SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT A History and Criticism BY HORACE BOOKWALTER DRURY Instructor in Economics and Sociology The Ohio State University SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK 1915 COPYRIGHT, 1915 BY HORACE BOOKWALTER DRURY TO A. W. D. AND S. B. D. 311.450 PREFACE THIS monograph has been written under the super- vision of Professor Henry R. Seager, who suggested the field to be covered, and brightened the way by his en- couragement. From his teaching and counsel arose the wish to treat the subject from the broadly-social point of view. Most of the men whose work is described in the fol- lowing pages have given me more or less of their time. But my debt on this score is mainly to Robert T. Kent, editor of Industrial Engineering. He has been my most useful guide as to the personalities and concrete events which constitute the real scientific management. My friend, Mr. E. F. Simonds, gave indispensable as- sistance in the preparation of the first draft. I have recently profited by a number of suggestions offered by Dr. Carl E. Parry, of the Ohio State University, who read most of the manuscript. HORACE B. DRURY. OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, March 9, 1915. 281] 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I A HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT CHAPTER I PACK THE MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT . 15 / i. The Origin of the Term 15 ) 2. The Movement Briefly Described 22 \ 3. The Boundaries of Scientific Management 27 Vx CHAPTER II EARLY ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 30 1. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers 31 2. The Wages Problem 32 3. Profit Sharing 36 4. Henry R. To wne's "Gain- Sharing" 38 5. Frederick A. Halsey's " Premium Plan " 41 6. The " Rowan Plan " t 50 CHAPTER III THE GENESIS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 53 1. The First Scientific Management 54 a. Elementary Time Study 56 b. The Differential Rate 59 c. Conclusions 63 2. The Scope of Scientific Management Enlarged 65 a. The First Phase of Complete Scientific Management : Securing the Initiative of the Workmen 66 283] 9 I0 TABLE OF CONTENTS [284 PACK b. The Second Phase of Complete Scientific Management : Improving Methods of Work 69 1 I ) Standardization of Tools and Equipment 69 (2) Routing and Scheduling 71 (3) Instruction Cards 73 (4) Motion Study 77 (5) Selection of Workmen 79 (6) Supplies 80 (7) Conclusions < 81 c. The Third Phase of Complete Scientific Management : Organization 82 3. Conclusion : The Genesis of the Principles of Scientific Management . . 87 CHAPTER IV LIVES OF THE LEADERS Including certain Contributions to the Enrich - ment of Scientific Management , 88 1. Frederick Winslow Taylor 88 2. Henry L. Gantt 92 3. Carl G. Earth 96 4. Horace K. Hathaway 99 5. Morris L. Cooke 101 6. Sanford E. Thompson 106 7. Frank B. Gilbreth 108 8. Harrington Emerson 113 9. The Scientific-Management Men as a Body 117 CHAPTER V A SURVEY OF THE TRADES AND PLANTS IN WHICH SCIENTIFIC MANAGE- MENT HAS BEEN INTRODUCED 1 20 1. The Present Status of the Historic Illustrations of Scientific Manage- ment , . . . 1 20 a. The Midvale Steel Company 120 b. The Bethlehem Steel Company 120 c. Bicycle-Ball-Bearing Inspection 124 d. Bricklaying , 125 e. The Santa Fe 126 f. Conclusions as to the Past of Scientific Management 129 2. A Study of Several Installations of Contemporary Importance .... 130 a. The Tabor Manufacturing Company 130 b. The Link-Belt Company 134 c. The Watertown Arsenal 138 d. The Cotton Industry , 141 3. Extent of the Introduction of Scientific Management 144 285 ] TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 1 PART II A CRITICAL REVIEW OF IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT PACK CHAPTER VI THE PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 153 1. The Value of the Initiative of Workmen 153 2. The Extent to which Planning may be Profitably Carried 157 3. The Place of Organization in Scientific Management 161 4. How Much can Scientific Management Increase the National Income? 163 CHAPTER VII SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AS A SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM ... 169 1. The Views of the Organization Experts with Respect to Trade Unions . 170 2. A Sketch of the Relations between Scientific Management and Organ- ized Labor 175 3. Is Scientific Management a Satisfactory Substitute for the Collective Bargain? 178 a. Scientific Management Removes from Labor Some Incentives towards Organization 179 b. Scientific Management, However, Does Not Adequately Perform the Functions of the Collective Bargain 181 4. The Possibility of Coordinating Trade Unionism and Scientific Manage- ment . . . 185 CHAPTER VIII THE HUMAN SIDE 188 1. The Charge that Employees are Overworked 189 2. The Charge that Men are made Automatons 195 3. Promotion Skill Wages 199 4. The Humanizing of Management 202 CHAPTER IX OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS 205 1. Scientific Management But One Factor in Social Life 205 2. The Larger Significance of Scientific Management 207 3. The Originality of Scientific Management 210 4. The Future , 214 INDEX 217 PART I A HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT CHAPTER I THE MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT I. THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM THE significance which has come to be associated with the words scientific management may be traced to an event which occurred in the latter part of 1910. In the early summer of that year, the railroads of the United States north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers and east of the Mississippi had filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission new freight tariffs, so framed as to involve a general and considerable advance in rates. The Interstate Commerce Commission had, on July 13, instituted an inquiry into the reasonableness of the pro- posed advances, and there had then followed in Septem- ber, October, and November a series of hearings. The vast sums of money involved, and the fact that the im- pending decision might become an important prece- dent, led to a contest of extraordinary intensity on the part of both the railroads and their opponents, the shippers. It happened that Louis D. Brandeis had assumed the leading position among the fifteen or twenty attorneys lined up against the proposed advances. The railroads, upon whom the law had placed the burden of proof, had maintained that the advances were necessitated by an in- crease in operating costs, due mainly to a recent rise in wages. Wages, they pleaded, make up nearly one-half 289] 15 !6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [290 of the total cost of railroad operation ; and wages had been advanced in the spring of 1910 by from five to eight per cent. Therefore the railroads must receive greater revenue; or they would not have funds enough to make desired improvements, or the credit requisite for the successful flotation of their securities. In the face of these arguments, Mr. Brandeis dramatically took the aggressive, and striking out on a novel and unex- pected tack, he declared that there was a means by which the railroads could raise wages, and at the same time instead of increasing costs actually reduce them. This system, which meant high wages and low labor-cost, he called scientific management. Where did Mr. Brandeis find scientific management? It may be stated that, prior to November, 1910, there was nothing which was generally known by that title. The actual principles of the industrial system which Brandeis had in mind had indeed been in process of forma- tion for about thirty years ; but " scientific management, " the name, had not yet become an all-embracing slogan. Research shows some adoption of the parts of this phrase : the word "management " had been very commonly used, as in the phrase " modern management ;" and " sci- entific " also was a favorite term. Even the combination, " scientific management," had occurred fortuitously in the writings of Frederick W. Taylor, the great leader in the movement, as early as 1903. x It is said, too, that the full expression was, at a later date, designedly used by Taylor in explaining his ideas to visitors at Chestnut Hill, Phila- delphia. But these instances are cited merely by way of exception ; there were other real names for the system "Shop Management," Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xxiv, p. 1366. 291] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ^ names more precise and much more common. " Scien- tific management " had a definite meaning for few per- sons, if any. Nor was this general ignorance merely one of words. The idea back of the new movement was itself unfamiliar to most persons. The essentials of scientific manage- ment had indeed been presented to an inner circle in papers read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; while a considerably wider public had noted the results of its application on the Santa Fe railroad. But there was not, as later, a widespread popular move- ment, nor any general acquaintance with either principles or results. Such was the situation when Mr. Brandeis happened to be retained by a manufacturer 1 whose plant was operat- ing under the plan, today known by the name of scientific management, but then unchristened. Brandeis, after studying the plant's organization, had become convinced of its intrinsic merit. When therefore the railroads ad- vanced the plea outlined above, he determined to propose, as an alternate solution of their dilemma, the adoption of the new principles : he made preparation to put on the witness stand some ten of the leading men connected with the movement. As a preliminary step along this line, Mr. Brandeis called together several of his prospective witnesses for the purpose of working out a plan of presentation. He desired that they should reach an agreement whereby the same things should always be called by the same names, and that most important of all a single term might be found which would apply to the system as a whole. This word or phrase should properly describe the system, 'The late W. H. McElwain, shoe manufacturer. l8 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [292 and at the same time appeal to the imagination. The conference, held in the month of October, 1910, included five or six persons. After those present had considered the merits of about half a dozen different phrases, all agreed that, for the purpose of the hearings, the term "scientific management " should officially designate the system. 1 The witnesses were introduced on the afternoon of November 21, and the hearing of their testimony, to- gether with cross-examination, took up almost all of two days and a half. The witnesses testified that in their experience the application of scientific management whether to the handling of pig iron, the shoveling of coal, bricklaying, or machinery manufacture had in- creased the output per workman to at least two or three times its former volume. Especially startling was the statement of Harrington Emerson that the railroads of the United States might save $1,000,000 a day by paying greater attention to efficiency of operation. Early in January following Mr. Brandeis submitted a long brief, about half of which was devoted to the subject of scien- tific management. A few days later his final oral argu- ment on this topic was delivered before the commission. The effect of the insertion of the scientific-management argument into the rate-hearings contest was felt almost instantaneously by the whole country. Only a few days after the introduction of the evidence, the early Decem- ber reviews 2 of current events gave great space to the l This meeting, held at the apartments of H. L. Gantt, was, accord- ing to R. T. Kent, attended by Louis D. Brandeis, Henry L. Gantt, Frank B. Gilbreth, Henry V. Sheel, and Robert T. Kent. We are told by Mr. Brandeis that among the names sug-gested were "Taylor Sys- tem," "Functional Management," "Shop Management," and "Effi- ciency." 2 See Outlook and Survey for Dec. 3, 1910. 293] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT T g dramatic testimony of some of the witnesses. By Janu- ary, one of the leading railroad journals * had begun a series of articles' in which the railroads were defended against the implication that they were inefficiently man- aged. And through January, February, March, and every month of 1911, the periodical press, popular as well as technical, was filled with explanation after expla- nation as to what scientific management is, why it is good, or why it is worthless. By the fall of 1911, Dart- mouth College had arranged for a conference to spread information as to the merits of scientific management ; 2 while on the other hand, owing to the demands of or- ganized labor, a special House committee was inquiring as to whether Congress should forbid the system in the government service. 3 In March, 1912, an efficiency so- ciety 4 was organized in New York City for the specific purpose of applying the principles of efficiency in every department of life. And by the time of writing this treatise many of the leading universities have established courses on scientific management. 5 The vision of the 1 Railway Age Gazette, Jan. -July, 1911. 2 See Addresses and Discussions at the Conference on Scientific Man- agement held Oct. 12, 13, 14, 1911. First Tuck School Conference, Dartmouth College Conferences. Published by the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, Dartmouth College, 1912. - 3 This committee was composed of Wm. B. Wilson, chairman, Wm. C. Redfield, and JohnQ. Tilson. See House of Representatives'. Report no. 403, 62d Congress, 2d Session, for the committee's guarded ap- proval of some and condemnation of other of the features of scientific management. Also see 'Hearings before Special Committee of the House of Representatives to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Managemeut, published in three volumes by the Government Printing Office in 1912. 4 Later incorporated as The Efficiency Society, Incorporated. 5 To mention a few, Harvard, Columbia, New York University, Syr- acuse, and Pennsylvania State are known to have introduced special 20 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [294 movement is suggested by the statement of a Harvard instructor 1 to the effect that scientific management seems " to be the most important problem from the practical and theoretical point of view now before the industrial world." Significant also is the exhaustive treatment of scientific management in a series of ad- dresses delivered before the Western Economic Associa- tion, and published in the Journal of Political Economy in May, June, and July, 1913. In order to place before the eye further and final proof that it was the rate-hearings episode which introduced scientific management to the public, a statistical analysis has been made : The yearly output of accessible periodical contributions whose titles have contained the term " scientific manage- ment' ' 2 has been counted, and found to be Prior to the rate-advance hearings . . None During December, 1910 .... 2 During 1911 26 During 1912 14 These figures, which tell the story of the discovery of scientific management, are based upon a comprehensive bibliography of the " efficiency " literature appearing between 1898 and 1913. 3 series of lectures or regular courses along the general lines of scientific management ; while portions of the literature and some of the principles of scientific management are introduced into courses in economics or engineering very generally. 1 C. Bertrand Thompson. * Or ' ' science of management. ' ' 3 " Select list of references on scientific management and efficiency," compiled under the direction of H. H. B. Meyer, chief bibliographer, Library of Congress, and published in the " Efficiency Number " (May, 1913) of Special Libraries. 295] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 2I That not only the name " scientific management, " but the idea as well, became public property because of the rate-hearings contest, is statistically demonstrated by the enormous growth in the total literature on " efficiency, " which occurred immediately after and because of the hear- ings: All Periodical Articles on Efficiency Subjects.^ 1907 8 1910 (6 of these in December,) 15 1908 -5 I9*i 59 1909 7 1912 .... 38 Since many articles are about scientific management, but do not contain the term in the title, as a means of meas- uring the strength of the scientific-management move- ment this last table is more serviceable than the first. The rate-advance hearings have now been treated at suf- ficient length to give the important result for the purpose of obtaining which the topic was introduced. The sub- ject was taken up because it was deemed advantageous to determine at the outset just what is meant by scien- tific management. The foregoing paragraphs have made it clear, it is hoped, that if we wish to know what the term embraces, we must approach the subject from the point of view of Mr. Brandeis and the group who testified before the Interstate Commerce Commission. These were the men who first gave currency to the words " sci- entific management ;" it was their account of it which led to the recent wave of public interest, their inter- pretation which determined the public's conception as to the meaning of the expression. 2 1 Meyer, op cit. \r 2 The scientific-management movement may therefore be regarded as pretty well defined by the thirteen names which, in one connection or 22 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [296 2. THE MOVEMENT BRIEFLY DESCRIBED The roots of scientific management are to be found in the life and thought of the late Frederick W. Taylor. 1 Mr. Taylor, who had been a machinist and then a gang-boss in the employ of the Midvale Steel Company of Philadel- another, creep into Mr. Brandeis' brief as those of persons identified with the system. Frederick W. Taylor is named as the discoverer of the earlier principles. From correspondence with Mr. Brandeis we learn that he shares the common view that " Mr. Taylor's contribution was of course greater than any other." As early associates of Taylor, Brandeis mentions H. L. Gantt and C. G. Earth. As experts who en- tered the field slightly later, he called as witnesses H. K. Hathaway, F. B. Gilbreth, and Harrington Emerson. As supervisors of plants where scientific management has been a notable success, may be classi- fied H. V. Sheel and H. P. Kendall; as officers of corporations where scientific management has been installed, H. R. Towne and J. M. Dodge; as editors who have written about scientific management, R. T. Kent and J. B. Going. The name of J. H. Williams, who had intro- duced certain features of scientific management in a unionized printing establishment, completes the list. This ample list gives us our bearings. The remainder of this treatise will be a study, based upon a variety of sources, of the system which, in view of these names, we understand to be scientific management. In spite of the brilliancy of Mr. Brandeis' campaign, that part of his argument which dealt with scientific management seems to have had little effect upon the Interstate Commerce Commission. In a report covering 64 pages the commission dismissed the subject of scientific management in two short paragraphs with the remark that the system was everywhere in an experimental stage, and that it had not been shown that these methods could be introduced into railroad operation to any considerable extent. The commission indeed decided against per- mitting an advance. But the main reason given was this : that the net earnings of the roads had been so liberal in the past that they could allow the men higher wages and still pay adequate dividends. The general question of efficiency of operation seems to have come in as an alternate consideration of rather secondary importance. The commission warned the railroads that, even if they should find in the future that their reve- nues were indeed inadequate, it would then devolve upon them to ex- plain away the commission's impression that they had not been giving sufficient attention to economy of operation, nor adopted the superior methods used in competitive (non-monopolistic) industry. J Died March 21, 1915. 297] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 2 $ phia, was promoted in 1882 to the position of machine- shop foreman. During his experience as a workman, Taylor had been constantly impressed by the failure of his neighbors to produce more than about one-third of a good day's work. Wages in the Midvale shop were on a piece-work basis, and the men were afraid to let the management guess how large a product they could really turn out because it might mean a cut. This tendency on the part of the workmen had resulted in a war be- tween Taylor, the gang-boss, who was trying to induce the men to work faster, and the workmen under him, who were determined that by fair means or foul they would avoid working faster. As a result of this struggle, life to Taylor had become hardly worth living. Accord- ingly, shortly after he was given the greater authority of foreman, he determined to work out some system of management by which the interests of the workmen and of the management would be made the same. The burning thought that possessed the mind of Mr. Taylor in those days was this that the difficulty at the root of the whole matter was lack of knowledge as to what actually constituted a day's work. How could the men be held accountable for their full duty when the management had no idea of a man's capacity? Accord- ingly, the first thing which Taylor tried to do was to remove all obscurity on this point by making a scientific study of the time which it necessarily takes to do work. The thoroughness and persistence with which he applied himself to the accomplishment of this task is eloquently vouched for by the fact that in the one field of cutting metals he carried on research for twenty-six years and at a cost of $150,000 or $200,000. But all this study in itself did nothing more than clear the way. The task having been determined, the next 24 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [298 important thing was to make sure that it was performed. Ir High pay for success, loss in case of failure these were the two sides of the system by which Mr. Taylor pro- posed to push the workman from beneath and allure him from above, until it would be at once his necessity and his joy to make production leap forward and upward to the maximum. So there came from the earliest days to be associated with the name "scientific management," the principle of the differential rate, a scheme which remained a favorite with scientific-management votaries until the invention of the bonus and other devices, which accom- plish the same purpose in a somewhat different way. This effort to arouse the initiative of the workman and provide a means by which it becomes to his advantage to do his best constitutes, historically speaking, the first phase of scientific management. A second side began to be practiced simultaneously with the first, but received no great recognition in and for itself until the late nine- ties. This second aspect of scientific management is the effort to control, not the quantity of effort on the part of the workman, but the manner in which the work is done. Standardization of tools and equipment, routing and scheduling, the issuance of instruction cards to the men, the training of the employee in the most improved and scientific ways of performing his work, the selection of men for jobs for which their physical and mental make-up peculiarly fits them, more satisfactory systems for the management of stores all these are features which originated incidentally in the course of pursuing the first aim of scientific management ; but the incidental advantage resulting from their application has become so great that to-day these activities assume much prom- inence for their own sake. As the third and last phase of scientific management, 299] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 2 $ we shall regard modifications of organization. Changes in organization were necessitated by the enlargement of the functions undertaken by the management. As a matter of fact a novel type of management has been evolved which has become quite distinctive. 1 Mr. Taylor early began to gather about himself a group of disciples. These disciples, though inspired in large measure by the vision and courage of their leader, were yet more than mere imitators. Taylor, in spite of his warm championship of practice as over against theory, was himself a man of great ideas ideas which were consider- ably in advance of what had yet been fully worked out. It was largly as aids in putting these ideas into practice that his followers have made their impress upon scientific management. Not only in the practical administration 1 Worth noting, but rather unclassifiable, is another aspect of scientific management much emphasized in recent years. It is held that scientific management produces a complete revolution in the mental attitude of workingmen and management, the one' towards the other. Instead of spending strength fighting for the biggest share of the surplus earnings, as under other systems, the two groups enter into friendly cooperation and mutual help, and thus turn all their attention to the task of making the surplus so enormously great that there is enough for all. The greater part of this " mental revolution " we would classify as a by-product growing out of the first phase of scientific management wherein the system aims to so adjust wages that it will be to the inter- est of all to enlarge the output. However, in this Mr. Taylor and his associates would perhaps not concur. They seem to regard the new spirit (especially on the management's side) as an original cause, as well as a result of their smoothly-working system. The mental change, they declare, is the essence, while the mechanical features are but use- ful adjuncts. They frequently minimize the importance of devices such as time study, wage-payment schemes, instruction cards, and improved organization. Valuable though "harmony" may be, it seems to us too intangible and too general an idea for any one group to regard it as the basis of its industrial system. Only when an ideal has become a plan, do we have a system. 2 6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [300 of plants, but also in developing the more subtle math- ematical laws governing the operation of machines, and in applying new principles to wage systems and manage- ment in general, have these associates molded the outer form of, and given fuller content to the Taylor science of management. The first colleague of Taylor was Henry L. Gantt, in- ventor of the bojaus system, and today generally known as the surest result-getter of the men who are introducing scientific management. A dozen years later, but still among the earlier men, came Carl G. Barth, mathema- tician, and inventor of the slide rule. With these names may be associated H. K. Hathaway, famous for his skill in perfecting scientific management for the Tabor Manu- facturing Company, and the eminent and versatile Morris L. Cooke, director of public works for the city of Philadelphia. Sanford E. Thompson performed pioneer work in extending the principles of scientific manage- ment from the machine shop into the building trades ; while, a few years ago, Frank B. Gilbreth won great admiration by his display of genius in the reorganization of bricklaying. Finally may be mentioned Harrington Emerson who, in addition to his commercial activities, has had much to do with making " efficiency " an every- day word. To go into details as to the extent to which these men have applied scientific management would be to draw out unduly this preliminary sketch, and steal from the chapters which are to follow their proper material. However, it may give definiteness to our conception of scientific management to mention a few of the more notable examples of its introduction. After the early in- novations at Midvale, the next important scene of ad- vance was at the plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company, 301 ] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 27 where from 1898 to 1901, as a result of the combined efforts of the leading scientific-management practitioners of the day, epoch-making progress was made. It was here that the interesting studies of pig-iron handling and shoveling were made. It was during this period that the Taylor-White high-speed steel was developed, and that the Barth slide rule was invented. It was at the Bethlehem shops that the Gantt bonus system was evolved. The most important development of scientific management in the last ten years has been in the plants of the Tabor Manufacturing Company and the Link-Belt Company, both of Philadelphia. Scientific management has now, however, grown too large for the limits of any one plant or trade. Besides its introduction into ma- chine shops and the building trades, scientific manage- ment has been applied in the textile industry, the print- ing industry, and so many others that the list grows monotonous. Of special interest to the public has been the introduction by Harrington Emerson of certain of the principles of scientific management in the shops of the Santa Fe railway, and its installation by the United States government at the Watertown Arsenal. 