group of workers. The photographs of the "high priced men," copies
of which may be given to the workers themselves, allow the worker to
carry home a record and thus impress his family with what he has
done. Too often the family is unable by themselves to understand the
value of the worker's work, or to appreciate the effect of his home
life, food, and rest conditions upon his life work, and this entire
strong element of interest of the worker's family in his work is
often lost.
RELATION OF INDIVIDUAL RECORDS TO SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN
GENERAL.--Any study of Records of an individual's work again makes
clear that no one topic of Scientific Management can be properly
noted without a consideration of all other elements. The fact that
under Scientific Management the record with which the man most
surely and constantly competes is his own, as provided for by the
individual instruction card and the individual task; the fact that
under Scientific Management the man need be in no fear of losing his
job if he does his best; the fact that Scientific Management is
founded on the "square deal";--all of these facts must be kept
constantly in mind when considering the advantages of recording
individual output, for they all have a strong psychological effect
on the man's mind. It is important to remember that not only does
Scientific Management provide for certain directions and thoughts
entering the man's mind, but that it also eliminates other thoughts
which would surely have a tendency to retard his work. The result is
output far exceeding what is usually possible under Traditional
Management, because drawbacks are removed and impetuses added.
The outcome of the records, and their related elements in other
branches of Scientific Management, is to arouse interest. Interest
arouses abnormally concentrated attention, and this in turn is the
cause of genius. This again answers the argument of those who claim
that Scientific Management kills individuality and turns the worker
into a machine.
INDIVIDUAL TASK UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Individuality is
also taken into consideration when preparing the task. This task
would always be for an individual, even in the case of the gang
instruction card. It usually recognizes individuality, in that,--
1. It is prepared for one individual only, when possible.
2. It is prepared for the particular individual who is
to do it.
The working time, as will be shown later, is based upon time
study observations on a standard man, but when a task is assigned
for a certain individual, that proportion of the work of the
standard or first class man is assigned to that particular given man
who is actually to do it, which he is able to do. It is fundamental
that the task must be such that the man who is actually put at it,
when he obeys orders and works steadily, can do it; that is, the
task must be achievable, and achievable without such effort as would
do mental or physical injury to the worker. This not only gives the
individual the proper amount of work to do, recognizes his
particular capabilities and is particularly adapted to him, but it
also eliminates all dread on the score of his not being appreciated,
in that the worker knows that if he achieves or exceeds his task he
will not only receive the wage for it, but will continue to receive
that wage, or more, for like achievement. The rate is not cut. Under
the "three-rate with increased rate system," which experience has
shown to be a most advanced plan for compensating workmen, the
worker receives one bonus for exactness as to methods, that is, he
receives one bonus if he does the task exactly as he is instructed
to do it as to methods; and a second bonus, or extra bonus, if he
completes his task in the allotted time. This not only assures
adequate pay to the man who is slow, but a good imitator, but also
to the man who, perhaps, is not such a good imitator, and must put
attention on the quality rather than the quantity of his performance.
INDIVIDUALITY EMPHASIZED BY INSTRUCTION CARD.--This individual
task is embodied in an individual instruction card.
In all work where it is possible to do so, the worker is given
an individual instruction card, even though his operations and rest
periods are also determined by a gang instruction card. This card
not only tells the man what he is to do, how he can best do it, and
the time that it is supposed to take him to do it,--but it bears
also the signature of the man who made it. This in order that if the
worker cannot fulfill the requirements of the card he may lose no
time in determining who is to give him the necessary instructions or
help that will result in his earning his large wages. More than
this, he must call for help from his assigned teachers, as is stated
in large type on a typical Instruction Card as follows: "When
instructions cannot be carried out, foreman must at once report to
man who signed this card."
The signature of the man who made the card not only develops his
sense of individuality and responsibility, but helps create a
feeling of inter-responsibility between the workers in various parts
of the organization.
THE GANG INSTRUCTION CARD.--A gang instruction card is used for
such work only as must be done by a group of men all engaged at the
work at once, or who are working at a dependent sequence of
operations, or both. This card contains but those portions of the
instructions for each man which refer to those elements which must
be completed before a following element, to be done by the next man
in the sequence, can be completed. Because of the nature of the
work, the gang instruction card must be put in the hands of a
leader, or foreman, whether or not it is also in the hands of each
of the individuals. The amount of work which can be required as a
set task for each individual member of the gang, the allowance for
rest for overcoming fatigue, the time that the rest periods must
occur, and the proper pay, are fully stated on the Individual
Instruction Cards.
METHODS OF TEACHING FOSTER INDIVIDUALITY.--As will be shown at
length in the Chapter on Teaching, under Scientific Management
teaching is not only general, by "Systems," "Standing Orders," or
"Standard Practice," but also specific. Specialized teachers,
called, unfortunately for the emphasis desired to be put on
teaching, "functional foremen," help the individual worker to
overcome his peculiar difficulties.
This teaching not only allows every worker to supplement his
deficiencies of disposition or experience, but the teachers' places
give opportunities for those who have a talent for imparting
knowledge to utilize and develop it.
INDIVIDUAL INCENTIVE AND WELFARE.--Finally, individual incentive
and individual welfare are not only both present, but interdependent.
Desire for individual success, which might lead a worker to respond
to the incentive till he held back perhaps the work of others,
is held in balance by interdependence of bonuses. This will be
explained in full in the Chapters on Incentives and Welfare.
SUMMARY
RESULT OF IDEA OF INDIVIDUALITY UPON WORK.--To recapitulate;--
Under Traditional Management, because of its frequent neglect of the
idea of individuality, work is often unsystematized, and high output
is usually the result of "speeding up" only, with constant danger of
a falling off in quality overbalancing men and injury to men and
machinery.
Under Transitory Management, as outputs are separated,
separately recorded, and as the idea of Individuality is embodied in
selecting men, setting tasks, the instruction cards, periods of
rest, teaching, incentives and welfare, output increases without
undue pressure on the worker.
Under Scientific Management--with various elements which embody
individuality fully developed, output increases, to the welfare
of worker, manager, employer and consumer and with no falling off
in quality.
EFFECT UPON THE WORKER.--The question of the effect upon the
worker of emphasis laid upon individuality, can perhaps best be
answered by asking and answering the following questions:--
1. When, where, how, and how much is individuality
considered?
2. What consideration is given to the relation of the mind to
the body of the individual?
3. What is the relative emphasis on consideration of
individual and class?
4. In how far is the individual the unit?
5. What consideration is given to idiosyncrasies?
6. What is the effect toward causing or bringing about
development, that is, broadening, deepening and making
the individual more progressive?
EXTENT OF CONSIDERATION OF INDIVIDUALITY.--1. Under Traditional
Management consideration of individuality is seldom present, but
those best forms of Traditional Management that are successful are
so because it is present. This is not usually recognized, but
investigation shows that the successful manager, or foreman, or
boss, or superintendent succeeds either because of his own
individuality or because he brings out to good advantage the
individual possibilities of his men. The most successful workers
under Traditional Management are those who are allowed to be
individuals and to follow out their individual bents of greatest
efficiency, instead of being crowded down to become mere members of
gangs, with no chance to think, to do, or to be anything but parts
of the gang.
Under Transitory Management, and most fully under Scientific
Management, the spirit of individuality, far from being crowded out,
is a basic principle, and everything possible is done to encourage
the desire to be a personality.
RELATION OF MIND TO BODY.--Under Traditional Management, where
men worked in the same employ for a long time, much consideration
was given to the relation of the mind to the body. It was realized
that men must not be speeded up beyond what they could do
healthfully; they must have good sleeping quarters and good, savory
and appetizing food to eat and not be fatigued unnecessarily, if
they were to become successful workers. More than this,
philanthropic employers often attempted to supply many kinds of
comfort and amusement.
Under Transitory Management the physical and mental welfare are
provided for more systematically.
Under Scientific Management consideration of the mind and body
of the workman, and his health, and all that that includes, is a
subject for scientific study and for scientific administration. As
shown later, it eliminates all discussion and troubles of so-called
"welfare work," because the interests of the employer and the worker
become identical and everything that is done becomes the concern
of both.
Scientific Management realizes that the condition of the body
effects every possible mental process. It is one of the great
advantages of a study of the psychology of management that the
subject absolutely demands from the start, and insists in every
stage of the work, on this relationship of the body to the mind, and
of the surroundings, equipment, etc., of the worker to his work.
It is almost impossible, in management, to separate the subject
of the worker from that of his work, or to think of the worker as
not working except in such a sense as "ceasing-from-work,"
"about-to-work," "resting to overcome fatigue of work," or "resting
during periods of unavoidable delays." The relation of the worker to
his work is constantly in the mind of the manager. It is for this
reason that not only does management owe much to psychology, but
that psychology, as applied to any line of study, will, ultimately,
be recognized as owing much to the science of management.
RELATIVE EMPHASIS ON INDIVIDUAL AND CLASS.--Under Traditional
Management the gang, or the class, usually receives the chief
emphasis. If the individual developed, as he undoubtedly did, in
many kinds of mechanical work, especially in small organizations, it
was more or less because it was not possible for the managers to
organize the various individuals into classes or gangs. In the
transitory stage the emphasis is shifting. Under Scientific
Management the emphasis is most decidedly and emphatically upon the
individual as the unit to be managed, as has been shown.
INDIVIDUAL AS THE UNIT.--Under Traditional Management the
individual was seldom the unit. Under Transitory Management the
individual is the unit, but there is not much emphasis in the early
stages placed upon his peculiarities and personalities. Under
Scientific Management the unit is always the individual, and the
utilizing and strengthening of his personal traits, special ability
and skill is a dominating feature.
EMPHASIS ON IDIOSYNCRASIES.--Under Traditional Management there
is either no consideration given to idiosyncrasies, or too wide a
latitude is allowed. In cases where no consideration is given, there
is often either a pride in the managers in "treating all men alike,"
though they might respond better to different handling, or else the
individual is undirected and his personality manifests itself in all
sorts of unguided directions, many of which must necessarily be
wasteful, unproductive, or incomplete in development. Under
Scientific Management, functionalization, as will be shown, provides
for the utilization of all idiosyncrasies and efficient deviations
from class, and promotion is so planned that a man may develop along
the line of his chief ability. Thus initiative is encouraged and
developed constantly.
DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALITY.--The development of individuality
is more sure under Scientific Management than it is under either of
the other two forms of management, (a) because this development is
recognized to be a benefit to the worker and to the employer and (b)
because this development as a part of a definite plan is provided
for and perfected scientifically.
CHAPTER II FOOTNOTES: ==============================================
1. William James, _Psychology, Briefer Course_, p. 1.
2. Hugo Münsterberg, _American Problems_, p. 34.
3. Mary Whiton Calkins, _A First Book in Psychology_, p. 1.
4. James Sully, _Teacher's Handbook of Psychology_, p. 14.
5. James Sully, _Teacher's Handbook of Psychology_, p. 577.
6. H.L. Gantt, _Work, Wages and Profits_, p. 52.
7. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, p. 25. (Harper & Bros.)
8. F.B. Gilbreth, _Motion Study_, p. 7.
9. L.B. Blan, _A Special Study of the Incidence of Retardation_,
p. 89.
10. Hugo Münsterberg, _American Problems_, pp. 38-39.
11. F.B. Gilbreth, _Cost Reducing System_, Chap. III.
====================================================================
CHAPTER III
FUNCTIONALIZATION
DEFINITION OF FUNCTIONALIZATION.--A function, says the Century
Dictionary, is--"The fulfilment or discharge of a set duty or
requirement, exercise of a faculty or office, or power of acting,
faculty,--that power of acting in a specific way which appertains to
a thing by virtue of its special constitution; that mode of action
or operation which is proper to any organ, faculty, office
structure, etc. (This is the most usual signification of the term)."
"Functionalization" is not given in the Century Dictionary. The
nearest to it to be found there is "Functionality," which is defined
as--"The state of having or being a function." Functionalization as
here used means--the state of being divided into functions, or being
functionalized. "Functionalize" is given in the Century Dictionary,
defined as "to assign some office or function to"--the note being
made that it is rare. "Functionalize" may not be the best word that
could be used in this connection, but there seems to be no other
word in the English language which contains its full meaning,
therefore we will use the word here in the sense of assigning work
according to capacity or faculty. A faculty means--"A specific
power, mental or physical; a special capacity for any particular
kind of action or affection; natural capability."