3. THE BOUNDARIES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT The description of the preceding sections may now be followed by some conclusions as to the boundaries of sci- entific management. In the first place, the system may be set down as confined to that one side of human life wherein men cooperate to attain industrial ends. The goal is usually material wealth; the actors must include a leader and a team of followers; the typical habitat of the system is, in short, the shop, the office, or the gang of laborers. 1 1 It is not meant to imply here that many suggestions cannot be drawn 2 g SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [-502 Secondly, the horizon of scientific management may be further limited to that one phase of shop or industrial life which has to do with the control of men. Ruled out entirely are all considerations as to commercial policy that is, programs for buying and selling, or decisions as to what goods shall be manufactured. Excluded from scientific management, also, is the financial aspect of business that is, that which has to do with the relations of a company with its stockholders, the borrowing of funds, and the keeping of accounts. To one side, more- over, lie problems connected with the technique of pro- duction ; that is, scientific management does not primarily concern itself with those aspects of chemistry, physics, and mechanical engineering, which determine the pro- cesses of manufacture. 1 Finally, may we venture once again to narrow the scope of our subject, and conclude that scientific man- agement's position is that of but one of the many move- ments which aim to improve the relations of management and men. Scientific management we regard as an histor- from scientific management for application by the individual for in- stance in medical work or in housekeeping. Our topic, however, is historical scientific management. And in the past the origin and important development of scientific management has been in the indus- trial field. For the promise of important influence in other fields, see Christine Frederick, The New Housekeeping, and Morris L. Cooke's report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on Academic and Industrial Efficiency (bulletin number five) . Such movements, however, are essentially an extension of scientific manage- ment, and beyond the special scope of this monograph. Cooke's report is discussed, infra, ch. iv, sec. 5. Scientific management must, of course, take all these other fields into consideration ; and often marked improvement is attained in them because of the method of scientific management. The handling of men, however, is the system's first consideration, and its main reason for existence. 303] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 2 $ ical entity, something concrete, whose presence can be detected and verified by the observation of distinctive accompanying features. In the last analysis, "scientific management " is not a jrent deal more comprehensive than "the Taylor system." Thus, neither all science, nor all management, nor all management that is scientific, forms the theme of this treatise. But that the special movement with which the monograph deals is worthy of consideration, we trust that no one who reads the following pages will gainsay. CHAPTER II EARLY ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM THE present chapter is introduced mainly to prepare the way for a discussion of the genesis of scientific man- agement in Chapter III. The angle from which the genesis of scientific manage- ment will be viewed in these two chapters will be some- what different from the rather personal viewpoint which prevailed in the earlier sketch of Frederick W. Taylor. Not only will the discussion of origins be much fuller here; but also, to our narration of what went on in Taylor's life, there will be added a portrayal of some things which were occurring in a larger field. This larger field was the membership of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Taylor, as well as all the other individuals who have been especially prominent in the scientific-management movement, have been members of this society. It was in papers read before its meetings that all the important contributions to the theory of sci- entific management were made. It will be our policy, in short, in discussing the genesis of the system, to treat its origin as the culmination of a succession of efforts on the part of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to solve a certain problem. This method of dealing with the matter does not in the least detract from the credit due to Taylor ; for, as we shall see, it was the con- tribution of Taylor which did most to shape the attitude taken by the society. 30 [304 305] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM ^l I. THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS The American Society of Mechanical Engineers was organized in 1880, and in 1884 adopted a set of rules in which it was declared that the object of the society was " to promote the Arts and Sciences connected with Engineering and Mechanical Construction." The first thing, therefore, which must be explained in accounting for the genesis of scientific management from within the membership of this body is why a society founded to promote engineering technique should have launched out into a consideration of problems of management. The reasons for this enlargement of function, and the proposal that it be attempted, are contained in a paper read before the society in 1886 by Henry R. Towne, and entitled, " The Engineer as an Economist." x The sub- stance of the argument is as follows : The final value of the work of a mechanical engineer depends on whether or not the employer makes money out of his business ; but the making of money depends not only on seeing that the technical matters connected with manufacture are intelligently looked after. To a surprisingly large extent, works-management and the methods of dealing with employees react on costs. A diagram is introduced to show how, in a certain establishment, a special system of piece and contract work resulted in a striking reduc- tion of labor cost. In this lucrative field, who can accomplish more than one strong man charged with the management of the shop as a whole? But the person exercising this authority must be a man of engineering training and practical experience, not a clerk or account- ant only. Therefore the engineer should make a study of the problems of management in order that he may be 1 Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. vii. 32 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [306 qualified to serve in this new capacity. Mr. Towne con- cludes by proposing that the society undertake to gather, by means of papers presented before its meetings, a stock of information with regard to the little understood art of management. Thus was suggested the policy which the society soon began to practice, and which has been fol- lowed with notable success to the present day. 2. THE WAGES PROBLEM When the American Society of Mechanical Engineers undertook to promote the art of management, they were not interested equally in all of management's different aspects. The problem which they considered almost exclusively, and the only one which will be discussed in this history of scientific management, may be called the wages problem. In order to understand in just what form this problem appeared to the engineers, it will be advisable to look at the operation of the main wage systems. Wages are generally paid on the basis of one of two criteria. The one criterion is the amount of time put at the employer's disposal by the employee, the other the amount of work which the employee performs. The wages system which depends altogether on the former mode of reckoning is called the day-work plan; the system which depends altogether on the latter mode is called the piece-work plan. Now engineers, and all other men of experience, hope for something better than the day-work plan ; for they find that a man working under it does not produce up to his full capacity : he too often feels that an increase of ef- fort benefits only the employer. David F. Schloss, who has made a thorough study of English factories, writes : * " I 1 Methods of Industrial Remuneration, p. 53. 307] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 33 have, in instances too numerous to mention, found that the excess of work obtained by putting men on piece- wage has been from 30 to 50 per cent." Frederick A. Halsey declares I that under the day-work plan " matters naturally settle down to an easy-going pace, in which the workmen have little interest in their work, and the employer pays extravagantly for his product." Frederick W. Taylor observes 2 that The men are paid according to the position which they fill, and not according to their individual character, energy, skill, and reliability. The effect of this system is distinctly demor- alizing and leveling ; even the ambitious men soon conclude that since there is no profit to them in working hard, the best thing for them to do is to work just as little as they can and still keep their position. And under these conditions the in- variable tendency is to drag them all down even below the level of the medium. Hope of promotion and fear of discharge indeed keep the men at work, but the efficiency induced by holding these possibilities before their eyes ordinarily falls far short of reaching the manufacturer's ideal. Now these failings of the day-work system are obvious to all, and so, from time immemorial, employers have introduced wherever possible the second great system of wage payment, that of piece-work. Under this sys- tem the plan of payment according to the amount of time employed is abandoned. The basis becomes the workman's efficiency as measured by his output. The piece-work system at first glance seems ideal; but that there are certain obstacles which prevent its perfect 1 " The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor," in Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xii, p. 755. ~ 2 " A Piece-Rate System," in Transactions, vol. xvi, p. 861. 34 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [308 application and largely destroy its effectiveness, the fol- lowing discussion will show. It is a matter of general experience that an employer ordinarily starts a piece-work system as follows : He estimates how long it should take a skillful workman to perform each job. Then, having in mind a fair hourly rate, he so figures the price per piece that the said skill- ful employee will just about earn the proper wage, pro- vided he applies himself with industry. Now the object of the piece-work system is to encour- age each man to do his best. Suppose, therefore, that an ambitious workman succeeds in greatly increasing the volume of his output. He earns, let us say, 30 per cent more than his fellows. All goes well for a while. But one day an officer of the company looks over the pay roll, and calls the foreman's attention to the fact that some of the men are receiving wages 30 per cent too high. A mistake has been made, they conclude, and the rate is promptly cut. This cutting of rates has occurred so frequently and invariably in factory life J that workmen have learned what to expect. If they increase their output, in the \ hope of earning higher wages, sooner or later the rates \ will be cut; and the men will find themselves working ) much harder, but for no greater pay, than before. So ( labor unions frequently limit the earnings of their mem- bers and thus the output imposing a heavy fine upon those who transgress; and workmen sometimes go to considerable trouble to work slowly while appearing to 1 As an illustration of the extremes to which rate-cutting is carried , we may cite Secretary Redfield's mention of an employer who boasted that he had cut the piece-rate five times on a single job. Tuck School Conference on Scientific Management, Addresses and Discussions, p. 355- 209] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 35 work fast. The piece-work system is therefore con- demned by many as having fallen short of accomplishing the purpose for which it was created. It does not make it to the interest of the workmen to increase their output. 1 1 Rate-cutting, though often mean and unfair, is usually unavoidable in connection with the straight piece-work system. The employer who is setting a price for a new kind of work almost invariably overestimates the time which it will take to perform it. He has too many things to occupy his attention to be able to work out the cleverest procedure which may be employed in the performance of the task. When the job is first being tried out, the experimenter's halting movements little sug- gest the extreme rapidity which the dexterous workman may ultimately acquire. A rate is set. An energetic worker starts upon the job and in each passing year discovers new tricks of the trade, new methods of enlarging the output. If the piece-rate remained constant, wages would rise to unusual levels ten dollars a day, possibly, in some cases. Now the employee undoubtedly deserves a reward for improving the methods of his work, but it is questionable whether he is entitled to as great a return as an unreduced piece-rate would yield him. The improvements are probably simple ones that almost anyone could devise, and which a good man ought to be expected to make, given the opportunity. Just as the manufacturer expects to see the savings due to his own improve- ments ultimately reflected in reduced prices to the purchasing public, so the piece-worker has no inalienable right to enjoy perpetually a given rate. Especially would the employer in the above illustration be justi- fied in cutting the rate upon giving the job to a new man. For why should a workman earn unheard-of wages who has done nothing ex- cept adopt methods invented by his predecessor or neighbor? Finally, even the most generous-hearted employer would be unable to pay high rates for work when his less conscientious competitors are figuring their selling prices on a lower basis. Thus it is seen that the ordinary methods of introducing piece-work necessarily involve the continuous repetition of a cycle, of which the first stage is the establishment of imperfect rates; the second, the earning of unusual wages; and the third the cutting of the rates. The corollary of these tactics on the part of the management is naturally an effort on the part of the men to limit output. In the struggle, the management usually makes headway against the men; but it is generally only after years of slow progress that the rates come to approximate a reasonable return on the basis of thoroughly efficient work. 36 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 3. PROFIT SHARING We can now appreciate the problem before the me- chanical engineers. Whether the day-work or the piece- 'work plans were in use, they felt that very serious 1 economic losses resulted. Accordingly, the attention of \ many men was turned towards finding a solution of the \difficulty, and a series of movements was begun of which fthe most conspicuous was to be that of scientific man- Jagement. The American Society of Mechanical Engi- neers were not, however, the first in the field ; and as, in inventing their own plans of reform, they not unnaturally started out where others had left off, it will be necessary to explain what ideas were already current. In the latter half of the eighties there was just one movement which was winning adherents and attracting /the attention of the society, and that was a movement 'towards profit sharing. A philosophy might be constructed for profit sharing as follows : When a man works for himself, there is no labor problem ; for, when his profits are his own, there is every inducement for him to work to the limit of his comfort. But when men are gathered together in indus- trial groups, and all the profits derived from their labor go to the owner of the plant, the workman is no longer concerned as to the success of the enterprise. Why should he not shirk when there is a chance? Why should he care if he spoils material or interferes with the smooth running of the factory? Now since it was this diverting of profits from the men to the absentee owner that gave rise to the labor problem, profit sharing, by reversing the process, would seem to strike at the very root of the evil. If profits are divided among all, all will be led to cooperate, and all will prosper. This general philosophy of profit sharing must be 3i i ] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 37 supplemented, however, by a statement or two with re- gard to the principles upon which it is usually put into practice. Inasmuch as it is the employer who must take the initiative in introducing profit sharing, the employer takes care that there be no diminution in his own pre- vious earnings. It is therefore stipulated that, unless profits are larger than they have been in the past, there will be no profit sharing. And if profits are larger, what is to be shared is not the total amount of profits, but the gain over what they have been in the past. It is possi- ble that this entire gain will be turned over to the employees, but not at all likely. The employer usually wants to get some advantage out of the plan himself, and so the common arrangement provides that only a certain share of the gain is to go to the employees, and the rest is to be retained by the establishment. The in- come of the employee derived from profit sharing is, of course, a reward entirely above and independent of his regular wages or salary. The first systematic practice of profit sharing is said to have been started in 1842 by M. Leclaire, a house- painter and decorator, of Paris. 1 It was taken up shortly afterwards by a number of other French and German establishments, and as the years have gone by has been adopted rather extensively first in France, and then more recently in England. Of interest for our purpose is the fact that the idea was received in the United States so favorably during the eighties, that in 1889 Mr. Oilman was able to record the names of thirty-four American establishments which had adopted it in some form ; so that in the number of its establishments the United States in that year ranked second only to France. 2 As all but Oilman, Profit Sharing, p. 66. ' l In the following decade all but eleven of these thirty-four establish- 38 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 3I2 three of these introductions had been made since the beginning of the decade, it may be seen that profit shar- ing was indeed in the atmosphere at this period. It is not surprising therefore that the first proposals for a solution of the wages problem made before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers were along profit-sharing lines, and that long afterwards the idea was still being discussed in the papers read before the society. 1 4. HENRY R. TOWNE'S " GAIN-SHARING " The first paper presented before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in which a serious attempt was made to grapple with the wages problem was read in 1889 by President Henry R. Towne, under the title of "Gain-Sharing." 2 Mr. Towne had made a study of ments dropped the profit-sharing system, so that though twelve new establishments had introduced it, the total number in 1899 was but twenty-three. Gilman, A Dividend to Labor, p. 346. 1 For further information with regard to profit sharing see (for critical comment) Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, pp. 254-309; and (for a defense) Gilman, Profit Sharing, 1889, and A Dividend to Labor, 1899. 2 Transactions, vol. x. After Mr. Towne's earlier proposal that the society consider problems of management, Mr. W. E. Partridge had made a start in this direction in a paper read in November, 1886, en- titled "Capital's Need for High-Priced Labor " (Transactions, vol. viii.). Mr. Partridge argues that the prevailing theory in regard to wages, which holds that "the less the price paid for labor, the less will the product cost," is wrong. On the contrary, the general problem of the employer is "to increase the earning powers of his men from year to year, and to do it in such a way that the men not only earn more, but are more profitable to him." In June, 1887, William Kent presented a short paper entitled " A Problem in Profit Sharing" (Transactions, vol. viii.), in which he suggested the very plan later developed in Towne's " Gain-Sharing." But Mr. Kent had not worked out any de- tails, and declared that he was not aware that the plan which he sug- gested had ever been tried. Mr. Towne, on the other hand, was able to state at the time Kent's paper was read that, as it had happened, he 313] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 39 profit sharing as practiced in Europe and America, and had come to the conclusion that conditions in industry^ were such, that some plan by which the self-interest of the workman would be identified with the success of his employer must be adopted. But in the prevailing types of profit sharing Mr. Towne saw the following great ,de> fects : The workmen benefit .by, or suffer loss from, fluc- tuations in profits for which they themselves are not in the least responsible. Changes in the prices of raw ma- terials or finished product, varying skill on the part of the management as relates to the larger matters of equip- ment and organization, varying efficiency on the part of the mercantile staff in purchasing supplies or finding a market for the output these are some of the things which, under orthodox profit sharing, unduly augment or unfairly curtail the dividends of the workmen. So Mr. Towne proposed a new type of profit sharing. His plan was to isolate in the bookkeeping those com- ponents of cost which the laborer has it in his power to influence, and base the division of profits upon the amount of reduction in these costs. From year to year a record was to be kept of the total wages paid to labor ; of the amount of raw material used 1 (so as to check waste); of the cost of incidental supplies (such as oil, waste, tools, and implements); of the cost of power, light, and water ; of the cost of renewals and repairs of plant ; and of the cost of superintendence, clerk hire, etc. If, at the end of the year, the cost of these items per unit had put Kent's precise plan into operation on January i, preceding. Thus Towne's ''Gain-Sharing" paper deals with achievements older than Kent's suggestions. 1 To determine the value of raw material, the amount used was multi- plied by an arbitrary fixed price, thus eliminating the effect of price fluctuations. 40 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT of product was found to be less than it had been when the plan was put into effect, it was to be assumed that the workmen had effected this saving; and this sum, this gain, was to be shared with them. 1 An erroneous picture of gain-sharing would, however, be conveyed if we did not mention two important modify- ing features. The gain-sharing plan was drawn up in the form of a " contract/' which the employer obligated him- self to leave unaltered until the date set for termination, the period of duration being never less than one year, and preferably lasting from three to five years. The original costs, with which later costs were to be com- pared in order to determine the gain, were referred to in these contracts as " contract prices." The first point to be noted is that the contract prices were not always the actual original costs as determined by the books. Of the contracts which Mr. Towne presents as examples, he says that "in a majority of cases the contract prices were fixed at rates which were a reduction of from ten to twenty per cent, and in one case of thirty per cent from previous costs." He justifies this action on the ground that there was good reason to believe that increased effort would result in a very considerable reduction in costs. A second thing to be considered is that the gain- sharing was not necessarily permanent. At the close of the contract period, "if during the previous term the cost of product has been considerably reduced, he [the employer] will presumably (although this is not always the wisest course) proportionately reduce the contract 1 Mr. Towne divided the gain on the basis of one-half to the opera- tives. Of the 50 per cent going to the operatives, he recommends giving 10 or 15 per cent to the foreman, and dividing the remaining 40 or 35 per cent among the subordinates in proportion to the amount of their annual wages. 315] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 4I prices." Mr. Towne recommends that (where the pre- vious cost of product is well known) the contract period be made a long one, so that the men may not limit their exertion because of the prospect of a reduction of the contract prices in the near future. Under the long con- tract period, "the employee can afford, for the sake of present gain, to disregard this question as one only affecting a somewhat remote future, and to use his best efforts and intelligence to effect a reduction in the cost of product." Then, when the opportunity for a revision of prices occurs, the employer will be able "to make a larger reduction than he would probably attain in the same time under the plan of frequent revisions, and can also then afford to act more liberally toward the em- ployees in the matter." The reader of Mr. Towne's paper is easily convinced that in the long run the gain-sharing plan really left everything in the hands of the employer, and that on his discretion and talent for dealing tactfully and consider- ately with the men it had to depend almost entirely for either success or justification. 1 5. FREDERICK A. HALSEY's "PREMIUM PLAN " The next important attempt to present a solution of the wages problem before the American Society of Me- chanical Engineers occurred in 1891, when Frederick A. 1 The gain-sharing plan was invented by Mr. Towne in 1886, put into operation in the works of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company in January, 1887, and by May, 1889, some 300 were employed under the system. Mr. Towne was in 1889 enthusiastic over its success. The employees had cheerfully accepted the plan, and in the instance which Mr. Towne mentions) had drawn dividends equal to about 4 or 5 per cent of their yearly earnings. The Yale & Towne gain-sharing sys- tem was, like most other American profit-sharing enterprises, aband- oned in the nineties (Gilman, A Dividend to Labor, p. 351). For the introduction of scientific management in this plant, see infra, ch. v., sec. 3. 42 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Halsey read a paper entitled "The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor." 1 The Halsey premium plan is, in effect, an adaptation of piece-work. Mr. Halsey tells us that he has no use for day-work, because of the easy-going pace and lack of interest which accompany it. At the same time he fails to see much good in profit sharing : In the first place profit sharing is patronage, in that profits may arise from better management or many other causes other than the merits of the workmen. Secondly, it is demoralizing; the surplus profits, due to the increased activity of the more energetic, are apportioned pro rata among all including the lazy; this spectacle dampens the ardor of even the most enterprising workmen. Thirdly, profit sharing is ineffective, in that rewards six months or a year ahead are too remote. Fourthly, it is not fair for workmen to share profits, for they do not share losses. And finally, the workmen have no means of knowing whether the agreement is carried out hon- estly by the management. Halsey's main attack, however, is upon the iniquity of the orthodox piece-work system. In terse but lucid phrases he expresses the fundamental difficulty which we have already discussed. To quote: As soon as a piece- worker increases his output so that he earns beyond what the employer had expected, the latter cuts the rate, which is in appearance and in fact an announcement to the workman that his earnings will not be allowed to exceed a certain amount, and that should he push them above that amount he will be met with another cut . . . matters gradually settle down as before to an easy-going 1 pace . . . Their earnings 1 Transactions, vol. xii. 317] SOLUTION OF THE WAGES PROBLEM 43 are somewhat more and the cost of the work is somewhat less than under the day's-work plan, but there is no more spirit of progress than under the older method. The employer is constantly on the lookout for a chance to cut the piece prices, that being- his only method of reducing cost ; and the men are constantly on the lookout to defeat the employer's well understood plan. Thus Mr. Halsey, speaking from wide experience, holds that the piece-work system " seldom works smoothly, and never produces the results which it should." The piece-work system, like day-work and profit sharingj is incapable of infusing a spirit of enterprise into the workmen. 1 Halsey's constructive plan is a scheme by which he proposes to so alter the piece-work system that it will never be necessary under any circumstances to cut the rates. His method consists in first determining the time which the men have been taking to do their work, and then announcing that if they will finish it quicker, they will be given, in addition to their old day rate, a new premium rate of so much an hour for the time saved. This premium rate is always less than the day rate. In order to arrive at the fundamental distinction be- tween the premium plan and the piece-work plan, we will first note what would happen if the premium rate were made as great as the day rate (instead of always being 1 Mr. Halsey discusses the piece-work system before the profit-sharing plan, and indeed discards it along with the rest. But from the com- parative and analytical point of view, the premium plan is as we shall see more nearly piece-work than any thing else. Though Halsey speaks pointedly of the faults of piece-work, its principle, the appeal to indi- vidual self-interest, he makes the corner-stone of his own system. So we have discussed the various plans out of order, that we might dispose first of those systems which Halsey rejects altogether, and treat last the one from which his own system is adapted. 44 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT less). That the premium system would in that case be identical with straight piece-work, the following illustra- tion will show. Assume that a man, who has been working under the day-work system at 3oc. an hour, turning out one job every hour, is put under the pre- mium system. Suppose that the man is told that he will be paid his old rate of 3oc. an hour for the time which he works, and also (if he finishes in less than an hour) be paid at the same rate for the rest of the hour which he does not work. This would be equivalent to piece- work, the said employee being always assured of an hour's pay whether the work takes him a full hour or only twenty minutes. If he finishes in twenty minutes, he would be credited with twenty minutes of work and forty minutes of time saved, one hour in all. The next twenty minutes he could earn another hour's pay, and so forth. The system would be in effect a piece-work mechanism, the rate per piece being here 3 problerp. The nature of this problem is so well understood that a grasp of Taylor's point of view towards it should be conveyed by a mere reference to his two main arguments : In the first place, he says that under the day-work system the men soon conclude that there is no profit to them in working hard; secondly, he extends his indictment to piece-work, and charges that under the latter the desire of the men to stave off cuts leads to the almost equally serious evil of restricted output. Taylor's method of attacking the wages problem consisted in an 1 Transactions, vol. xvi. 2 As the first steps toward the development of scientific management were taken about 1880, and some of its most vital features were in operation as early as 1883, scientific management goes back to an earlier date than either Towne's gain-sharing or Halsey's premium plan. For many years, however, few persons knew of Taylor's ac- tivities, so that the engineers who listened to his paper of 1895 thought of the system therein outlined as the most recent of the three. Halsey, for one, was until that time unacquainted with Taylor's main ideas, as witness his statements, Transactions, vol. xvi, pp. 884, 886. 329] GENESIS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT improvement of piece-work by virtue of which rate-cutting was to be eliminated. The originality in Taylor's scheme consisted, however, neither in his view of the problem, nor in his singling out of rate-cutting as a target for reform. It was when he, ojjfered Ms-specific proposal as to how rate-cutting- might hal the c_Qnstmrf"i1 r>f VnVnwn unique, Up to the time of the reading of the paper under study, the solution of the rate-cutting problem which had attracted most attention was that which has been described under the name of the premium plan. The inyjgtfnr of the premium plan had lav injyiving- to the workman only a fraction of the value resulting f ran h 1 '* speeding up. Taylor's ide?L was qtiii dij-Ferent He argiied-that if the. management merely knejv how longjt should take a man working at his best to rom,- Jolt that informajjon jilone_would eliminate the y pf rntting-rasu For th_ management could then so fixjhe rates Jnthe first place tnat J^J^gflJ^^^ j^ compelledto do ^good day's work jn_order to make reasoji- able wages; and further since all would have to do their best to make Jair_earniiigs===scL^^ anj effort .attain to an excessive income. In short, an exact, _?i^ n -ti^ dp_prminatinn of thg nir> y1 ' rniirn ^p^^d ^ which_jwprk_can-be-dono is. accordiag to Taylor, the means to be invoked for^olving the jvages^proble r m.J Now, it was precisely because Halsey liad denied the possibility of obtaining such data that that leader among engineers had gone to the trouble of inventing his premium system. Taylor's proposal, therefore, requires backing up in the shape of practical suggestions as to how his records may be obtained. Tk^^JiasK proposition Taylor discusses I under the capttian..i>f elementary rate-il^incj, a term which \ has since begrudisglaced by the broadband more sugges- I 56 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [330 a. Elementary Time Study As compared with the methods usually employed in tim- ing workmen, the unique characteristic of elementary time sjudy is this, that it involves an .analysis of. a Job as ~a whole into the elementary movements of man and machine, which when followed the one byj:he other accomplish the desired end. Thus, if the job be the planing of a piece of cast iron, the following analysis might be made: ANALYSIS BY ELEMENTARY TIME STUDY OF THE PLANING OF A SURFACE ON A PIECE OF CAST IRON 1 Work done by man Minutes Lift piece from floor to planer table Level and set work true on table Put on stops and bolts Remove stops and bolts Remove piece to floor Clean machine Work done by machine Rough off cut l /4 in. thick, 4 feet long, 2^2 ins. wide Rough off cut l /s in. thick, 3 feet long, 12 ins. wide, etc Finish cut 4 feet long, 2^ ins. wide Finish cut 3 feet long, 12 ins. wide, etc. Total Add per cent for unavoidable delays More fully stated, the first siffp in elementary jime is to divide^ a task into its simple elemfflfe : the second is to .jot down opposite each _demggt~the-4uBbef--o crouds or minutes^ which, accord ing {Q a s to p watrh, it tal^es a workman to perform itj the thjrd is to add these__upit time^together to obtain a total time j and the fourth is to multiply this sum by a factor which allowg__for rest_and otjier necessary delays. T t g _Egpcg... is ^ 11f an efficient routing system takes care that the machines and men always have the right amount of work on hand; which means, among other things, that the loss of time through waiting for a job is eliminated. He also endeavors to send the work to those machines and men that are best fitted for it. Finally, rush jobs are dis- patched first, and a system is arranged by which large orders are not kept waiting because of negligence in com- pleting some of their parts. Scheduling is routing as re- gards the time aspect. By routing, it is decided where the work shall be done; by scheduling, when. Thus they are merely the two sides of the same thing. From the time when the first factory was opened until the present day, it has of course been not the least of the duties of the management to decide when and by whom the work shall be done. Routing and scheduling are here classified as a part of scientific management only because in connection with this system they have been carried to a remarkable de- gree of refinement. The reason for this unusual development is, of course, due to the fact that the workmen, to make their proper pay, are obliged to apply themselves vigorously and constantly, a situation which makes it of the utmost importance that the work pass through the shop in so orderly a manner that the men may be employed without interruption. But the mechanism of routing once having for this reason been put into operation, scientific manage- ment has seized the opportunity afforded, to accomplish savings along all the broader lines mentioned above. It is 347] GENESIS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 73 explained in " Shop Management " * that there is a special "Order of Work or Route Clerk," who lays out "the exact route which each piece of work is to travel through the shop from machine to machine/' and who daily writes out instructions which " constitute the chief means for directing the workmen [as well as the bosses] in this par- ticular function." The result is shown not only in the earnings of the men, but also in the prompt and economical completion of the work. It may be noted in this connection that routing and scheduling, though an essential part of scientific manage- ment at the time when " Shop Management " was written, were later to receive a much fuller development as in the plant of the Tabor Manufacturing Company. Routing and scheduling now constitute one of the most profitable fea- tures of the system. (3) Instruction Cards An instruction card is a set of directions for the per- formance of a special piece of work. To many this system seems supervision gone mad. What possible saving can there be in one man's anticipating every act on the part of another by issuing a written order! The key to an under- standing of the purpose of the instruction card is to be found in the peculiar conditions existing in a shop given over to the cutting of metals. It was here that the system originated, and it is of such a shop that Mr. Taylor and others are thinking when they speak of the instruction card. The story of the situation in metal-cutting shops, of the long effort of Taylor and others to facilitate production therein, and of their final triumph this is referred to and briefly treated in " Shop Management." For a sketch of the movement, however, it is advisable to rely on the far 1 Transactions, vol. xxiv, p. 1393. 74 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [348 better account given three years later in Taylor's paper, "On the Art of Cutting Metals" * a treatise which was at the time appraised by the editor of the Transactions as prob- ably the most remarkable contribution ever received by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The gist of the problem which confronts a workman in charge of a metal-cutting machine is thus concisely put in the last-named paper: There are three questions which must be answered each day in every machine shop by every machinist who is running a metal- cutting machine, such as a lathe, planer, drill press, milling ma- chine, etc., namely : (a) What tool shall I use? (b) What cutting speed 2 shall I use? (c) What feed shall I use? This problem, although one to which the machinist has per- haps devoted many years, is quite impossible of accurate solution by his judgment alone. For a choice of the most efficient speed and feed is not the same from job to job; but its determination is almost infinitely complicated by the fact that it depends upon twelve variables. There must be taken into account (a) the quality of the metal which is to be cut, (b) the diameter of the work, (c) the depth of cut, (d) the thickness of the shaving, and so on through (e), (f), (g), and five others. The desire to find a scien- tific way of solving this hitherto unsatisfactorily ap- proached question led Taylor, in 1880, to start an investi- gation along these lines, as a part of his managerial duties. 1 Transactions, vol. xxviii, p. 31. 'Taking a lathe for illustration, the speed is the rate at which the surface to be dressed is brought into contact with the tool, while the feed is the rate at which the tool or the work is moved laterally so that the tool may come in contact with fresh areas of surface. 349] GENESIS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 75 The task proved unexpectedly severe. Mr. Taylor thought he would complete it in six months, but instead it took twenty-six years. More than 800,000 pounds of iron and steel were cut up into chips, and through the aid of certain great corporations between $150,000 and $200,000 was spent on the experiments. Nevertheless the problem was solved, and most important of all, the scientific for- mulae obtained were embodied between 1899 and 1902 in slide rules, " which are so simple that they enable an ordi- nary workman to make practical and rapid every-day use in the shop of all the laws and formulae deduced from [the] experiments." As a matter of shop practice, however, it is much easier to have this clerical work attended to in the office, and it is for precisely this reason that the instruction card was introduced. Blanks similar to the one shown below are filled out in the office, or as we may now call it the " plan- ning department," and then sent to the men on the machines. They tell the workmen briefly the general and detail drawing to refer to, the piece number and the cost order number to charge the work to, the special jigs, fixtures, or tools to use, where to start each cut, the exact depth of each cut, and how many cuts to take, the speed and feed to be used for each cut, and the time within which each operation must be finished, 1 as well as information regarding the rate of pay. Care is also taken to suggest such an order for the performance of the different operations as will minimize unnecessary ad- justments of the machine, and facilitate the handling of the work. 1 Transactions, vol. xxiv, p. 1393. 76 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [350 A BLANK TIRE-TURNING INSTRUCTION CARD 1 Machine shop Order for Tires. Do work on Tire No as follows and per blueprint [i] [2] [3] [5] 16] [7] Templet. 6 4-1 3 O o Q 8 ffirp Indeed, it is claimed that almost all of what appear to be novel duties, created by scientific management, should really be classified as falling under this latter head that of work which was previously done, only in clumsy fash- ion, by the workmen. The imposing of duties upon the planning department, therefore, consists, not so much in piling up new tasks, as in relieving the grimy hands of the machinists of certain clerical routine; and in planning as much of the work as possible in a place where adequate records, roomy desks, and expert heads are available. As far as possible the workmen, as well as the gang bosses and foremen, should be entirely relieved of the work of plan- ning, and of all work which is more or less clerical in its nature. All possible brain work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or laying-out department. . . .* The second great change in organization due to scien- tific management is a certain specialization among the mem- bers of the planning and directing force. This develop- ment, which is called functional manafiemgnJ:. is in part a consequence of increased numbers, but not entirely. The main reason given by Mr. Taylor for introducing func- tional management is the scarcity of good all-around fore- men. To quote : 2 These nine qualities go to make up a well rounded man : Brains, education, special or technical knowledge [or] manual dexterity or strength, tact, energy, grit, honesty, judgment or common sense, and good health. 1 " Shop Management," in Transactions, vol. xxiv, p. 1390. f Ibid., p. 1389. 359] GENESIS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 85 Plenty of men who possess only three of the above quali- ties can be hired at any time for laborers' 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 six, seven, and eight are almost im- possible to get. Mr. Taylor reviews the things which an ordinary fore- man is supposed to do and finds them so complex that he abandons altogether the old system of having all sides of a workman's activities directed by one person. He substi- tutes for it a system of eight bosses, eight functional fore- men, who each have only a few things to look after. Four of these bosses are on hand in the shop. " The gang boss has charge of the preparation of all work up to the time that the piece is set in the machine." 1 Matters connected with the assignment of tasks, the supplying of jigs, tem- plets, drawings, etc., and the accurate and rapid setting of work are his peculiar function. The province of the speed boss begins after the piece is in the lathe or planer, and ends when the actual machining is done. It is his duty to see that the proper tools are chosen, that the cuts are started in the right place, that the best speeds, feeds, and depths of cut are used. The functions of the inspector are self-explanatory. 2 " The repair boss sees that each work- man keeps his machine clean, free from rust and scratches, and that he oils and treats it properly," etc. Four other bosses are in the planning-room, but they nevertheless come in direct contact with the work of each machinist, mainly through writing. The order of work or route clerk makes out daily lists covering " the exact order 1 Transactions, loc. cit., p. 1392. ? In more recent years, at least, the inspector under scientific manage- ment has been entrusted with the teaching of workman as to how they may attain to necessary standards. 86 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [360 in which the work is to be done by each class of machines or men." The instruction-card clerk, by means of the in- struction card, transmits to the man at the machine, not only all necessary details as to the specifications for the work, but also such data, drawn from the files in the office, as may suggest the most efficient methods of operation. The time and cost clerk gives to the men, also by means of the instruction card, such information as they should have concerning time and rates, and secures frcni them proper returns for the office records. The shop disciplinarian, "in case of insubordination or impudence, repeated failure to do their duty, lateness or unexcused absence, . . . takes the workmen or bosses in hand and applies the proper remedy, and sees that a complete record of each man's virtues and defects is kept." He should have much to do with readjusting wages; one of his important functions should be that of peace-maker. 1 While a critical estimate of the importance of the fea- tures just outlined is reserved for a later chapter, this much may be indicated here, that the above type of organization is not as fundamental a part of scientific management as are the two primary phases. Changes of organization of some sort certainly must be made. But the precise scheme here described, though believed by the closer adherents of Mr. Taylor to constitute the best possible solution of the problem, is viewed by others as too elaborate to be adapted to all shop situations. In general, scientific management involves an internal re- adjustment by which division of labor and specialization of skill are pushed much further than before, both as re- gards the work of the shop and that of the management. 1 Functional foremanship has been described here in the terms of the metal-cutting shop. Its application to other industries would be attended by considerable alteration in detail, but perhaps little change in essential principle. 361] GENESIS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT g? 3. CONCLUSION: THE GENESIS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT With the publication of " Shop Management " the gen- esis of scientific management may be regarded as complete. There have, indeed, been great changes since 1903; but each of the developments of the last twelve years may be classified as either a new emphasis on, or a more perfect working-out of, some one or another of the old ideas. The two following chapters will present the facts regarding the application of the aforesaid principles. A characterization of the life and work of the several great leaders, and then a more detailed survey of the chief instances of the intro- duction of the system, will complete, by bringing down to the present date, the history of scientific management. CHAPTER IV LIVES OF THE LEADERS INCLUDING CERTAIN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENRICH- MENT OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT I. FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR So much has already been said in regard to the founder of scientific management that we will here content our- selves with presenting little more than a summary of his life. Frederick Winslow, son of Franklin and Emily (Winslow) Taylor, was born March 20, 1856, at German- town, Philadelphia. He received part of his primary edu- cation in France, Germany, and Italy, 1 and was pre- pared for Harvard at Phillips Exeter Academy (where his instructor in mathematics was George A. Went worth, the author of many well-known textbooks). Impaired eye- sight, however, changed his educational plans, and during four years of his youth he served apprenticeships as a pattern-maker and as a machinist, in a small pump-works at Philadelphia. When, at the age of 22, he was ready to practice his trade, the depression still lingering from the panic of 1873 compelled him to start as a laborer. Thus was begun an eleven years' employment in the works of the Midvale Steel Company, during which Taylor was rapidly pro- moted. From 1878 to 1880 he served as laborer, clerk, 1 He was abroad for three years and a half, and attended schools in Paris, Berlin, Stuttgart, and Italy. 88 [362 363] LIVES OF THE LEADERS 89 and (for about two months) journeyman machinist; from 1880 to 1882 as gang-boss; from 1882 until the time of his leaving in 1889, as foreman, chief draughtsman, and finally (having taken the degree of Mechanical Engineer from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1883), as chief engineer. It was when Taylor became gang-boss in 1880 that he first determined to discover, by scientific methods, how long it should take men to perform each given piece of work; and it was in the fall of 1882, shortly after he had been elevated to the position of foreman, that he started to put the first features of scientific management into operation. In 1889 Mr. Taylor decided to apply his ideas in a wider field. He served for three years a corporation operating large pulp-mills in Maine, and then attempted in various parts of the country a reorganization of industrial plants. This involved a variety of manufacturing, structural, and engineering work; but his most celebrated undertakings were in connection with the plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company between 1898 and 1901. In IQOI, Mr. Taylor's Viim fr. for pay; 1 but it was only to give himself more completely to the cause of scientific management. Thus he testified 2 that, since 1901, in giving assistance to friends who desired to improve their own or others' plants, he had " spent more than one-third " of his income, and given his "whole personal time " - this without any money compensation, direct or remote. Especially as adviser of, and owner of a small interest in the Tabor Manufacturing Company, and as a consultant for the Link-Belt Company, has he 1 Hearings before Special Committee of the House of Representa- tives. to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Manage- ment, p. 1507. * Ibid., p. 1490. 90 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT had a hand in the creation of what is regarded as the high- est development of scientific management. Mr. Taylor has taken out about one hundred patents, his greatest invention being the discovery between 1898 and 1900, jointly with Mr. Maunsel White, of the Taylor- White high-speed steel. This invention, according to the highest authorities, has revolutionized the machine shops of the world, enabling tools to cut metal at least three times as rapidly as before. The inventors received $100,- ooo for the English patents alone. Fame again came to Mr. Taylor upon his publication, in 1906, of the results of the extended researches of himself and others in the art of cutting metals * a work of genuine scientific character, and of the highest practical importance. Mr. Taylor, how- ever, regarded as of far greater moment than all this other work his share in the discovery of the principles of scien- tific management. Among the honors which have been conferred upon Taylor are a gold medal from the Paris Exposition of 1900, the presidency of the American Society of Mechan- ical Engineers during 1906, and the degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania, also in 1906. In January, 1912, he stated that he was then receiving, from all parts of the country, invitations to make addresses at the rate of one a day. His Principles of Scientific Man- agement has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Lettisch, Italian, Japanese, and Mexican ; his " Shop Management " into French, German, Dutch, and Russian. Mr. Taylor died March 21, 1915, just after passing his fifty-ninth birthday. The physical fitness that once won 1 " On the Art of Cutting Metals," in Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xxviii. 365] LIVES OF THE LEADERS 9 ! him a national tennis championship, and the mental stamina and bull-dog tenacity with which he always held to an idea which he had decided to pursue, were mellowed and broad- ened with the passing years into those genial qualities of host and friend that made the Taylor home at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, a delightful Mecca for those interested in scientific management, and Mr. Taylor himself the elder among a group of loyal followers. 1 Even the men who most disapprove of scientific management have nothing but good to say about Mr. Taylor personally, and his death will be felt as a personal bereavement by a large circle of friends as well as a great loss to the cause which he so ably and so unselfishly served. 