PSYCHOLOGICAL USE OF FUNCTIONALIZATION.--The word "Function" is
in constant use by modern psychologists, especially by those who
believe that--"Psychology is the science of the self in relation to
environment,"[1] or that "Psychology is a scientific account of our
mental processes."[2] Sully defines a function as "a psychologically
simple process,"[3] and compares its elementariness to a muscular
contraction as an element of a step in walking.
In investigating the principle of Functionalization as embodied
in various forms of Management, we must note that, while Management
can, and does under Scientific Management, attempt to functionalize
_work_ as far as possible, it will be impossible to come to ultimate
results until a psychological study of the requirement of the
work _from_ the worker, and results of the work _on_ the worker
is made.[4]
FUNCTIONALIZATION IN MANAGEMENT.--"Functional Management"
consists, to quote Dr. Taylor, "in so directing the work of
management that each man from the assistant superintendent down
shall have as few functions as possible to perform. If practicable,
the work of each man in the management should be confined to the
performance of a single leading function."[5]
A study of functionalization as applied to management must
answer the following questions:
1. How is the work divided?
2. How are the workers assigned to the work?
3. What are the results to the work?
4. What are the results to the worker?
TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT SELDOM FUNCTIONALIZES.--Under Traditional
Management the principle of Functionalization was seldom applied or
understood. Even when the manager tried to separate planning from
performing, or so to divide the work that each worker could utilize
his special ability, there were no permanently beneficial results,
because there was no standard method of division.
THE WORK OF THE FOREMAN NOT PROPERLY DIVIDED.--The work of a
foreman was not divided, but the well rounded man, as Dr. Taylor
says,[6] was supposed to have
1. Brain
2. Education
3. Special or technical knowledge, manual dexterity or strength
4. Tact
5. Energy
6. Grit
7. Honesty
8. Judgment, or common sense
9. Good health.
Dr. Taylor says--"Plenty of men who possess only three of the
above qualities can be hired at any time for laborer's wages. Add
four of these qualities together, and you get a higher priced man.
The man combining five of these qualities begins to be hard to find,
and those with 6, 7 and 8 are almost impossible to get."
Yet, under Traditional Management these general qualities and
many points of specific training were demanded of the foreman. Dr.
Taylor has enumerated the qualifications or the duties of a gang
boss in charge of lathes or planers.[7] Careful reading of this
enumeration will show most plainly that the demands made were almost
impossible of fulfillment.[8]
Another list which is interesting is found in "Cost Reducing
System," a long list of the duties of the Ideal Superintendent or
foreman in construction work.[9]
QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES OF
FIRST CLASS FOREMAN
A first class foreman must have:
bodily
strength
brains
common sense
education
energy
good health
good judgment
grit
manual dexterity
special knowledge
tact
technical knowledge.
He must be:
able to concentrate his mind upon small things
able to read drawings readily
able to visualize the work at every stage of its progress,
and even before it begins
a master of detail
honest
master of at least one trade.
His duties consist of:
considering broad policies.
considering new applicants for important positions.
considering the character and fitness of the men.
determining a proper day's work.
determining costs.
determining the method of compensation.
determining the sequence of events for the best results.
disciplining the men.
dividing the men into gangs for speed contests.
fixing piece and day rates.
getting rid of inferior men.
handling relations with the unions.
hiring good men.
installing such methods and devices as will detect dishonesty.
instructing the workman.
keeping the time and disciplining those who are late or absent.
laying out work.
looking ahead to see that there are men enough for future work.
looking ahead to see that there is enough future work for the men.
making profits.
measuring each man's effort fairly.
obtaining good results in quality.
paying the men on days when they are discharged.
paying the men on pay day.
preventing soldiering.
readjusting wages.
retaining good men.
seeing that all men are honest.
seeing that men are shifted promptly when breakdowns occur.
seeing that repairs are made promptly before breakdowns occur,
seeing that repairs are made promptly after breakdowns occur.
seeing that the most suitable man is allotted to each part
of the work.
seeing that the work is not slighted.
setting piece work prices.
setting rates.
setting tasks.
supervising timekeeping.
teaching the apprentices.
teaching the improvers.
teaching the learners.
In studying these lists we note--
1. That the position will be best filled by a very high and
rare type of man.
2. That the man is forced to use every atom of all of his
powers and at the same time to waste his energies in doing much
unimportant pay reducing routine work, some of which could be
done by clerks.
3. That in many cases the work assigned for him to do calls
for qualifications which are diametrically opposed to each other.
4. That psychology tells us that a man fitted to perform some
of these duties would probably be mentally ill fitted for
performing others in the best possible way that they could be
performed.
WORK NOT WELL DONE.--Not only does the foreman under Traditional
Management do a great deal of work which can be done by cheaper men,
but he also wastes his time on clerical work in which he is not a
specialist, and, therefore, which he does not do as well as the work
can be done by a cheaper man, and this takes more of his time than
he ought to devote to it. The result is that the work is not done as
well as it can and should be done.
A most perfect illustration of a common form of Traditional
Management is the old story of the foreman, who, in making his
rounds of the various parts of the work, comes to the deep hole
being excavated for a foundation pier and says hurriedly--"How many
of yez is there in the hole?" "Seven." "The half of yez come up."
The theoretical defects of the old type of management often seen
before the advent of the trained engineer on the work include:--
1. lack of planning ahead.
2. an overworked foreman.
3. no functionalizing of the work.
4. no standards of individual efficiency.
5. unmeasured individual outputs.
6. no standard methods.
7. no attempt at teaching.
8. inaccurate directions.
9. lack of athletic contests.
10. no high pay for extra efficiency.
11. poor investigation of workers' special capabilities.
In spite of the fact that under unfunctionalized management the
foreman has far more to do than he can expect to do well, the
average foreman thinks that he belongs to a class above his
position. This is partly because the position is so unstandardized
that it arouses a sense of unrest, and partly because he has to
spend much of his time at low priced functions.
Under the feeling of enmity, or at least, of opposition, which
often exists, openly or secretly, between the average Traditional
Management and men, the foreman must ally himself with one side or
the other. If he joins with the men, he must countenance the
soldiering, which they find necessary in order to maintain their
rates of wages. Thus the output of the shop will seldom increase and
his chance for appreciation and promotion by the management will
probably be slight and slow. His position as boss, combined with
that of ally of the men, is awkward.
If he allies himself to the management, he must usually become a
driver of the men, if he wishes to increase output. This condition
will never be agreeable to him unless he has an oversupply of brute
instincts.
THE WORKERS NOT BEST UTILIZED.--Under the best types of
Traditional Management we do find more or less spasmodic attempts at
the functionalization of the worker. When there was any particular
kind of work to be done, the worker who seemed to the manager to be
the best fitted, was set at that kind of work. For example--if there
was a particularly heavy piece of work he might say--"Let A do it
because he is strong." If there was a particularly fine piece of
work to be done he might say--"Let B do it because he is specially
skilled." If there was a piece of work to be done which required
originality, he might say--"Let C do it for the reason that he is
inventive and resourceful;" but, in most cases, when the particular
job on hand was finished, the worker selected to do it returned to
other classes of work, and such special fitness or capability as he
had, was seldom systematically utilized, or automatically assigned
to his special function, neither was such experience as he had
gained systematically conserved. Moreover, no such study of the work
to be done had been made as would prove that the assignment of that
particular worker to the work was right. The psychology of this was
entirely wrong,--not only had no such study of the general and
particular characteristics, traits, faculties, and talents of the
man been made as would prove that he was the right man to be
assigned, but the mere fact that he possessed one quality necessary
for the work, if he really did possess it, was no sign that the
other qualities which he possessed might not make him the wrong man
to be chosen. Even if the man did happen to be assigned to work for
which he was particularly suited, unless provision were made to keep
him at such work only, to keep him well supplied with work, to allow
time for rest, and to provide proper pay, he could not utilize his
capabilities to the fullest extent.
TRANSITORY MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONALIZES.--Under Transitory
Management, management becomes gradually more and more functionalized.
With separated outputs and separate records, the worker's
capabilities become apparent, and he can be assigned to the
standardized positions which gradually evolve. Every recognition of
individuality carries with it a corresponding functionalization of
men and work.
FUNCTIONALIZATION A FUNDAMENTAL OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--With
Scientific Management comes the realization that with close study
and with functionalization only, can that provision and assignment
of the work which is best for both work and worker be obtained. The
principle is applied to every part of management, and results in
1. separating the planning from the performing.
2. functionalizing foremen.
3. functionalizing workers.
4. assigning competent workers to fitting work.
SEPARATING THE PLANNING FROM THE PERFORMING.--The emphasis on
separating the planning from the performing in Scientific Management
cannot be over-estimated. It is a part of Dr. Taylor's fourth
principle of Scientific Management, "Almost equal division of the
work and the responsibility between the management and the
workmen."[10] The greatest outputs can be achieved to the greatest
benefit to managers and men when the work is divided, the management
undertaking that part of the work that it is best fitted to do, the
workmen performing that part which they are best fitted to do.
THE WORK OF THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT.--It has been determined by
actual experience that the line of division most agreeable to the
managers and the workmen and most productive of coöperation by both,
as well as most efficient in producing low costs, is that which
separates the planning from the performing. Under Scientific
Management the Planning Department relieves the man of determining--
1. what work is to be done.
2. sequence in which it is to be done.
3. method by which it shall be done.
4. where it shall be done.
5. which men shall do it.
6. time that it shall take.
7. exact quality of product.
8. quantity of additional pay that shall be given for doing it.
WORK OF THE WORKERS.--The men are simply given standard tasks to
do, with teachers to help them, and a standard wage according to
performance as a reward. There are but three things expected
of them:--
1. coöperation with the management in obtaining the prescribed
work, method and quality.
2. the exercise of their ingenuity in making improvements
after they have learned the standard prescribed practice.
3. the fitting of themselves for higher pay and promotion.
FUNCTIONALIZED FOREMANSHIP.--The work that, under Scientific
Management, is usually done by one man, the Foreman, is subdivided
into eight or more functions. These functions are assigned to the
following functional foremen:[11]
Planning Department
1. Order of work and route man
2. Instruction card man
3. Cost and time clerk
4. Disciplinarian
Performing Department
5. Gang boss
6. Speed boss
7. Repair boss
8. Inspector
Each of the above functions may be in charge of a separate man,
or one man may be in charge of several functions, or several men may
do the work of one function; the work being divided between them in
some cases by further functionalizing it,--and in others by
separating it into similar parts. Which of these conditions is most
effective depends on the size of the job, or the nature of the job
to be done. The important question is, not the number of men doing
the planning, but the fact that every foreman, so far as is
possible, is assigned to the special kind of work that he is best
fitted to do with the greatest elimination of unnecessary waste.
CHANGES IN THE FUNCTIONS OF THE FOREMAN.--A Foreman, under
Scientific Management, must have three qualifications. He must be
1. a specialist at the work that he is to do.
2. a good observer, able to note minute variations of method,
work, and efficiency.
3. a good teacher.
A comparison of these qualifications with those of the foreman
under Traditional Management, will show as important changes,--
1. the particular place in the field of knowledge in which
the foreman must specialize.
2. the change in the type of criticism expected from the
foreman.
3. the far greater emphasis placed on duties as a teacher.
IMPORTANCE OF THE TEACHING FEATURE IN FUNCTIONAL FOREMANSHIP.--
The teaching feature of management,--the most important feature of
Scientific Management,--will be discussed in the Chapter on
Teaching. Only so much is included here as shows its derivation from
the principle of functionalization, and its underlying importance.
Functionalization means specialization. This results in
coöperation between foremen, between foremen and workers, and
between workers. By "co-operate" is here meant not only "to work
together," but also "to work together to promote the object." This
coöperation persists not only because it is demanded by the work,
but also because it is insured by the inter-dependent bonuses.
Functionalization under Scientific Management separates planning
from performing. This means that the specialists who plan must teach
the specialist who performs, this being the way in which they
co-operate to the greatest personal advantage to all.