2 1 Many who recognize the bigness of Taylor's service view unfavor- ably some aspects of his methods. They complain that he would not relax at all from one original plan, but insisted that a shop be reor- ganized in every detail according to a prolonged and complicated pro- gram. Furthermore, the thoroughness of his reform had to include the timing of operations in units much more refined than most other efficiency men attempt. For these reasons, and because he retired from regular practice as early as 1901, critics and even friends insist that Taylor has himself accomplished far less than various followers who have caught his spirit but revised his methods. This assertion, how- ever, they rarely intend as a reflection on Taylor's leadership, as many efficiency engineers only remotely connected with the Taylor following are ready to admit that if it had not been for Taylor's example, they would probably not be found in their present line of work. 1 Among Mr. Taylor's chief writings may be enumerated the fol- lowing papers read before the American Society of Mechanical En- gineers : "A Piece-Rate System" (1895); "Shop Management" (1903) ; " On the Art of Cutting Metals" (1906). With S. E. Thomp- son, he has written Concrete, Plain and Reinforced (1905), and Con- crete Costs (1911). His philosophy is, however, best expressed in The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). His system is also explained in contributions to the periodicals; in numerous addresses; in testimony before the special House committee which investigated scientific management (1911-12) ; and in testimony before the Indus- trial Relations Commission (April, 1914). 92 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [366 2. HENRY L. GANTT Henry L. Gantt, who is five years younger than Taylor, graduated from Johns Hopkins University with the degree of A. B. in 1880; taught school for the following three years; and, in 1884, secured his M. E. from Stevens Insti- tute of Technology. His first important work was for the Midvale Steel Company, where he remained six years. 1 It was here that (in 1887) he first came in contact with the methods of scientific management, being employed for a year and a half under the direction of Mr. Taylor. His task was to find some means by which the laws governing the cutting of metals might be quickly applied to the prac- tical work of the machine shop. The solution then dis- covered was only moderately satisfactory ; but the incident meant much for scientific management, for from 1887 until the present day Mr. Gantt has, with few interrup- tions, spent all of his time in the service of this system. Gantt's contact with Taylor was cut short in the eighties, and was only intermittent in the varied work of the next ten years. It was renewed again in the completes! manner when in March, 1899, Taylor had Gantt called to Bethlehem. Be- tween 1899 and 1902, one of Gantt's duties at Bethlehem was to help another aid of Taylor, Carl G. Barth, in his development of the slide rule, a device which solved with remarkable ease the problem which in the eighties Gantt had by himself only partially disposed of. The main credit for the slide rule belongs, however, to Barth ; Gantt regards as his own greatest achievement of the period the develop- ment of "Task Work with a Bonus." The story runs that, after about two years of careful investigation in the machine shop at Bethlehem and the gradual adoption of many notable improvements, it was 1 1887 to 1893. 367] LIVES OF THE LEADERS 93 evident that operations could be performed a great deal faster than the men had as yet been induced to work. But' the management hesitated to force production up to the then possible standard through the introduction of the dif- ferential rate, for this would mean the establishment, upon the basis of imperfect methods, of piece-rates which couldj never be cut. They wished first to carry the process oi improvement somewhat further. Accordingly, as a tem- porary expedient, Mr. Gantt, on March n, 1901, proposed! that the establishment offer a daily bonus of fifty cents to] whoever should perform all the tasks set down on his in- struction card thus substituting a very flexible standard of work for the rigid piece-work system. This was at first regarded as only a temporary measure," but by a later amendment the bonus system was adapted for permanent use. It was made to offer not only a re- ward for the completion of the task in the allotted time, but also an additional inducement to those who, were able to do still better. It was made to consist in giving to all workers their day rate, but to the men who finished their tasks in the time set or less, pay for the number of hours allotted plus a certain additional time (for instance, for a three hours' task, four hours' pay) , this same numSer of hours pay to be always given for work, whether fin- ished in standard time or less. Thus the system is, for the man who is accustomed to perform his tasks or more, the exact equivalent of piece-work. The bonus system whether it be of the original type (designed only for temporary use) or of the amended variety (suited to become a part of the permanent system) is like the differential-rate system in this, that they both make a complete study of the possibilities of work, and then give the man who performs a good day's task a higher 94 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [368 rate of pay than is customary in the trade. The original type of bonus differs from the differential rate in that the former involves no creation of unalterable piece-rates. The amended bonus system is more flexible than the differential rate, in that if it be so desired different men can be allowed varying amounts of pay for the same work by simply basing their remuneration on higher or lower day rates. 1 Both the new varieties depart from the old path in that they give the regular day's pay to learners and others who fall short of the standard. Mr. Gantt lays considerable stress on a supplementary feature adopted at the suggestion of the machine-shop superintendent, Mr. Earle, by which the boss is paid a small bonus for each of his men who earns a bonus. In addi- tion, a second bonus is given if every one of the sub- ordinates is successful. These devices are designed to make the boss deal fairly with all in his assignment of work, and especially vigilant in removing difficulties from the paths of the weaker men. Immediately after its suggestion, the task and bonus system was put into operation; it was at once recognized as valuable, and is now said to have very nearly displaced the differential rate. But to return to the career of Mr. Gantt a change hav- ing been made in the management of the Bethlehem Steel Company, he left their employ in 1902, and entered the profession of consulting engineer; in this he is still en- gaged. A partial list of the plants in which he has done more or less work would include the American Locomo- tive Company, the Canadian Pacific railway, the Sayle's >leacheries, the works of Joseph Bancroft at Wilmington, 1 This is almost (though not quite) as true of the plan which Mr. Gantt first proposed. 369] LIVES OF THE LEADERS 95 the Brighton mills, and the Cheney silk mills. 1 His great- est achievement thus far has been in the plant of the Union Typewriter Company; 2 of still greater promise though only recently developed to any considerable scale is his work for the Westinghouse Electric Company. 3 It should be said that in very few of these plants has Mr, Gantt installed his system in its entirety, and that in many of them his work was done at a period when he had not developed his own ideas as completely as he has at present. We have seen that Gantt's greatest contribution to the method of scientific management is a very mild and easily introduced wage system, and that he has had an unusually wide experience in reorganizing factories (the number and importance of which the above list only suggests). The key to his success is a disposition to adjust his course to the practical aspects of whatever situation confronts him. Thus WHEN AN OBSTACLE APPEARS Taylor's course was to plough Sometimes, indeed, Gantt does right through. not reach his original goal, but de- But Gantt's . . . is to adapt him- cides on a new one. self most easily to the situation. As Illustrated by a Friend As Modified by Gantt, of the Two Men . Himself 1 Considerable interest has been shown in scientific-management's early though only partial installation in the works of the Symonds Rolling Machine Company, where Mr. Gantt was at the time superin- tendent. See supra, p. 79 ; and infra, p. 124. 2 Makers of Remington, Monarch, and Smith-Premier Typewriters. 3 " When scientific management is completely established at the West- inghouse plant," writes a thoroughly informed and impartial observer, " its effect will be more far-reaching than the effects of any work that has been heretofore done." 96 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [370 ^ T ' ^ antt re g ai "ds every factory as a law unto itself. His idea of scientific management is not that of one mold, which all factory organizations must be warped to fit; but as he sees it, there are as many distinct scientific manage- ments as there are different shops. By many who ought to know, Gantt is regarded as the strongest man in the scien- tific-management movement. He is said to be the man who is getting results. 1 3. CARL G. EARTH Carl G. Earth, though perhaps a few months the senior of Gantt, and an acquaintance of Taylor since the middle eighties, did not come into actual touch with scientific management until 1899. His earlier training was acquired in his native Norway, and consisted of the equivalent of a high-school education, followed by a technical course last- ing a year and a half; and then four years practical ex- perience, of which the first two were spent as an apprentice in the navy-yard boiler and machine shops, and the second two in teaching mathematics and mechanical drawing in- terspersed for a time with service in the superintendent-of- the-yard's office. As a youth of about twenty-one, Barth emigrated to America, and found employment in the drawing-room of William Sellers & Company, of Philadelphia. With this concern he remained (excepting a short intermission) for fourteen successive years, at the end of which period he was occupying the position of chief designer of machin- ery on a salary of $3,000. During most of this time Barth 1 Mr. Gantt's leading works are : " A Bonus System for Rewarding Labor" (Dec., 1901), "A Graphical Daily Balance in Manufacture" (1903)1 and "Training of Workmen" (1908) the three foregoing being found in the Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical En- gineers; his book, Work, Wages and Profits (1910 and new editions) ; and various periodical contributions. 371 ] LIVES OF THE LEADERS 97 had been devoting his odd hours to teaching: for six years meeting mechanical-drawing classes at the Franklin Institute on some evenings of the week and private pupils in mathematics on the others ; and then for two years con- ducting a private evening school of his own. But now a taste for a career as a professor of engineering was rapidly developing; and in order to equip himself for such a posi- tion, Barth first gave up evening work for pay, that he might improve his knowledge of engineering subjects. Shortly afterwards (in 1895) ne left William Sellers & Company to accept the modest offer of a St. Louis con- cern, 1 which would give experience in designing engines. After two years of rather versatile service here, and then three months spent in designing special machines for the St. Louis water commission, he was identified with the International Correspondence Schools for about a year and a half, and with the manual training and mathematical work of the Ethical Culture Schools of New York for a school year of nine months. In June, 1899, Taylor sought to avail himself of this technical equipment by bringing Barth to Bethlehem " to effect a more satisfactory solution for the mathematical problems connected with the art of cutting metals and its application to the every-day running of machine tools." 2 Barth not only solved this difficult mathematical problem in a few months by the invention of the slide rule, an in- vention whose far-reaching importance we have set forth elsewhere, 3 but he was from the first put in charge of the machines doing Taylor's experimental work. When all this was over with, he was made machine-shop engineer, and 1 The Rankin and Fritch Foundry and Machine Company. 1 Quotations from testimony of Barth before special House com- mittee. 3 See supra, pp. 73-75, and 92. 98 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [370 given the duty, among other things, of " reconstructing and respeeding, repairs, and maintenance of all machinery and tools in their large machine shop." Though Earth at this time " paid but little attention to the general management side " of scientific management, he was very much interested in those features of the sys- tem with which his work brought him in special contact. The result has been that, since leaving the employ of the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1901, he has "practically busied [him] self with nothing else" than introducing the Taylor system into factories; and though afterwards he broadened out until he understood every side of scientific management, he still remains particularly efficient in those elements which center about the manipulation of machine tools. According to Gantt, he is the most expert of the scientific-management men in looking over and strengthen- ing the weak places in machines. According to Taylor, 1 he is " the most accomplished of all the men engaged in this work " (installing the system as a whole), a man who has " made a greater success of introducing scientific management into the difficult companies than any other single man." After leaving Bethlehem, Earth's first fifteen months were spent in investigating conditions in the plant of his old employer, William Sellers & Company, the work, how- ever, not being carried to completion. Mr. Barth then spent four years and a half introducing scientific manage- ment into the plant of the Link-Belt Company, where to begin with he had charge of only the mechanical features. After the first year, however, he was compelled to assume the burden of installing all the various sides of the system, being enabled to do this through a certain amount of 1 From correspondence dated Oct. 6, 1913. 373] LIVES OF THE LEADERS Q g general and gratuitous direction on the part of Mr. Taylor. This superintendence was for a couple of years more or less regular, but later very limited. Simultaneously with the systematizing of the Link-Belt Company, Earth had charge of similar but even more important work in the plant of the Tabor Manufacturing Company, also under the general guidance of Taylor. Here he had the valuable assistance during part of the time of H. K. Hathaway. The first job undertaken on Earth's own responsibility was at the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company's plant, where scientific management was introduced in the one de- partment (hoist) in which machine operations count for the most. Among other plants where Earth has installed more or less of what he loyally calls the "Taylor System," are the Fairbanks Scale Company; the Government Ar- senal at Watertown, with the aid of D. V. Merrick; and what constitutes his present great undertaking the Pull- man Company, 1 of Chicago. 4. HORACE K. HATHAWAY While Gantt is praised as a manager, and Earth as a mathematician and master of mechanical equipment, to Horace K. Hathaway belongs, according to Taylor, the credit for being the best all-around man in the movement. Mr. Hathaway is sixteen or seventeen years the junior of the two men just mentioned, being at the time of writing thirty-eight years old. He has no degree in engineering, but received his training during two years (1894-96) spent in a trade school (Williamson), and a year and a half spent as an apprentice with the Midvale Steel Company (1906-7). After completing his apprenticeship, he continued in the employ of the Midvale Steel company until 1902. He served about six months as a journeyman machinist, and 1 It is rumored that Earth's work for the Pullman Company has been fruitful of revolutionary though yet unpublished discoveries. I0 o SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [374 then worked up in the organization through the positions of draftsman, inspector, and gang-boss, until he was fin- ally made foreman over all the tool-making and tool-keep- ing rooms in the plant. In 1902 he left Midvale to become superintendent for the Payne Engine Company, a small concern, with which he remained for two years. It was immediately following this that, in 1904, Hath- away first came in contact with scientific management, 1 through being detailed to assist Barth install the "Taylor System " in the Philadelphia plant of the Link-Belt Com- pany. This first assignment was, however, comparatively unimportant. After only two or three months, Hathaway was transferred from the Link-Belt plant, and placed with the Tabor Manufacturing Company at the time also in charge of Barth. Here, as the years went by, he gave so good an account of himself that he eventually became the most important person about the works. As vice-president of the company, he brought the organization to so high a degree of perfection that the Tabor plant has come to be regarded as the finest example of the success of scientific management. Its productivity, it is said, has been multi- plied by three. In addition to his continued participation in the affairs of the Tabor Manufacturing Company, Hathaway has more recently taken on the profession of consulting engi- neer, with headquarters in Philadelphia. Among the plants in which he has installed scientific management are the Acme Wire Company and, in cooperation with Morris L. Cooke, the Plimpton Press. 2 1 Taylor had left Midvale seven years before Hathaway's coming, and the system there had remained in the rudimentary form which constituted the highest development of the eighties. 1 A further characterization of the work of Hathaway need not be given here, since reference may be made to the reorganization of the Tabor Manufacturing Company as treated in the next chapter. 375] LIVES OF THE LEADERS IOI 5. MORRIS L. COOKE The special importance of the work of Morris L. Cooke is derived from the fact that it marks an extension of scien- tific management into new fields. We will pass over with- out comment Cooke's life as a mechanical engineer, and even that part of his career which had to do with the in- troduction of scientific management into printing, 1 in order that we may come at once to the two unique lines along which he has distinguished himself. The first of these undertakings grew out of the decision of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- ing to get a man familiar with modern business manage- ment to estimate the cost and output of leading American universities. The man commissioned to make this study was Cooke; the field selected for investigation comprised the various departments of physics; the institutions visited were Columbia, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, Toronto, Wisconsin, Haverford, Princeton, and Williams. Though Cooke's 1 34-page report, published in 1910 as Bulletin Number Five of the Carnegie Foundation, contains various valuable recommendations in regard to the strictly financial and business relations of the univer- sity, these cannot be discussed here. Our one interest at this time is in pointing out certain passages in which Cooke who is a staunch Taylor man tries to apply scientific management to the universities' central educational end. Corresponding roughly to what we have termed the first phase of scientific management which means in industrial plants the apportioning of scientifically determined tasks among all the workers Cooke has utilized a standard for gauging the productivity of the respective departments of physics. His unit of measurement is the student hour 1 In the Plimpton Press (with Hathaway) ; and the Forbes Litho- graph Company. L02 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT that is, one hour spent by one student under direction whether it be in the lecture or recitation room, or in the laboratory. The total output in student hours is easily ob- tained by multiplying the number of hours devoted to each course by the number of students registered therein, and then adding the products together. The unit cost of in- struction is calculated by dividing this total into the aggre- gate expense of the department. It is not claimed that this method furnishes complete data for deciding whether or not any particular work pays, as it does not take into account the value of the courses offered, or the relative quality of the instruction under different men or in various institutions; but Mr. Cooke does think that along with other considerations the exact cost of operation per unit of output is worth knowing. He finds that, of the institu- tions studied, Columbia, Harvard, and Haverford were spending the greatest sums per student hour in their re- spective departments of physics ($1.08 in each), and Wis- consin the least ($0.60). While Cooke does not himself attempt the " setting of a task " for university men, at some points he makes suggestions along that line. For instance, he says that if the student hour be used as a basis for determining what shall constitute a term's teaching, it might be weighted so that a lecture hour would count as three where a laboratory hour would be valued as one. The student hour, it should be said, is advanced as a use- ful unit for undergraduate teaching only, and is not ad- vanced as applicable to graduate or research work. Corresponding to the second phase of commercial scien- tific management, which aims to improve the methods of work, Mr. Cooke speaks with less hesitation. He regards as the cardinal principle in university administration the careful arrangement of the work so that the unusually able and highly valuable men who make up the ranks of pro- 377] LIVES OF THE LEADERS fessors may specialize in the important fields for which they are peculiarly qualified. Thus it seemed to him a great waste when, "during the interviews which [he] had 'with college professors, he found them spending time in taking inventories, keeping track of appropriations, mimeograph- ing examination papers and handling routine correspond- ence " ; and he also finds fault with their being given the management of buildings. Part of this work could be delegated to clerks, and much of it could be done more efficiently by central administrative departments, that would look after special functions for the university as a whole. A more radical suggestion is that the institution assist in the actual instruction; it is proposed that standard lecture notes be worked up by men specially commissioned for the purpose; and that these be used as common tools by all lecturers covering the subject. Such details as the more complete utilization of rooms, the placing of lecture halls used by large numbers of persons on the first floor (instead of museums), and the designing of buildings, come in for considerable attention. But the greatest stress of Cooke's report is on the organ- ization aspect. After reviewing the so-called one-man type of administration, which he finds is now in rare use, and criticizing the prevalent system of committee management, which he censures as giving too much autonomy to the de- partments and too little authority to either the president of the university or the department heads, Cooke offers as his leading suggestion for the improvement of academic efficiency the adoption of "functional management." In a machine shop* functional management means the appoint- ment of some eight bosses, each of whom looks after some special phase of the woVk ; in a university, functional man- agement would mean the splitting-up of the manifold duties of administration and perhaps even of instruction 104 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [378 and student guidance into some ten or a hundred func- tions, in each of which one person would be the supreme authority. To illustrate : we may take Cooke's extreme example, a single individual personally assume the direction of a large building including laboratories, machine shops, power plants, etc. ; maintain order and discipline among seven hundred at times boisterous spirits; direct and inspire the teaching force of a score of rather unusually able men; lecture on the most attenuated physical theories; keep in touch with a large body of graduates; carry on research work, etc. From such a man, overloaded with duties which he cannot possibly perform with efficiency, Cooke would take away all but a few functions as he would also from committees in which management has been similarly centralized. A large part of the administrative work such as purchasing, the supervision of buildings and grounds, registration, and even discipline could be done for all the departments by central agencies as a few, but not many, of the institu- tions studied had already begun to do; and the other func- tions could be divided up among the men of the depart- ment, segregating and safeguarding to each person that type of work for which he alone is perhaps best qualified. This treatment of Mr. Cooke's report has been intro- duced, not only to give the reader a basis for judgment as to how far scientific management does or does not offer new or valuable suggestions for the organization of edu- cation and the other larger social activities, but also in order that for those who are more familiar with college than with factory life the principles of scientific manage- ment may be brought closer home. The significance of the system becomes apparent, for instance, when Cooke com- pares the University of Toronto favorably with Harvard, 379] LIVES OF THE LEADERS in that in the former less than 38 per cent of the total salary fund of the department of physics goes to men above the grade of instructor, while in Harvard the percentage is 84. If the ideas of Taylor could be applied as thoroughly to undergraduate instruction at Harvard as they have been to some shops, it would mean that the bulk of the work at least as far as standard courses are concerned would be transferred from professors to instructors. That is, a system of standard lecture notes and a subdivision of re- sponsibility would enable less experienced and less capable men to obtain satisfactory results. Through scientific assignment of tasks based on a detailed analysis of just what these instructors did with their time, schedules would be drawn up which would greatly increase the number of student hours per individual, the instructors being compen- sated by an increase in pay. To complete the analogy, there would be substituted for the president, deans, and heads of departments, a large planning department, composed of the abler professors and administrators, who would in their respective spheres direct the machinery of education. The theory would be: first, that the general good would be promoted by an advance in the technique of organization which would permit the replacement of the original road- makers by men of less force and capacity, men who would be cheaper, who would turn out more work, and who would be perhaps as efficient as those of the earlier day; and second, that in no case would the individual welfare be jeopardized, as the abler professors might turn to other fields, and their successors would find in the new conditions better opportunities than would be open elsewhere. Cooke has not suggested that things be carried to this extreme in education, but something very similar has been done in some of the trades, and perhaps the drawing of the picture will help to an understanding as to why most managers I0 6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [380 and many skilled artisans are cautious about putting them- selves under scientific management. The second opportunity of Morris L. Cooke to extend the application of scientific management into new fields occurred when he was made director of public works for the city of Philadelphia. During 1912, the first year of his administration, it was claimed that a reduction of $750,000 was effected in the expenses of the department. A study of his report shows that in this first year the greater part of his improvements were such as any capable business man might have made. However, a few of the distinctive features of scientific management had already made their appearance, as, for instance, in the setting of tasks for street cleaners. 1 6. SANFORD E. THOMPSON Sanford E. Thompson, referred to by Taylor 2 as " per- haps the most experienced man in motion and time study in this country," was born in 1867, took the degree of C. E., and since 1885 has been engaged in practical civil and mechanical engineering. In 1895 he started to co- operate with Taylor in some of the latter's investigations, 1 Cf. C. Bertrand Thompson's statement in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb., 1915 : " Owing to the peculiarities of the Philadelphia law, and the constant opposition of Councils and the previous almost inconceivably corrupt state of the department, it has not been possible to make a thorough application of most of the fundamental principles of scientific management. The results attained thus far, amounting to a saving of over $1,300,000, are due primarily to the injection of simple honesty into the department, and secondly to the utilization, so far as conditions would permit, of expert knowledge secured wherever it was obtainable." Mr. Cooke spent a year and a half reorganizing the administration' of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and also played an important part in making the arrangements for the Tuck School Con- ference on scientific management. * Principles of Scientific Management, p. 88. 381] LIVES OF THE LEADERS and in 1896 and the years following undertook on his own responsibility an exhaustive study of the time required to do various work connected with the building trades. In six years he made a complete study of eight of the most important: excavation, masonry, bricklaying (including sewer- work and paving), carpentry, concrete and cement work, lathing and plastering, slating and roofing, and rock quarrying. Thompson's method is to split up jobs as a whole into very minute elements. Complicated mathematical formulas tell him just how long it should take under various condi- tions to throw a single shovelful of earth. Likewise, the number of seconds required to dump a wheel-barrow, to walk one foot, to drive one nail, to place one cleat, and to do a thousand other things, are all obtained by stop-watch analysis and carefully recorded. As a result, a contractor can estimate much more exactly than under the old system how much it will cost to complete a given work, and a foreman can hold his men responsible for a full day's task. While the prime object of Thompson's work has been the effective handling of men and the accurate estimation of costs, his studies have incidentally increased the effi- ciency of effort In connection with the making of forms [in concrete con- struction], for example, it was found by time study that a certain type of hammer was better than any other. It was found that a certain method of erecting the forms was con- siderably cheaper than any other plan. It was found that the number and size of nails, which ordinarily varied with each individual carpenter, could be fixed by definite standards to avoid waste in time and materials. It was found that there were certain methods of handling the lumber which were cheaper than any other way. It was shown by actual figures I08 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [382 how much saving could be accomplished by furnishing labor- ers to do all of the heavy work so that the carpenters could stick to their job of carpentry. 1 Thompson is credited by Taylor with having developed in the course of his studies implements for taking observa- tions which are in many respects the best in use. He was the man immediately in charge of the motion-study analysis of bicycle-ball inspection in the plant of the Symonds Roll- ing Machine Company. He is now in private practice as a consulting engineer making a specialty of concrete and re- inforced concrete design, construction, and tests. His chief works are: Concrete, Plain and Reinforced (1905), and Concrete Costs (1911), both written jointly with Taylor. 7. FRANK B. GILBRETH Of Frank B. Gilbreth and Harrington Emerson the last men whose work we will discuss in detail it may be said that, with the possible exception of Frederick W. Tay- lor, they have been far more successful than any others in turning towards scientific management the interest of the general public. 2 Gilbreth was born in 1868, completed his formal educa- tion with graduation from the English High School of Boston in 1885, went into business, and in the course of time became established as a successful contracting engineer engaged in large-scale undertakings. Between 1895 an< 3 1904 his main office was in Boston; since 1904, in New York City. It was not until about 1906 3 that, having 1 Sanford E. Thompson, " Time-Study and Task Work," in Journal of Political Economy, May, 1913, p. 380. 8 The most successful of the scientific-management men. Mr. Bran- deis' all-important role should not be forgotten. 3 In July, 1910, Mr. Taylor spoke of the date as being " some four years" earlier. 383] LIVES OF THE LEADERS IOO/ read Taylor's papers on "Shop Management" and "On the Art of Cutting Metals," and having conferred with their author personally, Gilbreth made his first attempt in the field of scientific management. This consisted in a reor- ganization of bricklaying, an undertaking whose brilliant execution was to win for him a national reputation and to constitute with his later work one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of scientific management. Gilbreth, following in the footsteps of all other scientific- management leaders, incorporated in his fully-developed bricklaying system an ingenious provision by which the number of bricks laid by each man might be easily calcu- lated ; he provided that those individuals who should come up to a certain high standard should receive wages 25 or 30 per cent higher than the wages common among other bricklayers in the vicinity. But it should be stated at the outset that the real em- phasis in Gilbreth's scientific management, and that which from first to last has given to it its distinctive note, is on constructive motion study that is, the scientific anal- ysis of the motions that go into work, with the idea of eliminating avoidable effort. We have seen that the orig- inal object of Taylor, Thompson, and most of the others was to discover how much men could do if they tried, and that their development of new methods of work, though important, was incidental. In the paragraphs that follow, we shall see that of Gilbreth it would be more fit- ting to say that he started out in the first place with the object of devising new and better methods, and that his introduction of management features like the task and bonus was chiefly to secure obedience to directions.' To present some of the more salient motion and fatigue- saving features of the Gilbreth system of bricklaying, it may be noted in the first place that the obvious waste of HO SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [384 making a man bend over, and then raise the weight of his body, every time he has to pick up a brick a thousand times or more a day was eliminated by arranging adjust- able scaffolds and so piling up the brick that there would be between the body of the workman, the height of the wall, and the height of the brick supply and mortar-box, just that relation which would permit the easiest, most upright work. In the second place, there was taken away from the high-priced bricklayers and turned over to low- priced laborers the simple work of arranging the bricks with their top-sides up. Gilbreth tells us that the top of a hand-made brick is always a little wider and rougher than the bottom, and that under ordinary systems the bricklayer "flops" each brick over in his hand a time or two to make sure which is the right side. This operation was elimi- nated under the new system, for the bricks were properly arranged by the low-priced helpers on " packets " holding eighteen x each, so that they might be easily grabbed by the craftsman and inserted without examination into the wall. Thirdly, it may be noted that the mortar was tem- pered so carefully that the bricks could be thrust into place by a simple shove and without the usual tap of the trowel. In the above, as well as in many other ways, the work of bricklaying was so simplified that the eighteen motions formerly thought necessary to place a brick were reduced to four and a half, and indeed in one case to two. Those which remained were made as simple and effective as thorough study could make them. The final result was that Gilbreth's men, who had formerly worked to their limit to lay 1000 bricks a day, were able after a short period of in- struction to reach a daily output of 2,700. Gilbreth erected a number of buildings in accordance with this plan, and 1 Eighteen bricks weigh about ninety-two pounds, which, it was dis- covered at Bethlehem, constitute a laborers most efficient load. 385] LIVES OF THE LEADERS IZI still holds patents covering several of the mechanical fea- tures. Not long after the perfection of the system, however, its irfventor abandoned the contracting business altogether, and began to turn his entire energy towards introducing scien- tific management into factories. The best example of what Gilbreth has accomplished along this new line is afforded by the New England Butt Company, a concern engaged in the manufacture of rope-making machinery, at Providence, Rhode Island. The system there installed may be said to be patterned after that in use in the plant of the Tabor Manufacturing Company, differing from the latter chiefly in the greater attention that has been given to contriving many small conveniences which lighten the work. We need, therefore, not describe Gilbreth's methods in detail, but will present only those features which are his own dis- tinct contribution to management technique. He has made two notable contributions, of which the first is micro- motion study. Prior to the introduction of micro-motion study, the best instrument available for timing motions was the stop watch. But there is a certain limit of refinement beyond which it is impossible to split up motions by this method. By timing a repeated sequence, so that first one group of motions is included and then another, it is indeed possible to obtain accurate records of intervals of time, too* fleeting to be measured by themselves. Nevertheless, the system is not convenient for the effective analysis of such operations as, for instance, the folding of a handkerchief. Accordingly, for work of this character Gilbreth uses a motion-picture apparatus, including in the field of vision a large-faced clock, the rapid movements of whose hands record very minute subdivisions of a minute. Behind the subject is a network of lines spaced at regular distances as on a cross- 112 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [385 section paper, against which as a background the dimen- sions of a motion can be read off. After the record has been obtained, it is possible to go over the film with a mag- nify ing-glass, and decide at leisure just how long and oveY exactly what space exceedingly rapid motions have ex* tended. Thus even in the case of the nimblest work, the micro-motion-study expert can detect false motions, and tell the worker which of his various ways of working are the most efficient. The 'invention is more brilliant than widely applicable, and up to ji recent date has received more atten- tion in the magazines than in the workshop. By a later invention of Gilbreth's, also tried out at the New England Butt Company's plant, a record of the path of a motion is made on a photographic plate by fastening a small electric bulb on the subject's. finger. By using a stereoscopic camera, space in three dimensions is shown; by making the bulb flash light only at regular intervals, the path becomes a succession of dots, which indicate the time consumed. In conclusion : We have seen that the special field of Gil- breth is not the solving of engineering and other technical problems of manufacturing, nor is he interested primarily in systems of management, but his stronghold is construc- tive motion study. Into the study of this latter subject he has thrown himself with all the ardor of a strenuous naturej and, not limiting himself to those " bread and butter " achievements that bring immediate financial results, he has striven to apply motion study to all manner of activities.J Thus, in New York hospitals he attempted a micro-motion- study analysis of surgical operations; and again we learn that he is investigating the muscular activity that underlies the " singing tone " of the skilled musician. Indeed, the elaborateness of Gilbreth's methods and the restlessness of his ambition proclaim the appearance of the scientist in a 387] LIVES OF THE LEADERS profession where most men would say that commercial / considerations alone should n " Among Gilbreth's t Ujut^/ System (1908), Concrete System (i9oB .fc.Sjwtfm (1909). \ Motion Study (1911)^^ ^^ * -* ^ interesting points of viei Management (1912) contaH this system that has yet 8. HARRINGT( In the case of each considered, the original ii management was derived without qt Frederick Winslow. Taylor. When, howi the career o-f Harrington Emerson, we pass 'from thi mediate Taylor group, and find ourselves in the pres< of a man who has been under more complex influences.! Harrington Emerson, the son of a professor of politil economy, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but spent, youth in Europe. It is to French character, and to German military efficiency as evidenced before his eyes in the con- duct of the Franco-Prussian war, that Emerson attributes his present strongest ideal the setting of precise standards. His admiration for systematic method and perfect cooper- ation was further strengthened by studies under a Euro- pean music-teacher, by observation of the remarkable re- sults obtained by breeders of fine hor^^m^>y contact with A. B. StQith, a skilful Emerson's earlier efforts inTthe management were in railway shops his entry into the pro- fession of reorganizing miscellaneous industrial plants being a later development. He^lls us * that in 1895 he 1 Correspondence dated Sept. 27, 1913. 114 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [388 " began a series of rapid surveys of American industrial plants, determining what their prodpct and costs were com- pared to what they ought to .J)e. In 1900 [he] checked up minutely the losses/occurring in the use of materials. In 10,02 [he] planned; 'she;dulgi and despatched work through a, Jarge factory,".., 'pf all Emerson's undertakings, how- e?flrr, .that which Jias,; atfracted the most attention was his ' b'ettermeait* .work " introduced into the shops of the during- TOree years beginning in 1904, a treat briefly in the next chapter. He system partially*, though in no instance 2Oor different plants from Alaska to Louisiana to Canada, from Southern Cali- to Maine." l At present his activity is carried on through the Emerson Company, an organization which frpploys between thirty and forty efficiency specialists. "To take up Emerson's distinguishing characteristics, in the first place, he calls his system " efficiency " rather than " scientific management." The distinction, though mainly one of words, is not without some significance. " Effi- ciency " is the relation between what is accomplished and what mighLbe accomplished; to* secure it one strives to introduce theDest obtainable methods, to compare produc- tivity in different plants and bring all up to the one highest standard. In the case of " scientific management," on the other hand, the emphasis is not so much on producing goods as cheaply in ^Hia. plant as in that one, but rather the aim is to do weli^jyronf ari absolute viewpoint. Thus " scientific managemerS^ friay mean creation; while " efficiency " con- templates simply a comparison of costs in different plants, and a choosing of the one best system already in use ; how- ever, the two ideas, far , from being mutually exclusive, are 1 Correspondence dated Sept. 27, 1913. 389] LIVES OF THE LEADERS H 5 but complementary aspects of the same movement, the for- mer being invention, the latter application. In the second place, Emerson opposes functional man- agement with its numerous heads, and substitutes for it the " line and staff " idea, under which there is but one boss (the line). The functional experts (or staff) whom Emer- son employs are not executive officers, but simply advise the single responsible authority; and it is the latter who puts all plans into practice through command over his " line " subordinates. The idea is to avoid creating too many bosses, and yet operate under expert advice. In the third place, Emerson uses a wage system which bases remuneration partly upon the " efficiency per cent " of the employee. A standard task is set on the basis of time-study analysis, and the workman who* just completes the same in the allotted time is credited with 100 per cent efficiency. Efficiency may thus be reckoned as below, above, or at 100 per cent. Although everyone receives his day rate, which is supposed to be a normal compensation when com- pared with prevailing wages, a man who cannot attain 66.7 per cent efficiency is regarded as subnormal and is in danger of discharge. At 67 per cent a small bonus is paid, which grows in size until at 90 per cent efficiency it reaches 10 per cent. Above this point one per cent in bonus is added for each additional one per cent gain in efficiency. Emer- son has thus developed a wage system which is in its results practically the same as Gantt's " task and bonus " plan, except that under the Gantt system no bonus is paid until a man comes up to standard performance, in the hope that the large increase then suddenly granted will bring all up to a common productivity. In general, Emerson's methods are flexible, rather than stereotyped ; his time studies and standards are approximate rather than exhaustively exact; and he relies much on the 1 1 6 SCIENTIFIC MAN A CEMENT self -direction of his subordinates. His company strives for the big gains that may be easily attained, and will accept a hurry order if funds for complete reorganization are lack- ing. Harrington Emerson is nearly three years older than Frederick W. Taylor; he did not meet the latter until com- paratively late (probably not much before 1900) / and the two never worked together. 2 Emerson was present, how- ever, when Taylor's "Shop Management" was read, in 1903, and has done almost all of his mature work in the light (if he chose to use it) of that exposition. As regards his gen- eral thought, we have seen that Emerson has received stimuli from many sources ; but as concerns the application of efficiency to industrial plants, there is good ground for believing that he is much more deeply indebted to Taylor than to any other. Indeed, men well acquainted with both have told us that Emerson was once accustomed to refer to Taylor as the source of his ideas : Taylor he regarded as trying to do too much, as being in advance of his time ; it was he, Emerson, who, by rendering lofty projects more practical, was able to achieve results. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Emerson has brought into the field a great deal of original force. He may have adopted some of Taylor's ideas; but if so, his conduct is similar to the appropriation which every man makes of any scheme that appeals to him as useful ; and beyond this, he has at the same time combined them with so many ideas derived from other sources that his resulting philosophical 1 In 1912 Emerson referred to his introduction to Taylor as having occurred some ten years earlier. However it must have been at least twelve years, as he writes of a conversation which occurred between them in 1900. * Some members of the present Taylor group started under Emerson as F. A. Parkhurst. We know of an active engineer, formerly with Emerson, who tells us that he now follows Gantt's methods. 39 1 ] LIVES OF THE LEADERS H^ system is a truly original contribution to the subject. Cer- tainly in his books he has expressed himself in a way which is in many respects far more effective than the style of the other scientific-management or efficiency men. In fact, Emerson has done more than any other single man to popularize the subject of scientific management. His statement that the railroads could save $1,000,000 a day by introducing efficiency methods was the keynote which started the present interest in the subject. His books, Efficiency (a reprint in 1911 of periodical contributions of 1908 and 1909), and The Twelve Principles of Efficiency (1912), taken with his magazine articles and addresses, have perhaps done more than anything else to make " effi- ciency " a household word. 9. THE SCIENTIFIC-MANAGEMENT MEN AS A BODY As regards the other scientific-management men, atten- tion should at least be called to Frederick A. Parkhurst, author of Applied Methods of Scientific Management', to Dr. Hollis Godfrey, scientist and contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, now president of Drexel Institute; to Dwight V. Merrick, declared by one well-informed authority to be at present the most skilled expert in time study, who at one time worked for the Link-Belt Company, then assisted Carl G. Earth install scientific management in the Water- town Arsenal, and is now with the H. H. Franklin Manu- facturing Company; to Charles Day, of Day & Zimmer- man, prominent consulting engineers of Philadelphia, the author of Industrial Plants', to C. J. Morrison, formerly with Harrington Emerson, but now of the firm of Frog- gatt, Morrison & Company, which firm has introduced the methods of scientific management into some thirty-two plants; to Henry V. Sheel, of the Brighton mills; to Henry P. Kendall, of the Plimpton Press; to William Kent, and Il8 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [392 Robert T. Kent, consulting engineers and editors of In- dustrial Engineering-, and to Charles W. Mixter, who claims to have offered the first college work on scientific management some seven or eight years ago, and who has more recently entered the active work. Among the promi- nent manufacturers who have taken up the scientific-man- agement movement, two in particular are men of distinc- tion: Henry R. Towne, president of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company, and James M. Dodge, president of the board of directors of the Link-Belt Company. To put the strength of the scientific-management move- ment in more definite terms: We may first note that the Society for the Promotion of the Science of Management, whose membership is practically a roll of the leading Tay- lor men, numbers about seventy-five. Again, the Efficiency Society Incorporated started to compile a list of all the men professionally engaged in reorganizing industrial en- terprises; and this roll had at our last count reached one hundred and eighty. As this list made no pretense of being complete in fact, some very prominent names had not yet been placed upon it it is probable that the actual number of persons whose entire time is devoted to introducing some type of " efficiency " is very much greater than one hundred and eighty. If, finally, there be added in, all the factory managers who are trying to introduce improved methods for themselves, the extent of the broader scien- tific-management movement is seen to be bordering on the immeasurable. While many of this larger group are only ordinary in ability, and probably lack knowledge as to what scientific management really is, one is safe in saying that, at the fountain-head at least, the system is represented by earnest and capable men ; the sketches which have been given above prove this. But if further proof be needed, it is only nee- 393 ] LIVES OF THE LEADERS essary to point out that three of the leaders in the scientific- management movement have been presidents of the Amer- ican Society of Mechanical Engineers (Taylor, Towne, and Dodge), and that, conversely, many of the most active officers and committeemen of that organization are iden- tified with, and throw their influence in favor of these new industrial ideas. Perhaps no other tribunal in America could by its approval add more prestige at least as far as manufacturing technique is concerned to the standing of scientific management. Such is the size and character of the scientific-manage- ment movement. In the next chapter we shall endeavor to ascertain to what extent the movement has to date altered the industrial world. CHAPTER V A SURVEY OF THE TRADES AND PLANTS IN WHICH SCIEN- TIFIC MANAGEMENT HAS BEEN INTRODUCED I. THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE HISTORIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT a. The Midvale Steel Company AT the birthplace of scientific management, and the seat of its development from 1882 to 1889, the system is said to have remained static since Frederick W. Taylor left in the latter year; and though the ideas which constituted it in the eighties are still being applied, and, it is said, nore successfully than ever before, Midvale has adopted none of the later features which have made the old scien- tific management seem but fragmentary. Midvale is one of America's three great armor plate-making plants, and produces heavy forgings of many types. b. The Bethlehem Steel Company Turning next to an examination of what has happened at Bethlehem, where innovations were made which were advertised for a decade if not until the present time as the most striking proof of what scientific management can accomplish, it may be said that the references all date back to work which was done between 1898 and 1901, or at the very latest, 1902. This is because the system installed there met with the disapproval of Charles M. Schwab when he came into control of the plant in September, 1901 ; 120 [394 395] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS I2 i Taylor had at this time already retired; Earth left the same year, and Gantt in 1902. The status of scientific management at Bethlehem since 1901 is a controverted matter. The present owners say that they have rid themselves of Taylor and his ideas, and declare in their irritation that they "don't want to hear anything more about scientific management." Gantt and his associates grow equally warm in expressing their views. They accuse Schwab of being an irreclaimable " driver "; they say that though he pretended to repudiate the whole of their system, he really continued to enforce those fea- tures which aim to bring production up to the maximum, divorcing from the system, however, its essential principles of liberal pay and fair treatment. This policy, according to Taylor, did not work well : Although at first an attempt was made to do away with bonuses, " at the end of the month (so the foreman and the men told [Taylor]), Mr. Schwab was [all too] glad to put the premium back again, because the product of the shop had dropped to about one- half." In spite of such warnings, Gantt says, 2 Mr. Schwab continued to debase scientific-management's better ideals regarding the treatment of workmen, until there came the great strike of 1910. Though Schwab is thus alleged to have wandered away from certain of the teach- ings of scientific management, it is claimed that on the whole his plant has retained the important features of the system. Thus we meet with conflicting testimony: that of the Bethlehem management that Taylor and his system have been " kicked out," and that of some of the opposing 1 Testimony of Taylor, Hearings before Special Committee of the House of Representatives to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Management, p. 1506. 2 Work', Wages and Profits, p. 107. 