BASIS OF DIVISION INTO FUNCTIONS.--Under Scientific Management
divisions are made on the basis of underlying ideas. Functions are
not classified as they are embodied in particular men, but men are
classified as they embody particular functions. This allows of
standardization, through which alone can progress and evolution come
quickest. It is comparatively easy and simple to standardize a
function. Being a "set duty," it can be fixed, studied and
simplified. It is extremely difficult and complex to standardize an
individual. This standardizing of the function, however, in no wise
stunts individuality. On the contrary, it gives each individual a
chance to utilize his particular faculty for obtaining the greatest
efficiency, pleasure and profit. This is well illustrated in the
case of specialization in baseball, for excellence as a pitcher does
not stunt the player as a catcher.
Functions may be subdivided as far as the nature of the work
demands. Note here, again, that it is the relative complexity or
simplicity of the nature of the work that is to be done that
determines the degree of its functionalization, not the number of
men employed at the work.
Note, also, that with every subdivision of functions comes
greater opportunity for specialization, hence for individual
development.
PLACE OF OPERATION OF THE FUNCTIONS.--Four functions of the
eight find their place in the planning department. The other four
are out on the work. That is to say,--the men who represent four
functions work almost entirely in the planning room, while the men
who represent the other four functions work mostly among the
workers. This division is, however, largely a matter of convenience.
Three of the first four groups of men communicate with the workers
mostly in writing and are seldom engaged as observers, except in
obtaining data for the creation of standards, while the fourth is
often in the planning room. The last four usually communicate with
the men orally, and must observe and teach the worker constantly.
In the descriptions that follow, each function is represented
as embodied in one man, this aiding simplicity and clearness in
description.
THE ORDER OF WORK AND ROUTE CLERK.--The Order of Work and Route
Clerk lays out the exact path of each piece of work, and determines
the sequence of events of moving and a general outline of
performance.[12] With the requirements of the work in mind, the most
efficient day's work for each worker is determined. The paths and
sequences of transportation are outlined by means of route charts
and route sheets showing graphical and detailed directions, which
are the means by which the foremen of the other functions are
enabled to coöperate with other foremen and with the workers.
The work of this function requires a practical man, of the
successful foreman type, experienced in the class of work to be
executed, who is also familiar with the theories of Scientific
Management in general, and the work of the other foremen in
particular, and who has the faculty of visualization and well
developed constructive imagination. He must also have at his command
in systematic form, and available for immediate use, records of
previous experience.
THE INSTRUCTION CARD CLERK.--The Instruction Card Clerk prepares
written directions for the workers as to what methods should be used
in doing the work, the sequence of performance of the elements of
the method, the speeds and action of the accompanying machinery, the
time that each element should take for its performance, the time
allowed for rest for overcoming fatigue caused by its performance,
and the total elapsed time allowed for performing all of the work on
the instruction card in order to obtain the unusually high
additional wages as a reward for his skill and coöperation.
The work of this function requires the best available (but not
necessarily the fastest), practical experienced man in the trade
described, who also has had sufficient experience in motion study
and time study to enable him to write down the best known method for
doing the work described, and also prophesying the correct time that
the work and rest from its resulting fatigue will take. He must
supplement the instruction card with such sketches, drawings and
photographs as will best assist the worker to visualize his work
before and during its performance.
FUNCTION OF TIME AND COST CLERK.--The work done by the Time and
Cost Clerk calls for accuracy and a love of statistical detail. It
will help him if he knows the trades with which he is coöperating,
but such knowledge is not absolutely essential. He will be promoted
fastest who has a knowledge of the theory of management, coupled
with the theory and practice of statistics and accountancy, for the
true costs must include knowledge of costs of materials, and the
distribution of the overhead burden of running expenses and selling.
FUNCTION OF THE DISCIPLINARIAN.--The function of the
Disciplinarian must be discussed at length, both because of the
psychological effect upon the men of the manner of the discipline
and of the disciplinarian, and because of the fact that the
disciplinarian is the functional foreman of the four in the planning
department who comes in most personal contact with the workers, as
well as all of the other foremen, and the Superintendent.
It is important to note, in the discussion that is to follow,
not only how disciplining is transformed as management develops
progressively, but also that the intimate acquaintance of
discipliner with disciplined is not done away with, but rather
supplemented by the standardizing which is the outcome of Scientific
Management.
The defects of methods of disciplining under Traditional
Management are remedied, but here, as always, Scientific Management
retains and develops that which is good. This because the good in
the older forms conformed, unconsciously, to the underlying laws.
DEFECTS OF DISCIPLINING UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Under
Traditional Management, the disciplining is done by the foreman;
that is, the punishment is meted out by the man who has charge of
all activities of the men under him. This is actually, in practice
and in theory, psychologically wrong. If there is one man who should
be in a state of mind that would enable him to judge dispassionately,
it is the disciplinarian. The man to be disciplined is usually
guilty of one of six offenses:
1. an offense against an employé of a grade above him.
2. an offense against an employé of the same grade.
3. an offense against an employé of a grade below him.
4. falling short in the quality of his work.
5. falling short in the quantity of his work.
6. an offense against the system (disobeying orders), falling
down on schedule, or intentionally not coöperating.
The employé over him, or the foreman, to whom he is supposed to
have done some injustice, would be in no state of mind to judge as
to the man's culpability. In the case of an offense against an
employé of the same grade, the best that the injured employé could
do would be to appeal to his foreman, who oftentimes is not an
unprejudiced judge, and the multiplicity of whose duties give him
little time to give attention to the subject of disciplining.
If the offense is against quantity or quality of work, again the
old fashioned foreman, for lack of time, and for lack of training
and proper standards of measurement, will find it almost impossible
to know how guilty the man is, and what form of punishment and
what amount of punishment or loss of opportunity for progress will
be appropriate.
CHANGES IN DISCIPLINARIAN'S FUNCTION UNDER SCIENTIFIC
MANAGEMENT.--All this is changed under Scientific Management. The
disciplinarian is a specially appointed functional foreman, and has
few other duties except those that are directly or indirectly
connected with disciplining. He is in touch with the requirements of
the work, because he is in the Planning Department; he is in touch
with the employment bureau, and knows which men should be employed;
he has a determining voice in deciding elementary rate fixing and
should always be consulted before wages are changed or a
reassignment of duties is determined. All of these are great
advantages to him in deciding justly and appropriately punishments
and promotion, not for the workers alone but also for the foremen
and the managers.
DUTIES OF THE DISCIPLINARIAN.--The Disciplinarian keeps a record
of each man's virtues and defects; he is in position to know all
about the man; where he comes from; what his natural and acquired
qualifications are; what his good points, possibilities and special
fitness are; what his wages are, and his need for them. All that it
is possible for the managers to know of the men is to be
concentrated in this disciplinarian. He is, in practice, more the
counsel and advocate of the worker than an unsympathetic judge, as
is indicated by the fact that his chief function is that of
"diplomat" and "peacemaker." His greatest duty is to see that the
"square deal" is meted out without fear or favor to employer or
to employé.
IMPORTANCE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN DISCIPLINING.--Not only does the
position of disciplinarian under Scientific Management answer the
psychological requirements for such a function, but also the holder
of the position of disciplinarian must understand psychology and
apply, at least unconsciously, and preferably consciously, the known
laws of psychology, if he wishes to be successful.
The disciplinarian must consider not only what the man has done
and the relation of this act of his to his other acts; he must also
investigate the cause and the motive of the act, for on the cause
and motive, in reality, depends more than on the act itself. He must
probe into the physical condition of the man, as related to his
mental acts. He must note the effect of the same kind of discipline
under different conditions; for example, he must note that, on
certain types of people, disciplining in the presence of other
people has a most derogatory effect, just as rewards before people
may have a most advantageous effect. Upon others, discipline that is
meted out in the presence of other people is the only sort of
discipline which has the desired effect. The sensitiveness of the
person to be disciplined, the necessity for sharp discipline, and
for that particular sort of discipline which may require the element
of shame in it, must all be considered. He must be able to discover
and note whether the discipline should be meted out to a ringleader,
and whether the other employés, supposed to be blameworthy, are
really only guilty in acquiescing, or in failing to report one who
has really furnished the initiative. He must differentiate acts
which are the result of following a ringleader blindly from the
concerted acts of disobedience of a crowd, for the "mob spirit" is
always an element to be estimated and separately handled.
INADEQUACY OF TERMS IN DISCIPLINING.--The words "disciplinarian"
and "punishment" are most unfortunate. The "Disciplinarian" would be
far better called the "peacemaker," and the "punishment" by some
such word as the "adjustment." It is _not_ the duty of the
disciplinarian to "take out anybody's grudge" against a man; it _is_
his duty to adjust disagreements. He must remember constantly that
his discipline must be of such a nature that the result will be for
the permanent best interests of the one disciplined, his co-workers,
his associates and his family.
The aim is, not to put the man down, but to keep him up to his
standard, as will be shown later in a chapter on Incentives. If the
punishment is in the form of a fine, it must not in any way return
to the coffers of the management. The fines collected--even those
fines collected from the individuals composing the management,
should go in some form to the benefit of the men themselves, such,
for example, as contributions to a workman's sick benefit fund or to
general entertainment at the annual outing of employés. In practice,
the disciplinarian is rather the friend of the worker than of the
employer, if the two interests can possibly be separated. Again
"penalty" is a bad word to use. Any words used in this connection
should preferably have had taken from them any feeling that personal
prejudice affects the discipline. It is the nature of the offense
itself which should prescribe what the outcome of it shall be.
The position of disciplinarian requires a man who has a keen
sense of justice, who has had such experience as to enable him to
smooth out difficulties until all are in a frame of mind where they
can look upon their own acts and the acts of others calmly. He must
be able so to administer his duties that each decision inspires the
realization that he acted to the best of his knowledge and belief.
He must be one who is fearless, and has no tendency to have
favorites. He must have a clear knowledge of the theories and
principles of Scientific Management, in order that he can fill the
position of enforcer of its laws.
THE GANG BOSS.--The duties of The Gang Boss are to see that the
worker has plenty of work ahead, to see that everything that he will
need with which to do the work is at hand, and to see that the work
is actually "set," or placed and performed correctly. This position
calls for a practical demonstrator, who must himself be able and
willing actually to prepare and help on the work. It calls
particularly for a man with teaching ability, with special emphasis
on ability to teach, with great exactness, the prescribed method and
to follow the orders of the planning department implicitly.
THE SPEED BOSS.--The speed boss is responsible for the methods
of doing work with machinery. He has charge of overseeing the work,
and teaching the worker, during the entire time that the work is
being done. He must be prepared constantly to demonstrate at any
time not only _how_ the work is done, but also that it can be done
in the specified time called for in order to earn the bonus. This
position calls for a man who is able, personally, to carry out the
detailed written orders of the instruction card in regard to speeds,
feeds, cuts, methods of operation, quality and quantity.
He must be proficient at the art of imparting his knowledge to
other workmen, and at the same time be able to secure the prescribed
outputs and quantities. He need not be the fastest worker in the
shop, but he should be one of the most intelligent workers and best
teachers, with a keen desire to coöperate, both with the workers and
with the other foremen.
THE REPAIR BOSS.--The repair boss has charge of the plant and
its maintenance. He must have a natural love of order and of
cleanliness, and a systematic type of mind. This position calls for
a man with an experience that will enable him to detect liability of
breakdowns before they actually occur. He must be resourceful in
repairing unexpected breakdowns in an emergency, and be able at all
times to carry out literally the directions given on the instruction
cards of the Planning Department for cleaning, maintaining, and
repairing the machines.
THE INSPECTOR.--The function of inspector under scientific or
the Taylor plan of management is most important, especially in
connection with the "first inspection." During the manufacture of
the first piece and after it is finished the inspector passes and
reports upon it before the worker proceeds with the other pieces.
Here the worker gets a return in person for each successive act on
the first piece he makes under a new instruction card, or, if he is
a new worker, under an old instruction card. Ambiguity of
instructions, if present, is thus eliminated, and wrong actions or
results are corrected before much damage to material has been done
and before much time and effort are wasted. The first erroneous
cycles of work are not repeated, and the worker is promptly shown
exactly how efficiently he has succeeded in determining the
requirements of his instructions.