122 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [396 / party, who have revisited the works, and say that its essen- tials are in operation. Without venturing to pass judgment as to the truth of the charges against Mr. Schwab, there is good reason for believing that a considerable portion of scientific manage- ment is to-day imbeded in the Bethlehem organization. Our authority is no other than a statement issued by the Bethlehem Steel Company itself, and constituting Appen- dix C of a Government Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works? prepared after the 1910 trouble. This state- >. ment carefully explains that in its machine shops the time required to perform each operation entering into the work "is determined by " observation " [elementary time study] ; that on the basis of this " standard information " a " man in charge of the rating " allows a proper time for the completion of each individual job [task-setting] ; and that for success a bonus of 20 per cent above a fair day rate is given, while if the task be completed in less than the stand- ard time, the gain is shared equally between the company and the workman [the Gantt " task and bonus " system, except that the Gantt plan gives all the gain to the work- man]. Finally, there is displayed a "work slip" [instruc- tion card] which with its detailed enumeration of opera- tions, directions as to regulation of machine,*fc., looks for all the world as though it might have come out of Taylor's " Shop Management" Now, the Bethlehem Steel Com- pany has doubtless made changes during the last fourteen years; but the above-outlined statement certainly shows that, in the machine shops at least, their advancement has not carried them away from the general principles laid down by Taylor, Gantt, and Barth. As to the fate of the novel Bethlehem experiments in 1 Sen. Doc. no. 521, 61 C., 2 S. 397] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS scientific pig-iron handling and shoveling, 1 the insight given by the contents of the last paragraph dispose one to credit the assertion of Taylor that as a matter of fact " they are still carting around forty tons of pig iron a day at Bethlehem " (his way of roughly indicating that the output is still approximating 47% instead of i2 l / 2 tons) ; and to accept as a correct explanation his further state- 1 The "science" of shoveling being one of the most interesting dis- coveries of the Bethlehem period, and not having come in for description before, it may be explained here that among its fundamentals are the selection of large scoops for the handling of light, and small shovels for the handling of heavy materials, so that the load will for every class of work approximate twenty-one pounds, which load experiment has shown to be the most efficient. Studies were made of the relative advantages of earth, wood, and iron surfaces underneath the pile. Workmen were instructed in the best way of pushing in their shovels, . etc. The time required to throw to any given height or distance was brought under a formula, and tasks were set, based upon these dis- tances and the laws of human endurance. A personal record was kept of the work of each man, and for standard performance individuals were given substantial bonuses, so that the average earnings for all of the men rose about 60 per cent (from $1.15 to $1.88). That no time might be lost through having too many men in one place and too few in another, or through waiting between jobs, a central office was es- tablished from which " every laborer's work was planned out well in advance, and the workmen were all moved from place to place by the clerks with elaborate diagrams or maps of the yard before them." The results claimed for this system were a reduction of the force of yard laborers from between 400 and 600 to 140, an increase in the average number of tons handled per man per day from 16 to 59, and (Taylor assures us) beneficial effects on the workmen. The net sav- ings for the third year, after including in the costs "the office and tool-room expenses, and the wages of all labor superintendents, fore- men, clerks, time-study men, etc., are placed at $36,400, "and during the six months following, when all of the work of the yard was on task work, the saving was at the rate of between $75,000 and $80,000 per year." (Principles of Scientifice Management, p. 71.) According to Taylor's testimony before the Industrial Relations Commission, 1900 observations were made covering the shoveling of a single kind of material. 124 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [398 ment that, while he himself has not been back at Bethlehem, others who have say that shoveling is still carried on according to his methods. 1 If it should happen that we have reached an unwarranted conclusion, and the remnants of scientific management at Bethlehem are indeed unimportant, even then it would still be true that the historical movements which occurred there have a present-day standing. In that case it could be pointed out that the system there developed for machine shops has since been incorporated, along with new ideas, in other plants. Whether or not shoveling is now per- formed " scientifically " at Bethlehem, the art, Taylor as- sured us, has certainly been introduced elsewhere. For in- stance, glimpses of it are caught in the reports of General Crozier on the Watertown Arsenal. Finally, to illustrate the subtle manner in which scientific-management ideas may be transferred to new soil, data developed in the pig- iron work concerning the laws of human endurance have been applied to bricklaying. The investment in the Bethlehem Steel Company, includ- ing capital, funded debt, and surplus, is given in the Gov- ernment report referred to above, as over $40,000,000, the normal number of employees as about 8,300, The com- pany manufactures gun forgings, marine and general en- gine forgings, and heavy machinery and ordnance of every description. c. Bicycle-B all-Bearing Inspection A different fate befell scientific management in the works of the Symonds Rolling Machine Company, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where during the bicycle craze more bicycle 1 The statement in regard to shoveling was made direct to the writer ; the assertion in regard to pig-iron handling was made through a third party. 399] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS ball bearings were manufactured than in any other shop in the United States : the concern is no longer in existence. Although we are told that not much scientific management was introduced in this place, considerable publicity was given to the study of bicycle-ball inspection as referred to in an earlier passage. 1 d. Bricklaying Since Gilbreth left the contracting business, it is not known that his bricklaying methods are being applied any- where in their entirety. He has noted, however, the use by others of various isolated features of his system for in- stance, the " packet " idea in carrying bricks. While the Gilbreth methods were in operation, they were hailed as the great example of cooperation between scien- tific management and the unions. Being himself a member of the Boston bricklayers' union, Gilbreth declared that he had after some difficulty overcome scruples about piece- work by paying the men a straight day rate, and then giving a bonus for reaching a certain high output. It should be noted that this cooperation was never in the form of a definite agreement. It is believed by some that Gilbreth abandoned the con- tracting business because this friendly relationship came to an end, that there were strikes, etc. The actual extent of trouble of this kind seems to have been a two-days' mix-up at Hudson Falls, New York, which proved to have been more of a misunderstanding within the labor organization itself than an affair of real seriousness. A letter received 1 Page 79. Taylor had been engaged to systematize this plant, Gantt was general superintendent, and S. E. Thompson did the time-study work. According to C. Bertrand Thompson (" Scientific Management in Practice," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb., 1915) it was here that the system of functional foremen first reached its full development. 126 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 4OO from the corresponding secretary of one of the two Boston locals, replying to a request for information on the subject, speaks of no differences with Gilbreth other than the union's refusal to allow the use of the "fountain trowel." Nevertheless, labor's national leaders, who look forward to the possible consequences growing out of scientific manage- ment, are undeniably hostile to the new bricklaying. Gilbreth's relationship to organized labor in the field of bricklaying seems, therefore, to have consisted in (i) the convincing of individual union men that it was to their interest to work according to his system; (2) non-interfer- ence on the part of the local organizations; (3) moral opposition on the part of national leaders; and (4) the dis- appearance of the issue through Gilbreth's going into a more promising profession. e. The Santa Fe In May, 1904, because of labor troubles, Harrington Emerson was given the task of reorganizing a part of the Santa Fe railway system. His authority extended only to that one department known as the motive power depart- ment; and he was, therefore, concerned mainly with the maintenance and repair of locomotives, much of which work was centralized in shops at Topeka. Nevertheless, by the time Emerson had worked out from Topeka to the end of the 10,000 or so miles of road, his system was affect- ing 12,000 men, and he had a task upon his hands which', took three years of time, and the assistance of a large staff of railway experts (in 1906, 31 were on the work). The cause of starting Emerson's " betterment work," as it was officially called, having been a strike, his first and most important aim was to establish a basis for per- manent harmony by introducing an " individual effort arid bonus system." Increased supervision of the men was to 4 0i] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS I2 ; be undertaken, and for good work special rewards were to be given. Accordingly, time studies were made (about 4,000 by December, 1906), tasks were set, and bonuses offered. There were several distinguishing features which marked this phase of scientific management as it was in- troduced on the Santa Fe : j First, extreme emphasis was laid on the individual character of the relations of men and management : " The schedule is a moral contract or agree- ment with the men as to a particular machine operation, rate of wages and time. Any change in men [etc.] calls for a new schedule. " Second, there was a lack of insistence on the selection of unusual men : " The standard time set is reasonable, and one that can be reached without extra- ordinary effort; is, in fact, such time as a good foreman would demand." 1 And third, bonuses were paid to fore- men. Thus the Santa Fe management sought to make of its employees industrious, well-paid, and loyal workmen, v But before actually setting tasks, it was necessary to study and standardize all tools and equipment, and this led in itself to important improvements. Specially notable was the improvement in the care of belting, this being taken out of the hands of the workmen and put into those of specialists, with a resulting saving of 70 per cent in .the expense of belt maintenance. Perhaps the most interesting features which Emerson introduced were the various rout- ing and scheduling devices. All of the work in. the machine shop .was so arranged that it could be controlled from dis- patch-boards located in a central office; likewise on a bul- letin-board was indicated the progress in the repair of each locomotive. Most of the other changes such as the cen- tralization of work at Topeka, and the introduction of im- 1 Statements of Harrington Emerson, as printed in an editorial write-up entitled, " Betterment Work on the Santa Fe," American En- gineer and Railroad Journal, Dec., 1906. I2 g SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [402 proved methods of cost accounting are beyond the pale of things which are distinctively " scientific management." It is agreed that the principles of scientific management were only part of them introduced on the Santa Fe. Never- theless the estimated savings were at the time put at enor- mous figures. Thus in the article from which the above quotations were taken, its writer estimated from figures contained in the president's annual report that during the fiscal year ending June 31, 1906, fully a million and a quarter of dollars were saved. Other critics were equally enthusiastic, and the work attracted a great deal of atten- tion throughout the country. Since Emerson's connection with the Santa Fe was sev- ered, there have been those who have said that the value of the work was illusory, and that now, as a matter of fact, the entire structure has been torn down by the officers of the company. Of this much there can be no doubt, that the facile way in which savings running into the millions were calculated is now recognized as unscientific. We have talked with some of the men who made the original esti- mates, and they now acknowledge the impossibility of even approximately stating how much the innovations were worth, and indeed smile a little at their own big figures. As to the status on the Santa Fe to-day, the two follow- ing quotations, the one from Harrington Emerson, and the other from a present officer of the company, contain on the one hand an implied admission that there have been more or less important alterations, and on the other hand an acknowledgment on the part of the new managers that they have conserved much of Emerson's chief contribu- tion. Thus Emerson writes : 1 Since that time [his withdrawal six years before] there has 1 Correspondence dated Sept. 27, 1913. 403] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS I2 g been a change in vice-presidents, two changes in superinten- dent of motive power, and not one of my original group of assistants is left. Nevertheless much of the work remains. About 60,000 work schedules were made out and bonus to the extent of $1,000,000 a year has been paid, and in large amount is still being paid. From the other side, we are informed by Vice-President W. B. Storey * that while " it is not practicable to give an estimate of the saving due to ' betterment '," nevertheless: " The bonus system installed at the time Mr. Emerson was with us is still in effect on our road, although it has been modified in certain directions." In reply to an inquiry as to what parts of " betterment " had been abolished, he said : " The principal feature that has been eliminated is bonus to foremen and men in authority." A considerable part of Emerson's work has therefore been retained on the Santa Fe, and, as we are told by various authorities, is working satisfactorily. f. Conclusions as to the Past of Scientific Management Thus is brought down to date the story of those instal- lations of scientific management which are discussed in the older literature of the subject. We may conclude that, while the facts do not warrant our saying with some that all of the stock illustrations of scientific management are to-day practically non-existent, nevertheless it is true that in each case something has happened to dim the glory of the achievement. Though abandoned in but few cases, and convicted of failure in none, stagnation, disavowal, or transformation, have destroyed their character as satisfac- tory evidence. However, as a matter of fact, the scientific- management men of to-day no longer care a great deal 1 Quotations from correspondence dated March 17, 1914. 130 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [404 about these earlier examples. They regard most of them as but the remnants of experimental stages which their rapidly-developing movement has long ago left behind. In the following paragraphs we will turn, therefore, to a survey of certain scenes of contemporary activity, where the up-to-date system may be observed. 2. A STUDY OF SEVERAL INSTALLATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY IMPORTANCE a. The Tabor Manufacturing Company This is a Philadelphia concern employing about one hundred men; it is engaged in the manufacture of mold- ing machinery, together with certain other machinery and appliances for machine-shop use. Though the company had been in business for a number of years, it was not until 1900 or later that it opened a shop for the purpose of doing its own manufacturing. The new venture was not very well organized, and the company sustained heavy losses, conditions being made still worse by a strike of the employees. After a time the president, Wilfred Lewis, who happened to be a personal friend of Frederick W. Taylor, sought and obtained the latter's financial aid. This was given on condition that scientific management be in- troduced. Reorganization was begun under the direction of Carl G. Barth, consulting engineer, with the aid of ad- vance sheets from Taylor's paper on "Shop Management" (read in June, 1903), and some personal supervision by Taylor himself. In the fall of 1904, Horace K. Hathaway was engaged to give his entire time to the introduction of the system, and since then, working first under the direction of Barth and then independently, Hathaway has been the man responsible for scientific management in this plant; he is now vice-president. Taylor was owner of a small 405] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS I ^ l amount of stock, not at all a controlling interest, as is some- times said. The following claims have been made for scientific man- agement in the Tabor works: The first year that Hath- away was with the company they continued to lose money antagonism within the management hindered the start; the second year, expenses were just about met; while dur- ing the third and succeeding years there were large profits. 1 In 1910 the experience of this company was Brandeis' first and strongest argument as to the efficacy of scientific man- agement. It was testified before the Interstate Commerce Commission that in 1910 the money value of the Tabor output was between two and three times as great as it had been in 1904, this value representing, as prices had fallen, a material output fully three times as great as in 1904. This remarkable showing had been effected without any increase in the size of the plant, the floor space remaining practically the same, merely some additional storage room having to be rented, and there having been but little new machinery added. More than this, the number of work- men, instead of being increased, had been actually reduced : where in 1904, 105 workmen were required in the shop and 5 in the office, in 1910 only 75 were employed in the shop and 20 in the office (or in supervising) ; thus scien- tific management had cut down the total force from no to 95. 1 The Tabor Manufacturing Company is said to have failed recently to declare a dividend. However, our informant, one of the leading critics of scientific management, assigned the incident to commercial causes alone, and not to the shop system. Mr. Hathaway tells us that while business conditions have been unusually unfavorable recently, his company has as a matter of fact often passed dividends the stock being all in the hands of a small group, who have followed a policy of strengthening the company's resources, accumulating stock, etc., rather than seeking immediate returns. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [406 A description of the introduction of scientific manage- ment into the Tabor works follows. The sketch will show scientific management from a new and more realistic angle. In our earlier discussion of the genesis of scientific man- agement the main features of the system were presented in what might be called their logical sequence; that is, atten- tion was first called to the ends in view, and secondly, to the means adopted. However, when a real factory like the Tabor Manufacturing Company actually starts to in- troduce scientific management, it is obvious that the vari- ous features must be installed in precisely the reverse of the logical order that is, the first steps must be of a rather incidental nature, while the greater ends can be compassed only towards the last. Hence, as we review the experience of this company, we shall find our first, second, and third phases of scientific management somewhat rearranged. The first effort in the Tabor plant was to improve con- ditions. All of the machines were gone over, strengthened where necessary, and put into first-class order. A plentiful supply of small tools, such as bolts and clamps for holding materials, was purchased and put at the disposal of the workmen. Cutting tools of the most scientific shapes and of uniform quality of steel were introduced. As coming partly under this same head of rearranging conditions may be mentioned improvements in tool-rooms, store-rooms, etc. As rapidly as progress along this first line permitted, a second side of scientific management was taken up, namely, the organizing of the working force. The shop was placed under the control of a " functional management " with headquarters in a " planning department." To describe the Tabor system : As soon as an order has passed through the hands of the draftsman, it is analyzed to determine exactly what parts will have to be made, and then, the date for the completion of the entire order having been taken 407] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS into consideration, an explanatory diagram is drawn up, which covers all the parts, and specifies just when each part should be finished and ready for assembly. The next step is to send a list of the materials which will be needed to the stock clerk, who makes sure that everything will be on hand in time; also by way of preparation, an instruction card is made out for every operation, which covers the things to be done, the best methods of doing them, the tools that will be needed, and the time which each element of the job should take. Everything is now put into the charge of the "order of work" clerk; keeping an eye on the planning-department diagram which stipulates when every operation must be finished, and at the same time keeping in touch with the daily work of every man and machine in the shop, this " general " routes and dispatches the jobs by means of elaborate bulletin-boards, the whole system thus resembling a great piece of clock-work. Again viewing the Tabor functional management, and this time from the standpoint of the workman at a ma- chine, functional management means that where formerly the workman had to hunt up the foreman to find out what he was to do, then search for materials, find and grind his own tools, etc., now he has everything brought to him in advance, and laid out before him in first-class condition ready for starting to work. In addition, the workman has at hand an instruction card, which makes unnecessary a preliminary debate as to what to do first. Also at his ser- vice are three teachers, of whom the gang-boss and the speed-boss instruct him in the most expeditious way of setting up and of performing the work, while the inspector instructs him as to how he may obtain the necessary quality. Not until the Tabor people had undertaken these two preliminary steps could there be installed the last and crowning feature of scientific management the wage sys- SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 4O g tern. Briefly characterized, this consists in timing the ele- mentary human movements entering into a job, calculating the machine times, and then using these data to decide how long it should take to complete the job; the company under all circumstances pays a day rate, which is, it is claimed, fully as high as that prevailing throughout the community for similar work; and then for successful accomplishment of the task it pays in addition a bonus amounting to 35 per cent. Some of the men always earn their bonus; others sometimes fail. The average amount carried home at the end of the week is said to be between 25 and 30 per cent greater than the same men could get elsewhere. The Tabor Manufacturing Company's plant is the most celebrated demonstration ground and school connected with the scientific-management movement. One gentleman counted some twenty visitors who went through the shop in about three hours one afternoon. It is a favorite place for training young men who are later to become experts on their own account. b. The Link-Belt Company A twin brother of the Tabor Manufacturing Company as far as scientific management is concerned is the Phila- delphia branch of the Link-Belt Company, a concern en- gaged in manufacturing elevating and conveying machin- ery, of special rather than standard types, and employing from four hundred to seven hundred and fifty men. In both the Tabor and Link-Belt plants, and at almost the same time, the introduction of scientific management was started by Carl G. Barth, under the general supervision of Frederick W. Taylor. Of the two, the Link-Belt people perhaps deserve credit for taking hold more promptly and attacking more vigorously and with less respect to cost 409] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS pioneer difficulties. Some believe, however, that at the pres- ent time there is a shade of difference the other way, and that the Tabor organization has carried its system to a finer point of perfection. But these distinctions are not impor- tant : scientific management has been installed completely in both plants; their methods are nearly identical; both con- cerns are celebrated. However, the statistics of the Link-Belt Company fur- nish the better basis for judgment as to the true value of scientific management; for in the case of the Tabor Manu- facturing Company, all comparison is with a past when the concerns manufacturing was admittedly an immature, badly organized, and losing undertaking. The Link-Belt enter- prise, on the contrary, was started about 1874 or 1875, and since 1878 the company has had with it James M. Dodge, a president of the American Society of Mechanical Engi- neers. In the nineties they had a superintendent well versed in some of the best shop practices. Indeed, they thought in 1903 that they were running a model shop, and the company was, in fact, making money. Hence the com- parison, in the case of the Link-Belt Company, is between the best of the old and the best of the new. In 1910 James M. Dodge, chairman of the board of directors, testified before the Interstate Commerce Com- mission that the Link-Belt Company was at that time pro- ducing twice as efficiently in its Philadelphia plant as in 1903 and 1904, meaning that, per man employed, the out- put of the works as a whole was twice as great. As regards wages, he declared that all were paid what the men con- sidered fair day rates; in addition to this, a bonus was added for good work, which amounted in the case of most good workmen to 25 or 30 per cent of the ordinary wage, but in a few exceptional instances to 35 per cent. The labor time had thus been reduced by as much as 50 per 136 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 4IO cent; but, taking into account the increase in wages, and making allowance for the fact that in this industry the ex- pense for labor is somewhat overshadowed by the outlay for raw materials, it was declared that in the total costs the system had meant a reduction of not more than 20 per cent. As the selling price had been cut 10 or 15 per cent being figured for the most part on cost plus a percentage the net gain to the stockholders could not have been more than 5 or 10 per cent of the selling price. In spite of this cutting away of a large part of the profits due to scientific management, the company was nevertheless decidedly more prosperous than before, its dividends having ranged in the years preceding 1910 from 5 to 14 per cent. It was also brought out in Mr. Dodge's testimony that the Link-Belt routing system had been of special value, in that it enabled the company to deliver orders with greater regularity, and that their improved methods of replenishing stock had per- mitted a reduction of one-third in the stores kept per unit of business carried on. In April, 1914, Frederick W. Taylor testified before the Industrial Relations Commission that 98 per cent of the metal-cutting tasks set in this plant were accomplished in schedule time by the workmen. Before the same com- mission, Dodge testified that the average term of employ- ment was more than seven years; also that the company had on file as many as 50,000 time studies. About 1906 there was a merger of the Philadelphia company with corporations carrying on manufacturing in Chicago and Indianapolis. In Chicago, the introduction of scientific management was begun promptly ; and because the management was now experienced, as much progress was made in one year in Chicago as had been made in four in Philadelphia. Later, the system was being installed rapidly in Indianapolis. ] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS In weighing the value of these statistics in regard to the Tabor Manufacturing Company and the Link-Belt Com- pany, and, in fact, in judging of the results due to the in- troduction of scientific management in any machine shop, it must be remembered that one reason for success is the fact that the management experts bring with them high- speed steel. How much of the increase in productivity was due to organization and how much to this epoch-making mechanical improvement, it is hard to say, for the reason that it would be impossible to get the full benefit of the steel without the use of the instruction cards, bonuses, and other management features. Between the two sources of profit Dodge makes no distinction, but says that the doubling of productivity was due to scientific management plus high-speed steel. The prolonged studies by which the laws of metal-cutting were discovered and formulated for use in the shop, we believe should be regarded as a distinctly scientific-manage- ment activity; and specially does the system deserve credit for any saving due to the every-day application of these principles by means of instruction cards, functional fore- men, etc. ; these are a part of scientific management. But high-speed steel, though a product of scientific manage- ment, should not be confused with it; and we must, there- fore, deduct something from the above estimates, to deter- mine the true worth of the new management taken by itself. Besides allowing for the effect of high-speed steel, it may be noted that in six years ordinary progress should account for a certain lessening of cost. The fact that prices were lower and competitors more numerous in the fields occupied by both companies in 1910 than in 1904 might indicate that other forces were reducing costs and increasing outputs besides scientific management. 