The inspector is responsible for the quality of the work. He
fulfills the requirements of Schloss, who says, in speaking of the
danger, under some managements, that the foreman will sacrifice
quality to speed, if he gets a bonus for quantity of output,--"The
best safeguard against this serious danger would be found in the
appointment of a distinct staff of inspectors whose duty it should
be to ascertain, as the work proceeds, that the stipulated standards
of excellence are at all times scrupulously maintained." This
position of inspector requires an observant man who naturally is
inclined to give constructive rather than destructive-criticism. He
should be a man who can coöperate with the workman and foreman to
rescue condemned or damaged material with the least expenditure of
time, effort and expense.
FUNCTIONALIZING THE WORKER.--Under Scientific Management,
the worker as well as the foreman, is a specialist. This he
becomes by being relieved of everything that he is not best fitted
to do, and allowed to concentrate upon doing, according to exact
and scientifically derived methods, that work at which he is
an expert.[13]
RELIEVING THE WORKER OF THE PLANNING.--The planning is taken
away from the worker, not because it is something too choice, sacred
or entertaining for him to do, or something which the managers
desire to do themselves, but because it is best, for the workers
themselves as well as the work, that the planning be done by
specialists at planning. If he is expert enough to plan, the worker
will be promoted to the planning department. In the meantime, he is
working under the best plan that experts can devise.
MASTER PLANNING A LIFE STUDY.--The best planner is he who,--
other things being equal,--is the most ingenious, the most
experienced and the best observer. It is an art to observe; it
requires persistent attention. The longer and the more the observer
observes, the more details, and variables affecting details, he
observes. The untrained observer could not expect to compete with
one of special natural talent who has also been trained. It is not
every man who is fitted by nature to observe closely, hence to plan.
To observe is a condition precedent to visualizing. Practice in
visualizing makes for increasing the faculty of constructive
imagination. He with the best constructive imagination is the
master planner.
The art of observing is founded on a study of fundamental
elements. In order that planning may be done best, previous to
starting work, the entire sequence of operations must be laid out,
so that the ideas of value of every element of every subdivision of
the process of working may be corrected to act most efficiently in
relation with each and all of the subsequent parts and events that
are to follow. This planning forwards and backwards demands an
equipment of time study, motion study and micro-motion study records
such as can be used economically only when all the planning is done
in one place, with one set of records. The planner must be able to
see and control the whole problem in all of its aspects.
For example,--the use that is to be made of the work after it is
completed may entirely change the methods best used in doing it.
Thus, the face of a brick wall that is to be plastered does not
require and should not have the usual excellence of nicely ruled
joints required on a face that is not to be plastered. In fact, the
roughest, raggedest joints will be that quality of wall that will
make the plaster adhere the best.
As an example of professional observation and investigation with
which no untrained observer could compete, we cite the epoch making
work of Dr. Taylor in determining the most efficient speeds, feeds,
cuts and shape of tools to use for the least wastefulness in cutting
metals.[14]
Dr. Taylor, an unusually brilliant man, at the end of twenty-six
years, working with the best scientists, engineers, experimenters,
and workmen, after an expenditure of literally hundreds of thousands
of dollars, was able to determine and write down a method for
cutting metals many times less wasteful in time than was ever known
before; but the data from the experiments was so complex and
involved that a considerable knowledge of higher mathematics had to
be used to apply the data. Furthermore, the data was in such form
that it took longer to use the knowledge contained therein than it
did to do the work on any given piece of metal cutting. After
gathering this knowledge, Dr. Taylor, with his assistants, first Mr.
Gantt and finally Mr. Barth, reduced it to such a form that now it
can be used in a matter of a few seconds or minutes. This was done
by making slide rules.[15] Today workers have this knowledge in a
form that any machinist can use with a little instruction. As a
result, Dr. Taylor's observations have revolutionized the design of
metal cutting machinery and the metal cutting industry, and the data
he collected is used in every metal cutting planning department.
Furthermore, as a by-product to his observations and
investigations, he discovered the Taylor-White process of making
high speed steel, which revolutionized the steel tool industry. No
untrained workman could expect ever to compete with such work as
this in obtaining results for most efficient planning and at the
same time perform his ordinary work.
WASTEFULNESS OF INDIVIDUAL PLANNING.--Even if it were possible
so to arrange the work of every worker that he could be in close
proximity to the equipment for planning and could be given the
training needed, individual planning for "small lots" with no
systematized standardization of planning-results would be an
economic waste that would cause an unnecessary hardship on the
worker, the employer and the ultimate consumer. Individual planning
could not fit the broad scheme of planning, and at best would cause
delays and confusion, and make an incentive to plan for the
individual self, instead of planning for the greatest good of the
greatest number.
Again, even if it were possible to plan best by individual
planning, there is a further waste in changing from one kind of work
to another. This waste is so great and so obvious that it was
noticed and recognized by the earliest manufacturers and economists.
HARDSHIP TO THE WORKER OF INDIVIDUAL PLANNING.--To obtain the
most wages and profits there must be the most savings to divide.
These cannot be obtained when each man plans for himself (except in
the home trades), because all large modern operations have the
quantity of output dependent upon the amount of blockades, stoppages
and interferences caused by dependent sequences. It is not,
therefore, possible to obtain the most profit or most wages by
individual planning. Planning is a general function, and the only
way to obtain the best results is by organized planning, and by
seeing that no planning is done for one worker without proper
consideration of its bearing and effect upon any or all the other
men's outputs.
THE MAN WHO DESIRES TO BE A PLANNER CAN BE ONE.--If the worker
is the sort of a man who can observe and plan, or who desires to
plan, even though he is not at first employed in the planning
department, he is sure to get there finally, as the system provides
that each man shall go where he is best fitted. Positions in
planning departments are hard to fill, because of the scarcity of
men equipped to do this work. The difficulty of teaching men to
become highly efficient planners is one of the reasons for the slow
advance of the general adoption of Scientific Management.
THE MAN WHO DISLIKES PLANNING CAN BE RELIEVED.--It must not be
forgotten that many people dislike the planning responsibility in
connection with their work. For such, relief from planning makes the
performance of the planned work more interesting and desirable.
PROVISION FOR PLANNING BY ALL UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Much
has been said about the worker's "God-given rights to think," and
about the necessity for providing every worker with an opportunity
to think.
Scientific Management provides the fullest opportunities for
every man to think, to exercise his mental faculties, and to plan
1. in doing the work itself, as will be shown at length in
chapters that follow.
2. outside of the regular working hours, but in connection
with promotion in his regular work.
Scientific Management provides always, and most emphatically,
that the man shall have hours free from his work in such a state
that he will not be too fatigued to do anything. Furthermore, if he
work as directed, his number of working hours per day will be so
reduced that he will have more time each day for his chosen form of
mental stimulus and improvement.
Our friend John Brashear is a most excellent example of what one
can do in after hours away from his work. He was a laborer in a
steel mill. His duties were not such as resemble in any way planning
or research work, yet he became one of the world's most prominent
astronomical thinkers and an Honorary member of the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers, because he had the desire to be a student.
Under Scientific Management such a desire receives added impetus
from the method of attack provided for through its teaching.
FUNCTIONALIZING THE WORK ITSELF.--The work of each part of the
planning and performing departments may be functionalized, or
subdivided, as the result of motion study and time study. The
elementary timed units are combined or synthesized into tasks, made
to fit the capabilities of specialized workers. It is then necessary
to:--
1. List the duties and requirements of the work.
2. Decide whether the place can be best handled as one, or
subdivided into several further subdivisions, or functions,
or even sub-functions, for two or more function specialists.
For the sake of analysis, all work may be considered as of
one of two classes:--
1. the short time job.
2. the long time job.
These two divisions are handled differently, as follows:
THE SHORT TIME JOB.--On the short time job that probably will
never be repeated, there is little opportunity and no economic
reason for specially training a man for its performance. The
available man best suited to do the work with little or no help
should be chosen to do it. The suitability of the man for the work
should be determined only by applying simple tests, or, if even
these will cause costly delay or more expense than the work
warrants, the man who appears suitable and who most desires the
opportunity to do the work can be assigned to it.
If the job is connected with a new art, a man whose habits will
help him can be chosen.
For example:--in selecting a man to fly, it has been found
advantageous to give a trick bicycle rider the preference.
There is no other reason why the man for the short job should
not be fitted as well to his work as the man for the long job,
except the all-important reason of cost for special preparation. Any
expense for study of the workers must be borne ultimately both by
worker and management, and it is undesirable to both that expense
should be incurred which will not be ultimately repaid.
THE LONG TIME JOB.--The long time job allows of teaching,
therefore applicants for it may be carefully studied. Usually that
man should be chosen who, with all the natural qualifications and
capabilities for the job, except practical skill, requires the most
teaching to raise him from the lower plane to that highest mental
and manual plane which he is able to fill successfully continuously.
In this way each man will be developed into a worker of great value
to the management and to himself.
The man who is capable and already skilled at some work is thus
available for a still higher job, for which he can be taught. Thus
the long job affords the greatest opportunity for promotion. The
long job justifies the expenditure of money, effort and time by
management and men, and is the ideal field for the application of
scientific selection and functionalization.
SUMMARY
EFFECT OF FUNCTIONALIZATION UPON THE WORK.--Under Traditional
Management, there was little or no definite functionalization. If
the quantity of output did increase, as the result of putting a man
at that work for which he seemed best fitted, there was seldom
provision made for seeing that the quality of product was maintained
by a method of constructive inspection that prevented downward
deviations from standard quality, instead of condemning large
quantities of the finished product.
Under Transitory Management, the Department of Inspection is one
of the first Functions installed. This assures maintained quality,
and provides that all increase in output shall be actual gain.
Under Scientific Management, functionalization results in
increased quantity of output,[16] with maintained and usually
increased quality.[17] This results in decreased cost. The cost is
sufficiently lower to allow of increased wages to the employés, a
further profit to the employer, and a maintained, or lowered,
selling price. This means a benefit to the consumer.
It may be objected that costs cannot be lowered, because of the
number of so-called "non-producers" provided for by Scientific
Management.
In answer to this it may be said that there are no non-producers
under Scientific Management. Corresponding work that, under
Scientific Management, is done in the planning department must all
be done somewhere, in a less systematic manner, even under
Traditional Management.[18] The planning department, simply does
this work more efficiently,--with less waste. Moreover, much work of
the planning department, being founded on elementary units, is
available for constant use. Here results an enormous saving by the
conservation and utilization of planning effort.
Also, standard methods are more apt to result in standard
quality, and with less occasion for rejecting output that is below
the requisite standards than is the case under Traditional
Management.
EFFECT OF FUNCTIONALIZATION UPON THE WORKER.--Under Traditional
Management, even if the worker often becomes functionalized, he
seldom has assurance that he will be able to reap the harvest from
remaining so, and even so, neither data nor teaching are provided to
enable him to fulfill his function most successfully.
Under Transitory Management the worker becomes more and more
functionalized, as the results of motion study and time study make
clear the advantages of specializing the worker.
EFFECTS UPON THE SCIENTIFICALLY MANAGED WORKER.--Under
Scientific Management the effects of Functionalization are so
universal and so far reaching that it is necessary to enumerate them
in detail.
WORKER RELIEVED OF EVERYTHING BUT HIS SPECIAL FUNCTIONS.--
Functionalization, in providing that every man is assigned a special
function, also provides that he be called upon to do work in that
function only, relieving him of all other work and responsibility.
Realization of this elimination has a psychological effect on action
and habits of thinking.[19]
PLACES ARE PROVIDED FOR SPECIALISTS.--Functionalization utilizes
men with decided bents, and allows each man to occupy that place for
which he is fitted.[20] Assignment to functions is done according to
the capabilities and desires of those who are to fill them.
SPECIALIZING IS ENCOURAGED.--It is most important to remember
that the man with any special talent or talents, individuality or
special fitness is much more likely, under Scientific Management, to
obtain and retain the place that he is fitted for than he ever could
have been under Traditional Management, for, while many fairly
efficient men can be found who can fill a general position, a man
with the marked desirable trait necessary to fill a distinct
position requiring that trait, will be one of few, and will have his
place waiting for him.