138 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 4I2 It is believed, however, that after taking all these things into consideration, a good part of the three-fold productiv- ity claimed for the Tabor plant, and the two-fold efficiency claimed for the Link-Belt works, should be laid to the credit of scientific management. ,The greater prosperity of the companies, both as compared with their own past and with the condition of their competitors, indicates that they now have some unusual advantage. The decision of the Link-Belt Company to install the system in its Chicago and Indianapolis plants shows that the managers, at least, are convinced of its value. c. The Water town Arsenal On June 14, 1909, Carl G. Barth began the installation of scientific management in the arsenal operated by the United States Government at Watertown, Mass. After about two years spent in looking over the machinery and in systematizing the plant, the first bonus was offered in May, 1911. The application of the new wage system was gradually widened, so that by May, 1913, 45 per cent of the work of the machine shop was under the premium system, some of the other departments, however, running as low as 5 per cent. Altogether, during that month, 210 out of the 600 employees of the arsenal worked a part of their time upon premium jobs. Though it is thus seen that scientific management had not yet been thoroughly enough introduced to make the Watertown Arsenal a typical instance of its application, yet the fact that we here meet with official figures makes it worth while to give a brief summary of the results obtained. In his annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1912, General Crozier, Chief of Ordnance, gave special attention to the subject of scientific management. He stated that during that year it had saved the Watertown 413] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS Arsenal $49,000; but if throughout the entire twelve months there had been as much of the system in force as there was in May and June, the figures would have been $100,000. The best proof of the value of scientific man- agement, he continued, was the fact that due to the exist- ence of these savings the estimates for the next fiscal year had been reduced by over $240,000. Scientific management was furthermore permitting a substantial reduction in the amount of stores, $122,000 worth having been already ab- sorbed. The productivity of the individual was on the average about two and a half times as great as it had been under day-work, as was found by a comparison of the job cards on about sixty different jobs, each of which was performed both under the old day-work and the premium systems. In a memorandum submitted to the Secretary of War on September 6, 1913, General Crozier further stated that in the seventeen months ending May 31, 1913, $22,000 had been paid out in premiums to the men. During May, 1913, individuals had earned bonuses varying from nothing to $31. In the machine shop, the average earnings while working on premium jobs were 24 per cent above the day rate. More men earned premiums between 30 and 35 per cent than in any other 5-per-cent group, while less than 4 per cent failed to receive any bonus. These machinists con- stituted three-fifths of the premium workers. The averages for the other departments were generally higher, and in no case lower, than 24 per cent. The premium system at Watertown starts with the usual stop-watch analysis on the basis of which the time required to perform work is ascertained ; this time is then increased by two-thirds (that is, for a job that can be done in 30 minutes, 50 minutes is allowed), and then for every minute saved from the time allowed a premium of half a minute's I 4 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT additional pay is given. Thus if a task which can be done in 30 minutes is actually finished in 30 instead of 50 min- utes, the premium amounts to 10 minutes, or 33^ per cent No matter how long a man takes, he gets his regular day rate; and in September, 1913, General Crozier stated that up to that time no one had been discharged for failure to earn a bonus, or indeed because of the introduction of scientific management. Foremen are given bonuses which vary with the success of their subordinates. The chief interest in the Watertown Arsenal case centers, however, in the relationship between scientific management and organized labor. In December, 1910, General Crozier had assembled at Watertown a board including the com- manding officers of the principal manufacturing arsenals. A thorough study was made of the new methods and their adoption elsewhere recommended. By this time, the hear- ings before the Interstate Commerce Commission had thrown the limelight on scientific management. When, therefore, in the spring of 1911, steps were taken to intro- duce the system at the Rock Island Arsenal, the employees there, it? cooperation with President Gompers of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor and President O'Connell of the International Association of Machinists, vigorously at- tacked it. Hearings were secured before the House com- mittee on labor, and an alarmist circular was issued by O'Connell. Possibly it was because of this stimulus, General Cro- zier thinks, that when an attempt was made to introduce the bonus system into the Watertown foundry during the summer of 1911, the entire force walked out. Though they came back in a few days and the installation of scien- tific management was successfully continued, on August 21 the House of Representatives authorized a special com- mittee to make an investigation. This committee, composed of W. B. Wilson, later Secretary of Labor, Wm. C. Red- 415] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS I4I field, later Secretary of Commerce, and John Q. Tilson, held hearings in Boston, New York, and Washington, be- ginning on October 4, 1911, and ending the following Feb- ruary 1 2th. On June 17, 1913, the majority of the Water- town employees, and then on June 21 their union represen- tatives, filed petitions requesting the abandonment of the " Taylor " or " stop-watch " system. To these petitions General Crozier made an exhaustive reply (September 6). From time to time various bills have been introduced into both houses of Congress forbidding the use of the stop watch (or other time-measuring device) and the pay- ing of bonuses on government work. On March 3, 1915, the House forced the Senate's unwilling consent to pro- visions in both the Army and Navy appropriation bills for- bidding the use of funds for either of these purposes. This means that, beginning with July i, 1915, the extension or preservation of this phase of scientific management in the Government arsenals will be impossible. For a year, at least, the system will be suppressed. Indeed, the War De- partment has not waited for July to begin its removal. 1 d. The Cotton Industry Our last detailed description will be of a plant in regard to which there is available exceptionally valuable data re- specting the effect of scientific management on health. It -is a New Jersey cotton mill, systematized some time ago by Henry L. Gantt, who for five years devoted a portion of his attention to the work. The increase in the productivity of the factory amounted to perhaps 20 or 30 per cent, and 1 Colonel Charles B. Wheeler, commanding officer of the Watertown Arsenal, and Major C. C. Williams, his first assistant, have devoted much time to the matter of pushing the introduction of scientific man- agement; Dwight V. Merrick, a very capable time-study man, was Earth's assistant. For statement as to the objections raised against scientific management at Watertown, cf. infra, p. 188, n., and pp. 190-2. That the formal petitions, in fact, misrepresented the real sentiments of the employees is indicated, infra, pp. 192-3. \ I 4 2 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT was substantial, though not at all as phenomenal as in the case of the metal-cutting shops. Wages were increased by about 30 per cent in many (though not all) of the depart- ments, so that it is seen that the profit to the management did not lie in diminishing the direct labor cost, but rather lay in lessening the proportion of overhead expense to be attached to each unit of output, because of the increased production. As quality as well as quantity was considered in the paying of bonuses, there was a marked improvement in the uniformity of the product. Though there was thus no overwhelming increase in the production of this cotton mill, it might not be a bad place to look for injurious effects upon the health of the work- ers: a large number of the employees were women; and the introduction of task-setting though it eventually re- sulted in the work's being practically all performed in standard time was at first accompanied by a marked thin- ning in the ranks of the employees. This would cause one to wonder whether Gantt was right in saying that those who fell by the wayside were idlers, or whether the oppo- nents of the system could not here find a justification for their general contention that the pace set by scientific man- agement is too fast. We may, therefore, attach considerable importance to a two months' investigation covering the effect of scientific management on health in this and two other factories. This investigation was financed by S. S. McClure, and con- ducted by Miss Edith Wyatt, for many years vice-president of the Illinois Consumers' League, an organization which strives to ameliorate the conditions of women's and chil- dren's labor. In her testimony before the special House committee appointed to investigate scientific management, Miss Wyatt gave the following facts : 1 1 Hearings, 417] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS Her investigation of the cotton mill concerned only the women workers; it included one or more visits to the homes of 30 out of the no women operatives, and talks with the mothers of the younger girls. As to the attitude of the girls towards scientific management, Miss Wyatt said : . . . they were almost all of them pleased with it. The only one who was distinctly displeased with it was the girl I men- tioned who was living in really very tragic conditions at home . . . she complained of the entire cotton industry . . . but I did not feel her complaint was due to scientific management. And then the winder I speak of complained of the stamping on pedals, and that I felt was justified. [This latter work was afterwards turned over to boys.] Miss Wyatt said that in all her investigations she found only one mother who objected to the system, and after talking with the neighbors and looking up the health of the children, Miss Wyatt thought that this complaint was groundless. Her own observations, made department by department, convinced Miss Wyatt that in only one particular were conditions unfavorable to health, and that was where some obstacle, regularly connected with the work, had to be encountered oftener because of the speeding-up of the machinery as, for instance, the stamping on pedals men- tioned above. However, the management was constantly and successfully applying itself to the eradication of these obstacles; and even in spite of the burdensomeness of these difficult operations, the amelioration of working conditions in general the better air, better light, and reduced strain made for a net improvement in working conditions under the system. In the course of her investigation, Miss Wyatt was per- 144 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT haps struck with nothing more forcibly than the changed attitude of the employers towards hours, wages, conditions of work, etc. the " mental revolution "of which Fred- erick W. Taylor is fond of speaking. She offered one criticism: "My feeling . . . was that if the workers had been organized, if the workers themselves had stated their grievances, that it would have been of great assistance both to the employers and to the efficiency engineers and to the girls themselves." 3. EXTENT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGE- MENT Turning now to a more rapid survey of other plants in which scientific management has been installed, Frederick A. Parkhurst's Applied Methods of Scientific Management is a 325-page record of the precise steps taken to modify and expand Taylor's principles to meet the specific condi- tions existing in a given plant, namely, that of the Ferra- cute Machine Company at Bridgeton, New Jersey. The claim is made that with practically the same employees and equipment the time required to perform 275 jobs was on the average reduced to just 38 per cent of what it had been before, that after increasing the average day rate by n per cent, and giving to bonus workers in addition an in- crease of from 20 to 60 per cent, the total cost for the 275 jobs, including overhead expense, was only 47 per cent of what it had been under the old system. In the printing line, much attention has been attracted to the reorganization of the Plimpton Press, at Norwood, Massachusetts, by Morris L. Cooke and Horace K. Hath- away, with the aid of Henry P. Kendall, manager. This well-known concern employs about 1,200 persons. The Taylor system was partially installed for the Forbes Litho- graph Company of Boston, the initial work there having 419] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS been done by Cooke. A start was made in the plant of the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia, and in that of the Manhattan Press of New York. The Union Typewriter Company is now accepting scientific management from Henry L. Gantt; the Pullman Company of Chicago from Carl G. Barth. The H. H. Franklin Manufacturing Company, automobile builders, are having the system installed by Dwight V. Merrick, their works manager being George D. Babcock. The Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company employed Carl G. Barth to introduce scientific management into one department some time ago, and is now extending the same to the whole plant under the leadership of J. C. Reagan. Gantt's most promising field is now the Westinghouse Electric Com- pany, and he has been retained by the famous Cheney Silk Mills of South Manchester, Conn. The mere mention of these great corporations shows that scientific management is now being rapidly intrenched in the high places of the industrial world. Turning our in- quiry now to the proportion of industry affected, Robert T. Kent, who is the secretary of the Society for the Pro- motion of the Science of Management, and who excludes from scientific management everything that is not strictly "Taylor," tells us that one day he called to mind with but little effort sixty important instances of the introduction of the system. If now to the Taylor group's work be added the two hundred installations of Harrington Emer- son, and also those of a great number of other efficiency engineers whose methods largely parallel scientific manage- ment, the actual results of the movement are seen to be not inconsiderable. A committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers reported in December, 1912, that although they could not obtain complete statistics as to the extent of the introduction of the new system, " labor- 146 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 4 20 saving management " (by which they meant scientific man- agement) had been installed in some form in the following fifty-two industries : 1 Book binding Building construction Carriage and wagon building Construction and repair of vessels (navy yards) Fire-arms and ordnance Rifles Gun carriages ^achinery building Automobiles Agricultural implements Coal-handling machinery Electrical machinery Founding, iron and brass General machine work Gas engines Locomotives Machine tools Molding machines Pumps Pneumatic tools Sewing machines Typewriters Wood-working machinery Metal and coal mining Metal working Bolts and nuts Chains Hardware Tanks Tin cans Valves and pipe fittings Miscellaneous manufacturing Beer Beet sugar Boxes (wood and paper) Buttons Clothing Cordage Food products Furniture Flour Glass Lumber products Pianos Paper and paper pulp Rubber goods Soaps Shoes Slate products 1 Cf. C. Bertrand Thompson, " Scientific Management in Practice," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb., 1915. Mr. Thompson, after a field investigation covering twelve states and continued through por- tions of three years, amends the above list by removing sewing ma- chines, brewing, and beet-sugar refining, on the ground that in these industries " there was merely consultation or a report which did not develop later into actual work." He further recasts and supplements the list so as to make it number eighty industries. 421] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS Printing and lithographing Textile manufacture Railroad maintenance of mo- Bleaching and dyeing tive power Cottons Steel manufacture Velvets Woolens When, however, the area dominated by scientific man- agement is compared with the vast expanse of American and world industry, it must be admitted that, while scien- tific management has made a good start, its extent is as yet far from all-embracing. Fifty thousand is a common estimate as to the number of persons employed under the system; or, to put substantially this same judgment in an- other form, the leaders say that probably one-tenth of one per cent would exceed the proportion of the national in- dustry which they have reshaped. It may be noted, how- ever, that Mr. Taylor recently raised his estimate to 150,- ooo or 200, ooo. 1 All these estimates, however, include plants where the work is incomplete. Thus Emerson tells us that in no plant has he had an opportunity to install his system as thoroughly as Taylor's ideas have been incorporated in the Tabor shop. " In many plants our engagement was for very short periods. A limited sum would be appropriated 1 Testimony before the Industrial Relations Commission, April, 1914. Taylor said that he regarded these figures and all similar estimates as pure guesses. He declared that he knew of perhaps 100 plants where the Taylor System was working, but. that there were certainly others. C. Bertrand Thompson (loc. cit.) has since claimed definite knowl- edge of 140 applications of scientific management, of which 5 are to railroad and steamship operation, 4 to public service corporations, 4 to municipal work, 3 to building and construction companies, i to a department store, I to a bank, i to a publisher, i to a professional society, and the remaining 120 to factories. He estimates that the fac- tories employ 43,000 men, and the transportation companies 20,000. He believes that the bonus affects as many as 40,000 employees. 148 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 422 with instructions to do the best we could in three months or six months." And so, to a large extent, has it been almost everywhere. Not only has the system been modi- fied and minimized to meet financial limitations, but usu- ally peculiar obstacles of one sort or another have affected the nature of the introduction. Thus complete reorganiza- tions on efficiency lines are not very numerous, and pure scientific management is extremely rare. At the same time, not even the largest-sounding of the estimates given above would cover all the industry upon which scientific management has had some effect. They take into account only installations by men who have hung rather close to the original leaders. No one group of lead- ers, however, is now able to control the scientific-manage- ment movement. We noted in the last chapter the large number of persons who have entered upon the work pro- fessionally or taken an active part in introducing changes into their own plants. Perhaps they do not completely un- derstand scientific management, but they have read Taylor's books, or Emerson's, or caught their spirit, and one or anotKer of the principles is adopted. Missionaries fresh from India and Japan have told us of their thought that these principles might be applied to mission finances or to mission industrial work. University men, next door, have proposed to apply them in the class-room. Wherever, on the train or in the shop, we have talked with factory work- men or managers, they have had something to say about new systems, different perhaps in name, but very similar in effect to those herein described. We suppose there are few important factories where the influence of scientific man- agement has not been felt, to at least a small extent. While America is the home of " scientific management." an important literature on the subject has appeared in Ger- man and French. In most of the other leading languages, 423] A SURVEY OF TRADES AND PLANTS translations of one or more American works are obtainable. According to Morris L. Cooke : 1 " There are some estab- lishments in most of these countries in which real progress in scientific management is being made. Better still in most foreign countries one or more prominent citizens usually of the engineering profession are advocating the adoption of scientific management as a means toward national progress." 1 " The Spirit and Social Significance of Scientific Management," Journal of Political Economy, June, 1913, p. 482. PART II A CRITICAL REVIEW OF IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT CHAPTER VI THE PRODUCTIVITY. OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN discussing the productivity of a system as many- sided as scientific management, the system as a whole must be resolved into its constituent parts. The various effi- ciency devices should be arranged in the order of their re- spective importance, and the value of each estimated. We face, therefore, the leading question: What is the most profitable feature of scientific management? I. THE VALUE OF THE INITIATIVE OF WORKMEN Of his original publication, "A Piece- Rate -System," Frederick W. Taylor afterwards stated that his chief object in writing it was " to advocate the study of ' unit times ' as the foundation of good management." * In regard to his more mature paper, " Shop Management," the father of scientific management makes the even stronger declara- tion : 2 " What the writer wishes particularly to emphasize is that the whole system rests upon an accurate and scien- tific study of ' unit times/ which is by far the most im- portant element in modern management." What was true at the beginning is true to-day. In 1913 Morris L. Cooke, than whom no one has done more to broaden the scope of scientific management, still felt constrained to say : 3 " Practically everything that is done in developing scien- Management," Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xxiv, p. 1364. 2 Ibid., p. 1364. 3 Journal of Political Economy, June, 1913, p. 487. 427] 153 154 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [428 tific management in an establishment has for its object the setting of tasks." The fact that task-setting is the thing towards which all scientific management is directed is of the greatest impor- tance for the present discussion, for it indicates that the aspect of the system of which this device is the central feature is the most largely productive of all. The attain- ment of the initiative of the workman, through giving an extra reward for the successful completion of a task, which task has been determined by the study of unit times this end must be regarded as the initial incentive and the mov- ing force behind the entire development. The contribution which the first phase of scientific man- agement has made to the general productivity of the system may be evaluated as follows: Before the system had been developed so as to include many auxiliary features, production on jobs in the Mid- vale Steel works was increased by 100 per cent, this being credited almost entirely to the setting of tasks by means of elementary time study and the application of the differ- ential rate. Taylor tells us in "A Piece-Rate System" 1 that he has never failed to find men who are glad to un- load coal from a car at the rate of forty tons per day in- stead of the usual fifteen tons. Beyond taking care to select strong men, there seems to have been no extensive study of the work; but reliance was placed mainly on rous- ing interest through task-work with liberal pay. The pos- sibility of greatly increasing production through adjust- ments in the method of wage determination is attested by authorities from all quarters. Thus David F. Schloss found that by ordinary piece-work, production could be increased from 30 to 50 per cent ; 2 and Frederick A. Hal- 1 Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xvi, p. 878. z Supra, p. 32. 429] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT sey claims for his " premium plan " an increase in pro- ductivity of 70 per cent. 1 Finally, the retention of the bonus system in the plants of the Bethlehem Steel Com- pany 2 and of the Santa Fe railway 3 indicate that it is of real value. . We may believe, therefore, that the greatest gain which v attends the introduction of scientific management is the minimizing of the friction and waste which ordinarily occur when one man works for another. The more cap- able men do not accomplish nearly as much work as they might easily turn out, this attitude being assumed as a matter of policy. Scientific management, through deter- mining reasonable tasks by the accurate method of elemen- tary time study, and then adequately rewarding workers who attain the standard, is therefore capable of adding substantially to the sum total of production; nor need the cost of the additional effort be as great as the value of the extra product. But the precise amount of gain varies, on the one hand with the seriousness with which work has been done be- fore, and on the other with the extent to which a rigid scientific determination of tasks is feasible. General Crozier describes an instance at the Watertown Arsenal where the time on a job was not reduced, because the man who had been previously working on it was an earnest workman. Likewise, the gains under scientific management have often loomed up in greatly exaggerated proportions, because the shops concerned had been badly managed previous to reorganization. It is probable that on jobs where a piece-rate or Halsey premium system has been used for a long time, the industry of the men cannot be greatly increased by the introduction of scientific man- 1 Supra, pp. 49-50. 2 Supra, p. 122. 3 Supra, pp. 128-9. 