ONE-TALENT MEN UTILIZED--.With Functionalization, men who lack
qualifications for the position which they may, at the start,
endeavor to fill, may be transferred to other positions, where the
qualities they lack are not required. If a man has one talent,
Scientific Management provides a place where that can be utilized.
For example:--
Men who cannot produce the prescribed output constantly, are
placed on other work. The slow, unskilled worker who has difficulty
to learn, may be put upon work requiring less skill, or where speed
is not required so much as watchfulness and faithfulness. The worker
who is slow, but exceptionally skilled, has the opportunity to rise
to the position of the functional foreman, especially in the
planning department, where knowledge, experience and resourcefulness,
and especially ability to teach, are much more desired than
speed and endurance. Thus there are places provided, below and
above, that can utilize all kinds of abilities.
"ALL ROUND" MEN ARE UTILIZED.--The exceptional man who possesses
executive ability in all lines, and balance between them all, is the
ideal man for a manager, and his special "all round" ability would
be wasted in any position below that of a manager.
STABILITY PROVIDED FOR.--Every man is maintained in his place by
his interresponsibility with other men. If he is a worker, every
man's work is held to standard quality by the inspector, while the
requirements and rewards of his function are kept before him by the
instruction card man, rate fixer and the disciplinarian.
PROMOTION AND DEVELOPMENT PROVIDED FOR.--Functionalization
provides for promotion by showing every man not only the clearly
circumscribed place where he is to work, but also by showing him the
definite place above him to which he may be promoted and its path,
and by teaching him how he can fill it. This allows him to develop
the possibilities of his best self by using and specially training
those talents which are most marked in him.
Functional Foremanship allows many more people, to become
foremen, and to develop the will and judgment which foremanship
implies.
MEN IN THE ORGANIZATION PREFERRED TO OUTSIDERS.--Men in the
organization are preferable to outsiders as functional foremen and
for promotion. Not only does a worker's knowledge of his work help
him to become more efficient when he is promoted to the position of
foreman,--but his efficiency as a teacher is also increased by the
fact that he knows and understands the workers whom he is there
to teach.
ALL MEN ARE PUSHED UP.--Scientific Management raises every man
as high as he is capable of being raised. It does not speed him up,
but pushes him up to the highest notch which he can fill. Actual
practice has shown that there is a greater demand for efficient men
in the planning department than there is supply; also, that men in
the planning department who fit themselves for higher work can be
readily promoted to positions of greater responsibility, either
inside or outside the organization.
YEARS OF PRODUCTIVITY PROLONGED.--Under Functionalization the
number of years of productivity of all, workers and foremen alike,
are increased. The specialty to which the man is assigned is his
natural specialty, thus his possible and profitable working years
are prolonged, because he is at that work for which he is naturally
fitted.
Moreover, the work of teaching is one at which the teacher
becomes more clever and more valuable as time goes on, the
functional foreman has that much more chance to become valuable as
years go by.
CHANGE IN THE WORKER'S MENTAL ATTITUDE.--The work under
functionalization is such as to arouse the worker's attention and to
hold his interest.[21] But the most important and valuable change in
the worker's feelings is the change in his attitude towards the
foremen and the employer. From "natural enemies" as sometimes
considered under typical Traditional Management, these all now
become friends, with the common aim, coöperation, for the purpose of
increasing output and wages, and lowering costs. This change of
feeling results in an appreciation of the value of teaching, and
also in promoting industrial peace.
CHAPTER III FOOTNOTES: =============================================
1. Mary Whiton Calkins, _A First Book in Psychology_, p. 273.
2. Sully, _The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology_, p. 1.
3. _Ibid._, p. 54.
4. Hugo Münsterberg, _American Problems_, p. 35.
5. Gillette and Dana, _Cost Keeping and Management Engineering_,
p. 1.
6. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 221. Harper Ed., p. 96.
7. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 221-231. Harper Ed.,
pp. 96-98.
8. Compare H.L. Gantt, No. 1002, A.S.M.E., para. 9.
9. Compare H.P. Gillette, _Cost Analysis Engineering_, pp. 1-2.
10. F.W. Taylor, _Principles of Scientific Management_, p. 37.
11. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 245. Harper Ed., p. 104.
12. For excellent example of special routing see: Charles Day,
_Industrial Plants_, chap. VII.
13. C. Babbage, _Economy of Manufacturers_. p. 172. "The constant
repetition of the same process necessarily produces in the
workman a degree of excellence and rapidity in his particular
department, which is never possessed by a person who is obliged
to execute many different processes."
14. F.W. Taylor, _On the Art of Cutting Metals_, Paper No. 1119,
A.S.M.E.
15. C.G. Barth, _Slide Rules for Machine Shops and Taylor System_.
Paper No. 1010, A.S.M.E.
16. H.L. Gantt, _Work, Wages and Profits_, p. 19.
17. Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, p. 2. "The greatest improvement
in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the
skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere
directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the
division of labor." Also p. 4.
18. H.K. Hathaway, _The Value of "Non-Producers" in Manufacturing
Plants. Machinery_, Nov., 1906, p. 134.
19. Gillette and Dana, _Cost Keeping and Management Engineering_,
p. 11.
20. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, _Bulletin No. 5, Carnegie Foundation for
the Advancement of Teaching_, p. 15.
21. H.L. Gantt, _Work, Wages and Profits_, p. 120.
====================================================================
CHAPTER IV
MEASUREMENT
DEFINITION OF MEASUREMENT.--"Measurement," according to the
Century Dictionary,--"is the act of measuring," and to measure
is--"to ascertain the length, extent, dimensions, quantity or
capacity of, by comparison with a standard; ascertain or determine a
quantity by exact observation," or, again, "to estimate or determine
the relative extent, greatness or value of, appraise by comparison
with something else."
MEASUREMENT IMPORTANT IN PSYCHOLOGY.--Measurement has always
been of importance in psychology; but it is only with the
development of experimental psychology and its special apparatus,
that methods of accurate measurements are available which make
possible the measurement of extremely short periods of time, or
measurements "quick as thought," These enable us to measure the
variations of different workers as to their abilities and their
mental and physical fatigue;[1] to study mental processes at
different stages of mental and physical growth; to compare different
people under the same conditions, and the same person under
different conditions; to determine the personal coefficient of
different workers, specialists and foremen, and to formulate
resultant standards. As in all other branches of science, the
progress comes with the development of measurement.
METHODS OF MEASUREMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY.--No student of management,
and of measurement in the field of management, can afford not to
study, carefully and at length, methods of measurement under
psychology. This, for at least two most important reasons, which
will actually improve him as a measurer, i.e.--
1. The student will discover, in the books on experimental
psychology and in the "Psychological Review," a marvelous array of
results of scientific laboratory experiments in psychology, which
will be of immediate use to him in his work.
2. He will receive priceless instruction in methods of
measuring. No where better than in the field of psychology, can one
learn to realize the importance of measurements, the necessity for
determination of elements for study, and the necessity for accurate
apparatus and accuracy in observation.
Prof. George M. Stratton, in his book "Experimental Psychology
and Culture,"--says "In mental measurements, therefore, there is no
pretense of taking the mind's measure as a whole, nor is there
usually any immediate intention of testing even some special faculty
or capacity of the individual. What is aimed at is the measurement
of a limited event in consciousness, such as a particular perception
or feeling. The experiments are addressed, of course, not to the
weight or size of such phenomena, but usually to their duration and
intensity."[2]
The emphasis laid on a study of elements is further shown in the
same book by the following,--"The actual laboratory work in
time-measurement, however, has been narrowed down to determining,
not the time in general that is occupied by some mental action, but
rather the shortest possible time in which a particular operation,
like discrimination or choice or association or recognition, can be
performed under the simplest and most favorable circumstances.[3]
The experimental results here are something like speed or racing
records, made under the best conditions of track and training. A
delicate chronograph or chronoscope is used, which marks the time in
thousandths of a second."
MEASUREMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY RELATED TO MEASUREMENT IN
MANAGEMENT.--Measurement in psychology is of importance to
measurement in management not only as a source of information and
instruction, but also as a justification and support. Scientific
Management has suffered from being called absurd, impractical,
impossible, over-exact, because of the emphasis which it lays on
measurement. Yet, to the psychologist, all present measurement in
Scientific Management must appear coarse, inaccurate and of
immediate and passing value only. With the knowledge that
psychologists endorse accurate measurement, and will coöperate in
discovering elements for study, instruments of precision and methods
of investigation, the investigator in industrial fields must persist
in his work with a new interest and confidence.[4]
Scientific Management cannot hope to furnish psychology with
either data or methods of measurement. It can and does, however,
open a new field for study to experimental psychology, and shows
itself willing to furnish the actual working difficulties or
problems, to do the preliminary investigation, and to utilize
results as fast as they can be obtained.
PSYCHOLOGISTS APPRECIATE SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--The
appreciation which psychologists have shown of work done by
Scientific Management must be not only a matter of gratification,
but of inspiration to all workers in Scientific Management.
So, also, must the new divisions of the Index to the
Psychological Review relating to Activity and Fatigue, and the work
being so extensively done in these lines by French, German, Italian
and other nations, as well as by English and American psychologists.
MEASUREMENT IMPORTANT IN MANAGEMENT.--The study of individuality
and of functionalization have made plain the necessity of
measurement for successful management. Measurement furnishes the
means for obtaining that accurate knowledge upon which the science
of management rests, as do all sciences--exact and inexact.[5]
Through measurement, methods of less waste are determined, standards
are made possible, and management becomes a science, as it derives
standards, and progressively makes and improves them, and the
comparisons from them, accurate.
PROBLEM OF MEASUREMENT IN MANAGEMENT--One of the important
problems of measurement in management is determining how many hours
should constitute the working day in each different kind of work and
at what gait the men can work for greatest output and continuously
thrive. The solution of this problem involves the study of the men,
the work, and the methods, which study must become more and more
specialized; but the underlying aim is to determine standards and
individual capacity as exactly as is possible.[6]
CAPACITY.--There are at least four views of a worker's
capacity.
1. What he thinks his capacity is.
2. What his associates think his capacity is.
3. What those over him think his capacity is.
4. What accurate measurement determines his
actual capacity to be.
IGNORANCE OF REAL CAPACITY.--Dr. Taylor has emphasized the fact
that the average workman does not know either his true efficiency or
his true capacity.[7] The experience of others has also gone to show
that even the skilled workman has little or inaccurate knowledge of
the amount of output that a good worker can achieve at his chosen
vocation in a given time.[8]
For example,--until a bricklayer has seen his output counted for
several days, he has little idea of how many bricks he can lay, or
has laid, in a day.[9]
The average manager is usually even more ignorant of the
capacity of the workers than are the men themselves.[10] This is
because of the prevalence of, and the actual necessity for the
worker's best interest, under some forms of management, of
"soldiering." Even when the manager realizes that soldiering is
going on, he has no way, especially under ordinary management, of
determining its extent.
LITTLE MEASUREMENT IN TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Under Traditional
Management there was little measurement of a man's capacity. The
emphasis was entirely on the results. There was, it is true, in
everything beyond the most elementary of Traditional Management, a
measurement of the result. The manager did know, at the end of
certain periods of time, how much work had been done, and how much
it had cost him. This was a very important thing for him to know. If
his cost ran too high, and his output fell too low, he investigated.
If he found a defect, he tried to remedy it; but much time had to be
wasted in this investigation, because often he had no idea where to
start in to look for the defects. The result of the defects was
usually the cause for the inquiry as to their presence.
He might investigate the men, he might investigate the methods,
he might investigate the equipment, he might investigate the
surroundings, and so on,--and very often in the mind of the
Traditional manager, there was not even this most elementary
division. If things went wrong he simply knew,--"Something is wrong
somewhere," and it was the work of the foremen to find out where the
place was, or so to speed up the men that the output should be
increased and the cost lowered. Whether the defects were really
remedied, or simply concealed by temporarily speeding up, was not
seriously questioned.
Moreover, until measuring devices are secured, the only standard
is what someone thinks about things, and the pity of it is that even
this condition does not remain staple.
TRANSITORY MANAGEMENT REALIZES VALUE OF MEASUREMENT.--One of the
first improvements introduced when Traditional Management gives
place to the Transitory stage is the measurement of the separated
output of individual workers. These outputs are measured and
recorded. The records for extra high outputs are presented to the
worker promptly, so that he may have a keen idea constantly of the
relation of effort to output, while the fatigue and the effort of
doing the work is still fresh in his mind.
The psychology of the prompt reward will be considered later at
length, but it cannot be emphasized too often that the prompter the
reward, the greater the stimulus. The reward will become associated
with the fatigue in such a way that the worker will really get, at
the time, more satisfaction out of his fatigue than he will
discomfort; at the least, any dissatisfaction over his fatigue will
be eliminated, by the constant and first thought of the reward which
he has gotten through his efforts.
This record of efficiency is often so presented to the workers
that they get an excellent idea of the numerical measure of their
efficiency and its trend. This is best done by a graphical chart.
The records of the outputs of others on the same kind of work
done concurrently, or a corresponding record on work done
previously, will show the relative efficiency of any worker as
compared with the rest. These standards of comparison are a strong
incentive and, if they are shown at the time that such work is done,
they also become so closely associated not only with the mental but
the bodily feeling of the man that the next time the work is
repeated, the thoughts that the same effort will probably bring
greater results, and that it has done so in the past with others,
will be immediately present in the mind.
MEASUREMENT IS BASIC UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Under
Scientific Management measurement is basic. Measurement is of the
work, of outputs, of the methods, the tools, and of the worker, with
the individual as a unit, and motion study, time study and
micro-motion study and the chrono-cyclegraph as the methods of
measurement.
Measurement is a most necessary adjunct to selecting the workers
and the managers and to assigning them to the proper functions and
work. They cannot be selected to the greatest advantage and set to
functionalized work until--
(a) the unit of measurement that will of itself
tend to reduce costs has been determined.
(b) methods of measurement have been determined.
(c) measurement has been applied.
(d) standards for measurement have been derived.
(e) devices for cheapening the cost of measuring
have been installed.
UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT MEASUREMENT DETERMINES THE TASK.--An
important aim of measurement under Scientific Management is to
determine the Task, or the standard amount of any kind of work that
a first class man can do in a certain period of time. The "standard
amount" is the largest amount that a first class man can do and
continuously thrive.
The "first-class" man is the man who can eventually become best
fitted, by means of natural and acquired capabilities, to do the
work. The "certain period of time" is that which best suits the work
and the man's thriving under the work. The amount of time allowed
for a task consists of three parts--
1. time actually spent at work.
2. time for rest for overcoming fatigue.
3. time for overcoming delays.
Measurement must determine what percentage of the task time is
to be spent at work and what at rest, and must also determine
whether the rest period should all follow the completed work, or
should be divided into parts, these parts to follow certain cycles
through the entire work period.
The method of constructing the task is discussed under two
chapters that follow, Analysis and Synthesis, and Standardization.
Here we note only that the task is built up of elementary units
measured by motion study, time study, and micro-motion study.
When this standard task has been determined the worker's
efficiency can be measured by his performance of, or by the amount
that he exceeds, the task.
QUALIFICATIONS OF THE OBSERVER OR MEASURER.--The position of
observer, or as he has well been called, "trade revolutionizer,"
should be filled by a man specially selected for the position on
account of his special natural fitness and previous experience. He
also should be specially trained for his work. As in all other
classes of work, the original selection of the man is of vital
importance. The natural qualities of the successful hunter,
fisherman, detective, reporter and woodsman for observation of
minute details are extremely desirable. It is only by having
intimate knowledge of such experiences as Agassiz had with his
pupils, or with untrained "observers" of the trade, that one can
realize the lack of powers of observation of detail in the average
human being.
Other natural qualifications required to an efficient observer
are that of being
(a) an "eye worker";
(b) able to concentrate attention for unusually
long periods;
(c) able to get every thought out of a simple
written sentence;
(d) keenly interested in his work;
(e) accurate;
(f) possessed of infinite patience;
(g) an enthusiastic photographer.
The measurer or observer should, preferably, have the intimate
knowledge that comes from personal experience of the work to be
observed, although such a man is often difficult if not impossible
to obtain.
The position of observer illustrates another of the many
opportunities of the workmen for promotion from the ranks to higher
positions when they are capable of holding the promotion. Naturally,
other things being equal, no man is so well acquainted with the work
to be observed as he who has actually done it himself, and if he
have also the qualifications of the worker at the work, which
should, in the future, surely be determined by study of him and by
vocational guidance, he will be able to go at once from his position
in the ranks to that of observer, or time study man.
The observer must also familiarize himself with the literature
regarding motion study and time study, and must form the habit of
recording systematically the minutest details observable.
The effect upon the man making the observation of knowing that
his data, even though at the time they may seem unimportant, can be
used for the deduction of vital laws, is plain. He naturally feels
that he is a part of a permanent scheme, and is ready and willing to
put his best activity into the work. The benefits accruing from this
fact have been so well recognized in making United States surveys
and charts, that the practice has been to have the name of the man
in charge of the work printed on them.
ANYONE INTERESTED MAY BECOME AN OBSERVER.--A review of the
mental equipment needed by a measurer, or observer, will show that
much may be done toward training oneself for such a position by
practice. Much pleasure as well as profit can be obtained by
acquiring the habit of observation, both in the regular working and
in the non-working hours. Vocational Guidance Bureaus should see
that this habit of observation is cultivated, not only for the
æsthetic pleasure which it gives, but also for its permanent
usefulness.
UNBIASED OBSERVATION NECESSARY.--In order to take observations
properly, the investigator should be absolutely impartial,
unprejudiced, and unbiased by any preconceived notions. Otherwise,
he will be likely to think that a certain thing ought to happen. Or
he may have a keen desire to obtain a certain result to conform to a
pet theory. In other words, the observer must be of a very stable
disposition. He must not be carried away by his observations.
The elimination of any charting by the man who makes the
observations, or at least its postponement until all observations
are made, will tend to decrease the dangers of unconscious effect of
what he considers the probable curve of the observations should be.
As has been well said, watching the curve to be charted before
all of the data have been obtained develops a distinct theory in the
mind of the investigator and is apt to "bend the curve" or, at
least, to develop a feeling that if any new, or special, data do not
agree with the tendency of the curve--so much the worse for the
reputation of the data for reliability.
OBSERVED WORKER SHOULD REALIZE THE PURPOSE OF THE
MEASUREMENT.--The observed worker should be made to realize the
purpose and importance of the measurement. The observing should
always be done with his full knowledge and hearty coöperation. He
will attain much improvement by intelligent coöperation with the
observer, and may, in turn, be able to be promoted to observing if
he is interested enough to study and prepare himself after hours.
WORKER SHOULD NEVER BE OBSERVED SURREPTITIOUSLY.--No worker
should ever be observed, timed and studied surreptitiously. In the
first place, if the worker does not know that he is being observed,
he cannot coöperate with the observer to see that the methods
observed are methods of least waste. Therefore the motion study and
time study records that result will not be fundamental standards in
any case and will probably be worthless.
In the second place, if the worker discovers that he is being
observed secretly, he will feel that he is being spied upon and is
not being treated fairly. The stop watch has too long been
associated with the idea of "taking the last drop of blood from the
worker." Secret observations will tend strongly to lend credence to
this idea. Even should the worker thus observed not think that he
was being watched in order to force him, at a later time, to make
higher outputs, after he has once learned that he is being watched
secretly, his attention will constantly be distracted by the thought
that perhaps he is being studied and timed again. He will be
constantly on the alert to see possible observers. This may result
in "speeding him up," but the speed will not be a legitimate speed,
that results to his good as well as to that of his employer.
Worst of all, he will lose confidence in the "squareness" of his
employer. Hence he will fail to co-operate, and one of the greatest
advantages of Scientific Management will thus be lost.
It is a great advantage of micro-motion study that it demands
coöperation of the man studied, and that its results are open to
study by all.
AN EXPERT BEST WORKER TO OBSERVE.--The best worker to observe
for time study is he who is so skilled that he can perform a cycle
of prescribed standard motions automatically, without mental
concentration. This enables him to devote his entire mental activity
to deviating the one desired variable from the accepted cycle
of motions.
The difficulty in motion study and time study is not so often to
vary the variable being observed and studied, as it is to maintain
the other variables constant. Neither skill nor appreciation of what
is wanted is enough alone. The worker who is to be measured
successfully must
1. have the required skill.
2. understand the theory of what is being done.
3. be willing to coöperate.
EVERYONE SHOULD BE TRAINED IN BEING MEASURED.--Accurate
measurement of individuals, in actual practice, brings out the fact
that lamentably few persons are accustomed to be, or can readily be,
measured. It has been a great drawback to the advance of Scientific
Management that the moment a measurer of any kind is put on the
work, either a device to measure output or a man to measure or to
time reactions, motions, or output, the majority of the workers
become suspicious. Being unaccustomed to being measured, they think,
as is usually the case with things to which we are unaccustomed,
that there is something harmful to them in it. This feeling makes
necessary much explanation which in reality should not be needed.
The remedy for this condition is a proper training in youth.
A boy brought up with the fundamental idea of the importance of
measurement to all modern science, for all progress, accustomed to
being measured, understanding the "why" of the measuring, and the
results from it, will not hesitate or object, when he comes to the
work, to being measured in order that he may be put where it is best
for himself, as well as for the work, that he be put.
The importance of human measurement to vocational guidance and
to the training of the young for life work has never been properly
realized. Few people understand the importance of psychological
experiment as a factor in scientific vocational guidance. For this
alone, it will probably in time be a general custom to record and
keep as close track as possible of the psychological measurements of
the child during the period of education, vocational guidance and
apprenticeship. Not only this, but he also should be accustomed to
being measured, physically and psychologically, from his first
years, just as he is now accustomed to being weighed.
The child should be taught to measure himself, his faculties,
his reactions, his capabilities as compared with his former self and
as compared with the capabilities of others. It is most important
that the child should form a habit not only of measuring, but of
being measured.
MOTION STUDY AND TIME STUDY ARE THE METHOD OF MEASUREMENT UNDER
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Under Scientific Management, much measuring
is done by motion study and time study, which measure the relative
efficiency of various men, of various methods, or of various kinds
of equipment, surroundings, tools, etc. Their most important use is
as measuring devices of the men. They have great psychological value
in that they are founded on the "square deal" and the men know this
from the start. Being operated under laws, they are used the same
way on all sorts of work and on all men. As soon as the men really
understand this fact, and realize
1. that the results are applied to all men equally;
2. that all get an ample compensation for what
they do;
3. that under them general welfare is considered;
the objections to such study will vanish.
MOTION STUDY IS DETERMINING METHODS OF LEAST WASTE.--Motion
Study is the dividing of the elements of the work into the most
fundamental subdivisions possible; studying these fundamental units
separately and in relation to one another; and from these studied,
chosen units, when timed, building up methods of least waste.
TIME STUDY IS DETERMINING STANDARD UNIT TIMES.--Time study
consists of timing the elements of the best method known, and, from
these elementary unit times, synthesizing a standard time in which a
standard man can do a certain piece of work in accordance with the
finally accepted method.
Micro-motion study is timing sub-divisions, or elements of
motions by carrying out the principles of motion study to a greater
degree of accuracy by means of a motion picture camera, a clock that
will record different times of day in each picture of a moving
picture film together with a cross sectioned background and other
devices for assisting in measuring the relative efficiency and
wastefulness of motions. It also is the cheapest, quickest and more
accurate method of recording indisputable time study records. It has
the further advantage of being most useful in assisting the
instruction card man to devise methods of least waste.[11]
MOTION STUDY AND TIME STUDY MEASURE INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY.--
Motion Study and Time Study measure individual capacity or
efficiency by providing data from which standards can be made. These
standards made, the degree to which the individual approaches or
exceeds the standard can be determined.
MOTION STUDY AND TIME STUDY MEASURE METHODS.--Motion Study and
Time Study are devices for measuring methods. By their use, old
methods are "tried out," once and for all, and their relative value
in efficiency, determined. By their use, also, new methods are
"tried out." This is most important under Scientific Management.
Any new method suggested can be tested in a short time. Such
elements of it as have already been tested, can be valued at the
start, the new elements introduced can be motion studied and time
studied, and waste eliminated to as great an extent as possible,
with no loss of time or thought.
Under Scientific Management, the men who understand what motion
study and time study mean, know that their suggested methods will be
tested, not only fairly, but so effectively that they, and everyone
else, can know at once exactly the worth of their suggestions.
COMPARISON OF METHODS FOSTERS INVENTION.--The value of such
comparative study can be seen at a glance. When one such method
after another is tried out, not only can one tell quickly what a new
method is worth, but can also determine what it is worth compared to
all others which have been considered. This is because the study is
a study of elements, primarily, and not of methods as a whole. Not
only can suggested methods be estimated, but also new methods which
have never been suggested will become apparent themselves through
this study. Common elements, being at once classified and set aside,
the new ones will make themselves prominent, and better methods for
doing work will suggest themselves, especially to the inventive mind.
BOOKS OF PRELIMINARY DATA NEEDED.--In order that this
investigation may be best fostered, not only must books of standards
be published, but also books of preliminary data, which other
workers may attack if they desire, and where they can find common
elements. Such books of preliminary data are needed on all
subjects.[12]
MOTION STUDY AND TIME STUDY MEASURE EQUIPMENT AND TOOLS.--Time
and motion study are measuring devices for ascertaining relative
merits of different kinds of equipment, surroundings and tools.
Through them, the exact capacities of equipment or of a tool or
machine can be discovered at once, and also the relative value in
efficiency. Also motion study and time study determine exactly how a
tool or a piece of equipment can best be used.
In "On The Art of Cutting Metals" Dr. Taylor explains the effect
of such study on determining the amount of time that tools should be
used, the speed at which they should be used, the feed, and so
on.[13] This paper exemplifies more thoroughly than does anything
else ever written the value of Time Study, and the scientific manner
in which it is applied.
THE SCOPE OF TIME AND MOTION STUDY IS UNLIMITED.--It is a great
misfortune that the worker does not understand, as he should, that
motion study and time study apply not only to his work, but also to
the work of the managers. In order to get results from the start,
and paying results, it often happens that the work of the worker is
the first to be so studied, but when Scientific Management is in
full operation, the work of the managers is studied exactly to the
same extent, and set down exactly as accurately, as the work of the
worker himself. The worker should understand this from the start,
that he may become ready and willing to coöperate.
DETAILED RECORDS NECESSARY.--Motion study and time study records
must go into the greatest detail possible. If the observations are
hasty, misdirected or incomplete they may be quite unusable and
necessitate going through the expensive process of observation all
over again. Dr. Taylor has stated that during his earlier
experiences he was obliged to throw away a large quantity of time
study data, because they were not in sufficient detail and not
recorded completely enough to enable him to use them after a lapse
of a long period from the time of their first use. No system of time
study, and no individual piece of time study, can be considered a
success unless by its use at any time, when new, or after a lapse of
years, an accurate prediction of the amount of work a man can do can
be made.
All results attained should invariably be preserved, whether
they appear at the moment to be useful or valuable or not. In time
study in the past it has been found, as in the investigations of all
other sciences, that apparently unimportant details of today are of
vital importance years after, as a necessary step to attain, or
further proof of a discovery. This was exemplified in the case of
the shoveling experiment of Dr. Taylor. The laws came from what was
considered the unimportant portion of the data. There is little so
unimportant that time and motion study would not be valuable. Just
as it is a great help to the teacher to know the family history of
the student, so it is to the one who has to use time and motion
study data to know all possible of the hereditary traits,
environment and habits of the worker who was observed.
SPECIALIZED STUDY IMPERATIVE.--As an illustration of the field
for specialized investigation which motion study and time study
present, we may take the subject of fatigue. Motion Study and Time
Study aim to show,
1. the least fatiguing method of getting least waste.
2. the length of time required for a worker to do a
certain thing.
3. the amount of rest and the time of rest required to
overcome fatigue.
Dr. Taylor spent years in determining the percentage of rest
that should be allowed in several of the trades, beginning with
those where the making of output demands weight hanging on the arms;
but there is still a great amount of investigation that could be
done to advantage to determine the most advisable percentage of rest
in the working day of different lengths of hours. Such investigation
would probably show that many of our trades could do the same amount
of work in fewer hours, if the quantity and time of rest periods
were scientifically determined.
Again, there is a question of the length of each rest period. It
has been proven that in many classes of work, and especially in
those where the work is interrupted periodically by reason of its
peculiar nature, or by reason of inefficient performance in one of
the same sequence of dependent operations, alternate working and
resting periods are best. There is to be considered in this
connection, however, the recognized disadvantage of reconcentrating
the attention after these rest periods. Another thing to be
considered is that the rate of output does not decline from the
beginning of the day, but rather the high point of the curve
representing rate of production is at a time somewhat later than at
the starting point. The period before the point of maximum
efficiency is known as "warming up" among ball players, and is well
recognized in all athletic sports.
As for the point of minimum efficiency, or of greatest fatigue,
this varies for "morning workers," and "night workers." This
exemplifies yet another variable.
The minuteness of the sub-fields that demand observation, is
shown by an entry in the Psychological Index: "1202. Benedict, F.G.
"Studies in Body--Temperature." 1. Influence of the Inversion of the
Daily Routine; the Temperature of Night Workers."[14]
SELECTION OF BEST UNIT OF MEASUREMENT NECESSARY AND IMPORTANT.--
Selecting the unit of measurement that will of itself reduce costs
is a most important element in obtaining maximum efficiency.[15]
This is seldom realized.[16] Where possible, several units of
measurements should be used to check each other.[17] One alone may
be misleading, or put an incentive on the workers to give an
undesirable result.
The rule is,--always select that unit of output that will, of
itself, cause a reduction in costs.
For example:--In measuring the output of a concrete gang,
counting cement bags provides an incentive to use more cement than
the instruction card calls for. Counting the batches of concrete
dumped out of the mixer, provides an incentive to use rather smaller
quantities of broken stone and sand than the proportions call
for,--and, furthermore, does not put the incentive on the men to
spill no concrete in transportation, neither does it put an
incentive to use more lumps for Cyclopean concrete.
Measuring the quantity actually placed in the forms puts no
incentive to watch bulging forms closely.
While measuring outputs by all these different units of
measurements would be valuable to check up accuracy of proportions,
accuracy of stores account, and output records, the most important
unit of measurement for selection would be, "cubic feet of forms
filled," the general dimensions to be taken from the latest revised
engineer's drawings.
NECESSITY FOR CHECKING ERRORS.--Dr. Stratton says,--"No
measurements, whether they be psychic or physical, are exact beyond
a certain point, and the art of using them consists largely in
checks and counter checks, and in knowing how far the measurement is
reliable and where the doubtful zone begins."[18]
Capt. Metcalfe says,--"Errors of observation may be divided into
two general classes; the instrumental and those due to the personal
bias of the observer; the former referring to the standard itself,
and the latter to the application of the standard and the record of
the measurement."[19]
The concrete illustration given above is an example of careful
checking up. Under Scientific Management so many, and such careful
records are kept that detecting errors becomes part of the daily
routine.
SUMMARY
RESULTS OF MEASUREMENT TO THE WORK.--Under Traditional
Management, even the crudest measurement of output and cost usually
resulted in an increase in output. But there was no accuracy of
measurement of individual efficiency, nor was there provision made
to conserve results and make them permanently useful.
Under Transitory Management and measurement of individual
output, output increased and rewards for the higher output kept up
the standard.
UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT BETTER METHODS AND BETTER WORK
RESULTS.--Under Scientific Measurement, measurement of the work
itself determines
1. what kind of workers are needed.
2. how many workers are needed.
3. how best to use them.
Motion Study and Time Study measurement,--
1. divide the work into units.
2. measure each unit.
3. study the variables, or elements, one at a time.
4. furnish resulting timed elements to the synthesizer
of methods of least waste.
ACCURATE MEASURING DEVICES PREVENT BREAKDOWNS AND
ACCIDENTS.--The accurate measuring devices which accomplish
measurement under Scientific Management prevent breakdowns and
accidents to life and limb.
For example.--
1. The maintained tension on a belt bears a close relation to
its delay periods.
2. The speed of a buzz planer determines its liability to
shoot out pieces of wood to the injury of its operator,
or to injure bystanders.
Scientific Management, by determining and standardizing methods
and equipment both, provides for uninterrupted output.
EFFECT ON THE WORKER.--Under Traditional Management there is not
enough accurate measurement done to make its effect on the worker of
much value.
Under Transitory Management, as soon as individual outputs are
measured, the worker takes more interest in his work, and endeavors
to increase his output.
Under Scientific Management measurement of the worker tells
1. what the workers are capable of doing.
2. what function it will be best to assign them to and to
cultivate in them.
WASTE ELIMINATED BY ACCURATE MEASUREMENT.--This accurate
measurement increases the worker's efficiency in that it enables him
to eliminate waste. "Cut and try" methods are eliminated. There is
no need to test a dozen methods, a dozen men, a dozen systems of
routing, or various kinds of equipment more than once,--that one
time when they are scientifically tried out and measured. This
accurate measurement also eliminates disputes between manager and
worker as to what the latter's efficiency is.
EFFICIENCY MEASURED BY TIME AND MOTION STUDY.--Time and
Motion Study.
(a) measure the man by his work; that is, by the results
of his activities;
(b) measure him by his methods;
(c) measure him by his capacity to learn;
(d) measure him by his capacity to teach.
Now measurement by result alone is very stimulating to
increasing activities, especially when it shows, as it does under
Scientific Management, the relative results of various people doing
the same kind of work. But it does not, itself, show the worker
_how_ to obtain greater results without putting on more speed or
using up more activities. But when the worker's methods are
measured, he begins to see, for himself, exactly why and where he
has failed.
Scientific Management provides for him to be taught, and the
fact that he sees through the measurements exactly what he needs to
be taught will make him glad to have the teacher come and show him
how to do better. Through this teaching, its results, and the speed
with which the results come, the workers and the managers can see
how fast the worker is capable of learning, and, at the same time,
the worker, the teacher and the managers can see in how far the
foreman is capable of instructing.
FINAL OUTCOME BENEFICIAL TO MANAGERS AND MEN.--Through
measurement in Scientific Management, managers acquire--
1. ability to select men, methods, equipment, etc.;
2. ability to assign men to the work which they should do, to
prescribe the method which they shall use, and to reward
them for their output suitably;
3. ability to predict. On this ability to predict rests the
possibility of making calendars, chronological charts and
schedules, and of planning determining sequence of events, etc.,
which will be discussed at length later.
Ability to predict allows the managers to state "premature
truths," which the records show to be truths when the work has
been done.
It must not be forgotten that the managers are enabled not only
to predict what the men, equipment, machinery, etc., will do, but
what they can do themselves.
THE EFFECT ON THE MEN IS THAT THE WORKER CO-OPERATES.--1. The
worker's interest is held. The men know that the methods they are
using are the best. The exact measurements of efficiency of the
learner,--and under Scientific Management a man never ceases to be a
learner,--give him a continued interest in his work. It is
impossible to hold the attention of the intelligent worker to a
method or process that he does not believe to> be the most efficient
and least wasteful.
Motion study and time study are the most efficient measuring
device of the relative qualities of differing methods. They furnish
definite and exact proof to the worker as to the excellence of the
method that he is told to use. When he is convinced, lack of
interest due to his doubts and dissatisfaction is removed.
2. The worker's judgment is appealed to. The method that he uses
is the outcome of coöperation between him and the management. His
own judgment assures him that it is the best, up to that time, that
they, working together, have been able to discover.
3. The worker's reasoning powers are developed. Continuous
judging of records of efficiency develops high class, well developed
reasoning powers.
4. The worker fits his task, therefore there is no need of
adjustment, and his attitude toward his work is right.
5. There is elimination of soldiering, both natural and
systematic.[20]
ALL KNOWLEDGE BECOMES THE KNOWLEDGE OF ALL.--Two outcomes may be
confidently expected in the future, as they are already becoming
apparent where-ever Scientific Management is being introduced:
1. The worker will become more and more willing to impart his
knowledge to others. When the worker realizes that passing on his
trade secrets will not cause him to lose his position or, by raising
up a crowd of competitors, lower his wages, but will, on the
contrary, increase his wages and chances of promotion, he is ready
and willing to have his excellent methods standardized.
Desire to keep one's own secret, or one's own method a secret is
a very natural one. It stimulates interest, it stimulates pride. It
is only when, as in Scientific Management, the possessor of such a
secret may receive just compensation, recognition and honor for his
skill, and receive a position where he can become an appreciated
teacher of others that he is, or should be, willing to give up this
secret. Scientific Management, however, provides this opportunity
for him to teach, provides that he receives credit for what he has
done, and receive that publicity and fame which is his due, and
which will give him the same stimulus to work which the knowledge
that he had a secret skill gave him in the past.
One method of securing this publicity is by naming the device or
method after its inventor. This has been found to be successful not
only in satisfying the inventor, but in stimulating others to invent.
MEASUREMENT OF INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY WILL BE ENDORSED BY
ALL.--2. The worker will, ultimately, realize that it is for the
good of all, as well as for himself, that individual efficiency be
measured and rewarded.
It has been advanced as an argument against measurement that it
discriminates against the "weaker brother," who should have a right
to obtain the same pay as the stronger, for the reason that he has
equal needs for this pay to maintain life and for the support of
his family.
Putting aside at the moment the emotional side of this argument,
which is undoubtedly a strong side and a side worthy of
consideration, with much truth in it, and looking solely at the
logical side,--it cannot do the "weaker" brother any good in the
long run, and it does the world much harm, to have his work
overestimated. The day is coming, when the world will demand that
the quantity of the day's work shall be measured as accurately where
one sells labor, as where one sells sugar or flour. Then, pretending
that one's output is greater than it really is will be classed with
"divers weights and divers measures," with their false standards.
The day will come when the public will insist that the "weaker
brother's" output be measured to determine just how weak he is, and
whether it is weakness, unfitness for that particular job, or
laziness that is the cause of his output being low. When he reaches
a certain degree of weakness, he will be assisted with a definite
measured quantity of assistance. Thus the "weaker brother" may be
readily distinguished from the lazy, strong brother, and the brother
who is working at the wrong job. Measurement should certainly be
insisted on, in order to determine whether these strong brothers are
doing their full share, or whether they are causing the weaker
brothers to over-exert themselves.
No one who has investigated the subject properly can doubt that
it will be better for the world in general to have each man's
output, weak and strong, properly measured and estimated regardless
of whether the weak and strong are or are not paid the same wages.
The reason why the unions have had to insist that the work shall not
be measured and that the weaker brother's weakness shall not be
realized is, that in the industrial world the only brotherhood that
was recognized was the brotherhood between the workers, there being
a distinct antagonism between the worker and the manager and little
or no brotherhood of the public at large. When Scientific Management
does away, as it surely will, with this antagonism, by reason of the
coöperation which is its fundamental idea, then the workers will
show themselves glad to be measured.
As for the "weaker" brother idea, it is a natural result of such
ill treatment. It has become such a far-reaching emotion that even
Scientific Management, with its remedy for many ills, cannot expect
in a moment, or in a few years, to alter the emotional bias of the
multitudes of people who have held it for good and sufficient
reasons for generations.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD CONSERVE MEASUREMENT DATA.--The one thing
which can permanently alter this feeling forms the natural
conclusion to this chapter. That is, measurements in general and
motion study and time study in particular must become a matter of
government investigation. When the government has taken over the
investigation and established a bureau where such data as Scientific
Management discovers is collected and kept on file for all who will
to use, then the possessor of the secret will feel that it can
safely place the welfare of its "weaker brothers" in the hands of a
body which is founded and operates on the idea of the "square deal."
APPRECIATION OF TIME STUDY BY WORKERS THE FIRST STEP.--The first
step of the workers in this direction must be the appreciation of
time study, for on time study hangs the entire subject of Scientific
Management. It is this great discovery by Dr. Taylor that makes the
elimination of waste possible. It has come to stay. Many labor
leaders are opposed to it, but the wise thing for them to do is to
study, foster and cultivate it. They cannot stop its progress. There
is no thing that can stop it. The modern managers will obtain it,
and the only way to prevent it from being used by unscrupulous
managers is for the workman also to learn the facts of time study.
It is of the utmost importance to the workers of the country, for
their own protection, that they be as familiar with time study data
as the managers are. Time study is the foundation and frame work of
rate setting and fixing, and certainly the subject of rate fixing is
the most important subject there is to the workmen, whether they are
working on day work, piece work, premium, differential rate piece,
task with bonus, or three-rate system.
Dr. Taylor has proved by time study that many of the customary
working days are too long, that the same amount of output can be
achieved in fewer hours per day. Time study affords the means for
the only scientific proof that many trades fatigue the workers
beyond their endurance and strength. Time study is the one means by
which the workers can prove the real facts of their unfortunate
condition under the Traditional plan of management.
The workers of the country should be the very ones that should
insist upon the government taking the matter in hand for scientific
investigation. Knowledge is power,--a rule with no exception, and
the knowledge of scientific time study would prepare the workers of
any trade, and would provide their intelligent leaders with data for
accurate decisions for legislation and other steps for their best
interests. The national bodies should hire experts to represent them
and to coöperate with the government bureau in applying science to
their life work.
The day is fast approaching when makers of machinery will have
the best method of operating their machines micro-motion studied and
cyclegraphed and description of methods of operation in accordance
with such records will be everywhere considered as a part of the
"makers' directions for using."
Furthermore associations of manufacturers will establish
laboratories for determining methods of least waste by means of
motion study, time study and micro-motion study, and the findings of
such laboratories will be put in standardized shape for use by all
its members. The trend today shows that soon there will be hundreds
of books of time study tables. The government must sooner or later
save the waste resulting from this useless duplication of efforts.
CHAPTER IV FOOTNOTES: ==============================================
1. Hugo Münsterberg, _American Problems,_ p. 34.
2. G.M. Stratton, _Experimental Psychology and Its Bearing upon
Culture_, p. 37.
3. _Ibid_., p. 38.
4. For apparatus for psychological experiment see Stratton, p. 38,
p. 171, p. 265.
5. H.L. Gantt, _Work, Wages and Profits,_ p. 15.
6. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Bulletin No. 5, _The Carnegie Foundation
for the Advancement of Teaching,_ p. 7.
7. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management,_ para. 29. Harper Ed., p. 25.
8. H.L. Gantt, Paper No. 928, A.S.M.E., para. 6.
9. F.B. Gilbreth, _Cost Reducing System_.
10. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 61. Harper Ed., p. 33.
11. _Industrial Engineering_, Jan., 1913.
12. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, pp. 398-391. Harper Ed., p. 179.
Compare, U.S. Bulletin of Agriculture No. 208. _The Influence of
Muscular and Mental Work on Metabolism_.
13. President's Annual Address, Dec., 1906. Vol. 28, Transactions
A.S.M.E.
14. _American Journal of Physiology_, 1904, XI, pp. 145-170.
15. R.T. Dana, For Construction Service Co., _Handbook of Steam
Shovel Work_, p. 161. H.P. Gillette, Vol. I, p. 71, A.S.E.C.
16. F.W. Taylor, Vol. 28, A.S.M.E., Paper 1119, para. 68.
17. Hugo Münsterberg, _American Problems_, p. 37.
18. G.M. Stratton, _Experimental Psychology and Culture_, p. 59.
19. Henry Metcalfe, _Cost of Manufactures_.
20. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 46. Harper Ed., p. 30.
F.W. Taylor, _A Piece Rate System_, Paper 647, A.S.M.E.,
para. 22.
====================================================================
CHAPTER V
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS
DEFINITION OF ANALYSIS.--"Analysis," says the Century Dictionary
is "the resolution or separation of anything which is compound, as a
conception, a sentence, a material substance or an event, into its
constituent elements or into its causes;" that is to say, analysis
is the division of the thing under consideration into its definite
cause, and into its definite parts or elements, and the explanation
of the principle upon which such division is made.[1]
DEFINITION OF SYNTHESIS.--"Synthesis" is, "a putting of two or
more things together; composition; specifically, the combination of
separate elements of objects of thought into a whole, as of simple
into compound or complex conceptions, and individual propositions
into a system."
USE OF ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS BY PSYCHOLOGY.--Analysis is
defined by Sully as follows: "Analysis" is "taking apart more
complex processes in order to single out for special inspection
their several constituent processes."
He divides elements of thought activity into two
"(a) analysis: abstraction
(b) synthesis: comparison."
Speaking of the latter, he says, "The clear explicit detachment
in thought of the common elements which comparison secures allows of
a new reconstructive synthesis of things as made up of particular
groupings of a number of general qualities."
PLACE OF ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS IN MANAGEMENT.--Any study of
management which aims to prove that management may be, and under
Scientific Management is, a science, must investigate its use of
analysis and of synthesis.[2] Upon the degree and perfection of the
analysis depends the permanent value and usefulness of the knowledge
gained. Upon the synthesis, and what it includes and excludes,
depends the efficiency of the results deduced.
LITTLE ANALYSIS OR SYNTHESIS UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--
Under Traditional Management analysis and synthesis are so seldom
present as to be negligible. Success or failure are seldom if ever
so studied and measured that the causes are well understood.
Therefore, no standards for future work that are of any value can be
established. It need only be added that one reason why Traditional
Management makes so little progress is because it makes no analyses
that are of permanent value. What data it has are available for
immediate use only. Practically every man who does the work must
"start at the beginning," for himself. If this is often true of
entire methods, it is even more true of elements of methods. As
elements are not studied and recorded separately, they are not
recognized when they appear again, and the resultant waste is
appalling. This waste is inevitable with the lack of coöperation
under Traditional Management and the fact that each worker plans the
greater part of his work for himself.
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS APPEAR LATE IN TRANSITORY MANAGEMENT.--
Division of output appears early in Transitory Management, but it is
usually not until a late stage that motion study and time study are
conducted so successfully that scientifically determined and timed
elements can be constructed into standards. As everything that is
attempted in the line of analysis and synthesis under Transitory
Management is done scientifically under Scientific Management, we
may avoid repetition by considering Scientific Management at once.
RELATION OF ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO
MEASUREMENT AND STANDARDIZATION.--Analysis considers the subject
that is to be measured,--be it individual action or output of any
kind,--and divides it into such a number of parts, and parts of such
a nature, as will best suit the purpose for which the measurement is
taken. When these subdivisions have been measured, synthesis
combines them into a whole.[3] Under Scientific Management, through
the measurements used, synthesis is a combination of those elements
which are necessary only, and which have been proven to be most
efficient. The result of the synthesis is standardized, and used
until a more accurate standard displaces it.
Under Scientific Management analysis and synthesis are methods
of determining standards from available knowledge. Measurement
furnishes the means.
ANALYST'S WORK IS DIVISION.--It is the duty of the analyst to
divide the work that he is set to study into the minutest divisions
possible. What is possible is determined by the time and money that
can be set aside for the investigation.
THE NATURE OF THE WORK MUST DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF ANALYSIS
PRACTICABLE.--In determining the amount of time and money required,
it is necessary to consider--
1. the cost of the work if done with no special study.
2. how many times the work is likely to be repeated.
3. how many elements that it contains are likely to be
similar to elements in work that has already been studied.
4. how many new elements that it contains are likely to be
available in subsequent work.
5. the probable cost of the work after it has been studied--
(a) the cost of doing it.
(b) the cost of the investigation.
6. The loss, if any, from delaying the work until after it
has been studied.
7. the availability of trained observers and measurers,
analysts and synthesists.
8. the available money for carrying on the investigations.
These questions at least must be answered before it is possible
to decide whether study shall be made or not, and to what degree it
can be carried.
COST THE DETERMINING FACTOR.--It is obvious that in all
observation in the industrial world cost must be the principal
determining feature. Once the cost can be estimated, and the amount
of money that can be allowed for the investigation determined, it is
possible at least to approximate satisfactory answers to the other
questions. How closely the answers approximate depends largely on
the skill and experience of the analyst.
The greater number of times the work is to be repeated, the less
the ultimate cost. The more elements contained similar to elements
al
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