156 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [430 agement. It follows that this phase of scientific manage- ment is of chief advantage in those fields where constant or frequent change in the work prevents or delays the establishment of reliable day-work or piece-work stand- ards; and the productivity of scientific management, as compared with that of these other systems, may be said to vary in inverse proportion to the amount of repetition in the work. This law, however, has to do only with increasing mate- rial production. The feasibility, or, better yet, the profit- ableness of the elementary analysis is affected by other circumstances. Scientific management would be out of the question unless there were running through the non-repeti- tive work, elements practically constant, or subject only to regular change from job to job. The cost of the system is reasonable only where the work elements are simple and extend on the average through a large number of jobs. The all-important proportion of cost to profit is favorable only where the work units as well as the jobs themselves are comparatively large. In general, to obtain the greatest profit there must be a good deal of work handled, there should be a marked simi- larity running through considerable portions of it, and the jobs should be of large size, possibly taking a number of hours for performance. 1 A balance must always be struck between the cost of the studies and the worth of the results. 2 1 On a sample instruction card showing the system as it existed at Bethlehem in 1910, the analysis was in no case carried as far as work elements which could be done in less than ten minutes. The jobs in the machine shops where scientific management has been applied often take several hours. Of course, as the number of times that a job is repeated becomes greater it may become profitable to carry the analysis further; in work such as handkerchief folding, the elements are re- duced to small fractions of a second. 2 If Gilbreth's reorganization of bricklaying is thought to be an ex- 43 1 ] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 2. THE EXTENT TO WHICH PLANNING MAY BE PROFITABLY CARRIED One could hardly imagine a great increase in production without accompanying features as the choosing of able workmen or the taking of greater care to supply the men abundantly with work; some changes are incidental to, or necessary consequences of, greater productivity. But the features which constitute the second phase of scientific management are more than merely supplementary ; they seek recognition as an original source of profit. In the machine shop and in some other branches of in- dustry the most important of these changes is standardiza- tion of tools and equipment, both because of its own merits and because it is the condition of progress along many of ception to the principle that large non-repetitive work is the most profit- able field for task-setting based on elementary time study, it may be pointed out that Gilbreth did not claim that he had drawn more initia- tive from his men, but he attributed his success entirely to motion study and changes in the methods of work. If shoveling be cited, it may be observed that, though the elements entering into shoveling are repeated, the work as a whole is constantly varying, because of differ- ences in materials, height of pile, etc. Thus it cannot be brought under ordinary piece-work. As regards pig-iron handling, it is probable that a man of Taylor's energy could in the long run have obtained just as hearty a co-operation from % the men without introducing elementary time study, provided he selected his workmen. Of course, without the studies of fatigue, their efforts, though quite as earnest, would have been less efficient. Our point is, not to deny that elementary time study has accomplished great results in connection with repetitive work, but to show that (if we bar the gains due to discoveries of better methods of work) elementary time study's chief superiority over ordinary methods of piece-rate fixing is in its accomplishing quickly and easily what can be done by the latter, if the struggle be long enough and vigorous enough (cf. supra, p. 35, n.). The full benefits of scien- tific management being realized at once, and those of ordinary piece- rate systems comparatively late, it is obvious that the greatest super- iority of the former is in connection with jobs running for but a short time, if repeated at all. 158 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [432 the other lines. While standardization accompanies scien- tific management primarily because of the necessity of establishing uniform conditions which will render task- setting accurate and fair, nevertheless in substituting for the weaker parts of machines strong parts, and in throw- ing out tools of old design and introducing others of more modern make, standardization transcends its original pur- pose and becomes the parent of an efficiency which is no longer a part of management. The value of this gain in mechanical efficiency is apt to vary according to whether the industry involved has been the scene of little or much recent improvement in technical processes. Second only to standardization, and in specific instances of greater value, is what is variously known as routing, scheduling, and despatching. We are told that productivity is often increased through this means alone by thirty or forty per cent, and that on occasions it has been observed to actually double the output. On the Canadian Pacific rail- way despatching locomotive-repair work was credited with saving three days' time or $300 in expense in the case of each locomotive sent to the shops. Miss Wyatt testified that in some of the departments of the cotton mill which she visited the gain seemed to be practically all due to rout- ing. Good routing shows results perhaps more instantan- eously and more clearly than any of the other features of scientific management. No one sees danger in the intro- duction of either standardized equipment or routing. Regarding the extension of the authority of a planning department to small and seemingly personal matters as is the case when -an instruction card is issued for every job, or a workman is " coached " in the best way of picking up a brick or thrusting a shovel it may be said, first of the instruction card, that its original application was in con- nection with very large work, where there was an impor- 433] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT tant technical element involved, and where the application of science could not only save a considerable amount of the workman's time, but also reduce the operating expense of heavy machines; the work was changed so frequently that general training could not meet all of the circumstances. As jobs become smaller, the issuing of individual instruc- tion cards becomes less profitable; as they become less technical or are repeated oftener, the cards become less necessary; until finally their value vanishes altogether. But in the Watertown Arsenal, where as in other machine shops the instruction card serves as a connecting link be- tween an important technique and the every-day work, General Crozier declares 1 that "The saving in time results, aside from any increased efficiency of machines, chiefly from the effect of the instructions given the workmen, by which their effort is more advantageously applied, and will involve no exhausting exertion on their part, nor such as should be disagreeable." The central feature of this in- struction is the instruction card. Of intensive individual " coaching," it may be said that this can be carried to refinement only in cases where there is a great deal of repetition. In bricklaying, in shoveling, in carrying pig iron, there is gain in spending great effort to eliminate even a very small, useless motion. However, the public has a greatly exaggerated idea as to the impor- tance of this side of scientific management. Its novelty has * attracted attention, but in reality there is little of it. In the typical plant where scientific management has been in- : troduced, workmen are not guarded to see whether they hold their hammers at the end or in the middle, their steps are not ordered, nor is their breathing regulated. These things are not commercially worth while, and the men who 1 Report of the Chief of Ordinance, 1911, p. 673. 160 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [434 go farthest in this direction lose caste, more or less, as practical engineers. The more successful leaders are too busy attacking problems of first importance to give their attention to such details. There is a class of jobs where close supervision of motions pays, but of the industry of the country as a whole, they constitute only a small part. True, there is a constant tendency to simplify and stand- ardize work to the point where it may be successfully stereo- typed; but, on the other hand, at just about that point it is frequently possible to substitute machines. Selection of workmen is of the most importance where heavy demands are made on some one faculty. Thus on heavy work, there is great gain in employing sturdy men; on inspection, in using persons of quick sight and prompt motor reaction. The kind of selection which picks out for all-around work men who are above the aver- age, is of course practiced by every employer as far as practicable. Under scientific management, the unusually high pay makes it possible to carry this policy somewhat further. However, the idea that super-men only are to be retained is not enforced in practice as much as the litera- ture of scientific management would suggest. The intro- duction of the system at the Watertown Arsenal was accompanied by no discharge. The old employees of the Tabor and Link-Belt concerns were retained under the new system. Emerson and Gantt emphasize the importance of setting tasks that any normal person can accomplish. It should be noted, though, that Taylor seems to have always been on a keen lookout for able men; and that there is considerable attention given under scientific management to transferring employees from jobs at which they are ineffi- cient to others for which they are better fitted ; promotion, too, is on a more scientific basis, because the management is in possession of adequate records of past achievements, . V 435] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT I ^ I and is also in closer touch with the men. But generally speaking, in the case of most of the plants which have in- stalled scientific management, the selection and retention of employees is on a basis not radically different from that in other shops. Improved methods of handling stores under scientific management not only facilitate all the other work of the shop and permit shipments to be made more promptly, but they also yield a direct financial profit in that they allow a reduction in the amount of materials kept on hand. At Watertown, $122,000 worth of materials, which had been rendered superfluous by the introduction of scientific stores- keeping, was put into use in a short time. In the plant of the Link-Belt Company one-third less of stores per unit of output was required after the introduction of scientific management. 1 The cost of interest on capital, rent for storage room, and depreciation was thus lightened. 3. THE PLACE OF ORGANIZATION IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT The creation of a new and different sort of directing force, due to the new obligations assumed by scientific management, gave Taylor an opportunity to impress a character upon the field opened by his work. From the earliest days he first secretly practiced and then openly/ advocated the use of what he called a functional manage- 1 ment, whose most striking feature is the creation of eight! bosses where one existed before. Functional management has for many been identical with scientific management; it is indeed in certain important shops the most noticeable 1 Before crediting this last entirely to scientific management, we should remember that after the system's introduction, production was carried on on a somewhat larger scale, which might naturally lead to more efficient stores arrangements per unit of output. 162 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [436 feature connected with the system. When the values of the different sides of scientific management are weighed, however, it seems that that part of the system which con- sists in giving a precise form to organization is not nearly so essential as are the prime ends for the purpose of accom- lishing which this last phase was created. As proof of this, it is only necessary to point out two other schemes of organization which bring practically as good results and indeed possess certain distinct advantages. The first is the " line and staff " system of Harrington Emerson, which, through centering authority in one boss, and drawing upon a large staff for knowledge, seeks to do away with the weakness which comes from making a work- man responsible to as many as eight superiors. The second is the "departmental system" described by John C. Duncan as having come almost unconsciously into use in hundreds of plants. The work is divided between small departments, each under the absolute control of one man. In a machine shop, for instance, one department might be composed of the men running large machine tools; another, of those erecting large parts of engines ; a third, of the valve-setting gang; a fourth, of those in charge of tool-rooms; a fifth, of those in charge of stores; a sixth, of the riggers or crane men; a seventh, of repair men; and an eighth of those entrusted with tool-making and grinding. Thus a large part of the functional arrangement is preserved, but \ there is no division of authority. Duncan thinks this latter plan superior to that of having functional foremen. "As a matter of fact, so many bosses really hinder the work. They irritate the men and are expensive to keep up. . . ." * To recapitulate, the productivity of reorganization is, from one point of view, equal to that of the whole of scien- tific management, in that without some kind of enlarge- 1 The Principles of Industrial Management, p. 192. 437] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ment and rearrangement in the directing force the system could never be operated. But the problem as to whether that directing force shall be called functional foremen, or staff, or department heads, will probably be solved by various firms in different ways with almost equal satisfaction. The one principle which may be safely laid down is that scien- tific management in its enlarged organization offers an opportunity for profitable specialization along compara- tively narrow lines. This opportunity has been very gen- erally utilized. 4. HOW MUCH CAN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT INCREASE THE NATIONAL INCOME? The productivity of scientific management cannot be cal- culated by adding together the values of its various fea- tures. A case may easily be imagined where a given in- crease in output would figure in one connection as due to selection of workmen, in another as the result of a bonus, in another as rendered possible by routing, and in another as brought about by functional management. For perhaps if any one of these various elements had been missing the gain would not have been effected, and so to each belongs the credit. Estimates as to the total productivity of scientific man- agement have been m3.de for various specific plants as fol- lows: The Tabor Manufacturing Company's product is now said to be worth two and a half times as much, and to be in quantity three times as great as before the intro- duction of scientific management this in spite of a reduc- tion in the number of employees. The productive efficiency of the Link-Belt plant has been doubled. The Watertown Arsenal estimates were reduced by $240,000. In the cotton industry, productivity was increased enough to cover an advance in wages amounting to about 30 per cent. For the 164 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [438 Ferracute Machine Company, the expense of doing a large number of jobs was reduced to 47 per cent of what it had been, which equals a new productivity amounting to 213 per cent of the old. Under scientific management the aver- age individual handles quantities of pig iron equal to 380 per cent of his former task. Yard laborers at Bethlehem (shoveling) increased their output to 368 per cent. Brick- layers perform tasks enlarged to 270 per cent. As many bicycle balls were inspected by 35 girls as had been handled formerly by 120. On the Santa Fe, it was estimated that $1,250,000 was saved in one year. There are dangers, however, in taking a specific example of the success of scientific management, and regarding it as illustrative of what the system is capable of doing. The test of measuring the material output of a concern before and after the introduction of scientific management is in some cases a good criterion. In the instance of a great deal of the best work, however, the use of high-speed steel has had much to do with multiplying the product. Thus the achievements in the Tabor, Link-Belt, and Watertown Arsenal plants have been in no small measure due to bring- ing machines and methods of work into harmony with this technical improvement. Again, a comparison of profits is apt to be misleading, since gain varies with commercial re- lations quite as much as with good or bad management. Thus the Tabor Manufacturing Company and the New England Butt Company, 1 two celebrated examples of plants operating under scientific management, have recently been under a cloud. If we refrain from attributing this to their management systems, then we should be cautious about crediting the profit in an undertaking to scientific manage- ment. There is furthermore a possibility that the reason 1 See supra, p. in. 439] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ^ why reorganization is attempted in a plant is because effi- ciency is at a very low ebb. Prosperous concerns rarely desire to change so fundamental a thing as their organiza- tion. Thus the Tabor enterprise was previously unprofit- able, and badly managed. Even where a plant is forging ahead, and there seems to be no question but that the in- crease is due to scientific management, it may well be that it was partly the individual genius of some unusually able man which rendered the reorganization successful. Other able men who know nothing of scientific management might possibly be making just as great increases in the produc- tivity of their plants. These considerations are not mentioned with the idea of showing that scientific management has failed to increase productivity, for they do not prove that. They are de- signed merely to point out the difficulties connected with accepting as at all exact many of the various estimates as to what the system has accomplished. We should profit by the experience of those who once thought that they could make such calculations with reference to the Santa Fe, but who have long since been convinced that the problem is too complicated for even a rough solution. There are, however, certain general conclusions which may be stated with reference to the power of scientific management to increase the national income. There can be no question but that there are great numbers of men who are glad to do far more work than has been their cus- tom, in return for extra pay amounting to 20 per cent, 30 per cent, and up. The fact that employers are eager to give them this bonus shows that their increased productiv- ity is greater than let us say 30 per cent. Indeed, it seems probable that on many kinds of work the increased worth of employees runs well up towards 100 per cent. Before jumping to conclusions as to how great an in- 1 66 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 44O dustrial advance can be effected by the working-out of this scheme, one must take into consideration the fact that not all the employees in any shop can be put on a bonus. Fur- theV, only a small per cent (according to Taylor, 1 17 per cent) of this country's industry is even a field for interest- arousing devices. Such are needed only where industry is organized on a considerable scale "coordinated/' as Tay- lor put it and hence subject to the evils of ordinary wage systems and amenable to improvement under scien- tific management. The desirability of the speeding-up side of scientific management is further somewhat ques- tionable. There is probably a net gain to the men, or they would not take it up. But there is a cost. And a world in which everybody exerted himself twice as much, would hardly be an ideal triumph of man over his environment. So it is that, while the greatest gain is perhaps still along the first side of scientific management, more hopes are con- nected with the second phase, which aims to put brains rather than muscle into the work. Close supervision is in- deed increasing the productivity of workers to a degree of great consequence in the industrial world. But when man- agement joins hands with invention, and draws to itself talented men, who not only study the orthodox technique of industry, but also simplify, rationalize, and coordinate the activities of all the members of the working force, then scientific management becomes the architect of a technical and social mechanism which knows no limit of perfection. It adds force to the process of cumulative change, whose discoveries may carry us into regions of which we do not yet dream. Most of this is, of course, in the future, and its value can only be determined as industry after industry is conquered and re-conquered. The achievements of the past, however, suggest a lucrative development. 1 Testimony before the Industrial Relations Commission, April, 1914. 441 ] PRODUCTIVITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT rfj The hope for this second phase of scientific management is in general greatest where industry is on a large scale and under a centralized authority. Specialization may then be carried farther; more widely applicable studies may be made; a more refined coordination is practicable. 1 It does not follow that all the gains of centralized industry come only when there is one financial control. Knowledge may be unified through the pilgrimages of experts from place to place, picking up intelligence here and distributing it there. The advantages of specialization and large-scale production may be attained by very small concerns, which manufacture for sale to others, much as one department of a modern factory manufactures for other departments. As business is engaged in at present, however, the different branches of an industry can be operated more smoothly under a single financial control. If the scientific determination of methods of factory operation is found to be especially profitable in connection with large-scale production, it is possible that this very fact will cause an enlargement of the latter field. Centraliza- tion may be pushed, simply to render possible the gains of scientific management. Scientific management may further be a very potent force towards concentration, inasmuch as its extensive records furnish a check upon the faithfulness of employees in such a way as to eliminate much of the economic loss said to accompany big business. Scientific management may, in short, create its own field, and the productivity of the system may prove much greater than an estimate obtained by calculating the gain possible in each plant as industry is now organized would indicate. Some persons, looking forward into the distant future, 1 Morris L. Cooke says that in the past the printing industry has been slow hi making improvements because the large number of small es- tablishments fosters conservatism. 1 68 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 442 have been moved to declare that the development of scien- tific management will eventually prove to have been as epoch-making as the invention of machinery. This claim we would think futile if for no other reason than the fact that scientific management itself would never have come into existence had it not been for the creation of modern industry through the industrial revolution. All that the system may claim for itself must in turn be attributed to the invention of machinery. In addition to this, scientific management is not distinct enough from science, industrial technique, and the earlier forms of management, to justify its being regarded as an original and independent thing like the industrial revolution. Especially in connection with the more advanced achievements of the future would it be hard to draw a line between the effects of the new man- agement and those of a great host of other contemporary movements. We must, therefore, be content to regard scientific management as part of a general progress, a pass- ing form, which, long before it has realized its potentiali- ties, will have outgrown some of its features and merged the rest with those of other systems, losing its own iden- tity in that of a greater stream. 1 1 To give Mr. Taylor's view as to the productivity of scientific man- agement : It has already " been introduced in a great number and variety of industries in this country, to a greater or less degree, and in those companies which have come under scientific management it is, I think, safe and conservative to say that the output of the individual workman has been, on the average, doubled." (Testimony before special House committee, Hearings, p. 1389.) In the future, "The general adoption of scientific management would readily .... double the productivity of the average man engaged in industrial work." (Principles of Scientific Management, p. 142.) Not only would this be true with regard to manufacturing establishments, but also " the same principles can be applied with equal force to all social activities : to the management of our homes ; the management of our farms ; the management of the business of our tradesmen, large and small; of our churches, our philanthropic institutions, our universities, and our governmental departments." (Ibid., p. 8.) CHAPTER VII SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AS A SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM In various passages in the preceding chapters attention . has been centered upon the attempt of scientific manage- j merit to arouse the initiative of the individual workman. I This task, it should be noted here, and not the existence! of unions, constitutes, according to Mr. Taylor, the most! serious problem of factory management. Thus, risk in* production " arises not so much from the evident misman- agement, which plainly discloses itself through occasional strikes and similar troubles, as from the daily more insid- ious and fatal failure on the part of the superintendents to secure anything even approaching the maximum work from their men and machines." * It may be said, therefore, that in explaining elementary time study, task-setting, and the bonus, we have already discussed what the organization experts regard as the solution of the big end of the labor problem. There is, however, another " labor problem." Scientific management not only claims to better the rela- tions between the individual and the management, but it also professes to find a solution for the strike problem, and to effect vitally the tendency of workmen to organize. This, the real " labor problem," 2 as the term is commonly 1 " A Piece-Rate System," Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xvi, p. 860. 2 We have in this treatise (somewhat arbitrarily) subtracted from the term " labor problem " its broader significance which involves the gen- eral welfare of the working classes. 443] 169 170 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT used, will be the subject of discussion in the present chapter. I. THE VIEWS OF THE ORGANIZATION EXPERTS WITH RE- SPECT TO TRADE UNIONS One can get the point of view of the organization ex- perts respecting trade unions only by first looking, as if through their eyes, at the industrial conditions against which their system is a protest. When Frederick W. Tay- lor decided to develop a scientific management, his analysis of ordinary industrial relations started with the observation that antagonism amounting almost to war now separates employers and men. The primary reason for this state of affairs is the fact that both profits and wages are drawn from one fund, the excess of selling price over expense. Thus it is over this division of the surplus that most of the trouble has arisen . . . Gradually the two sides have come to look upon one another as antagonists, and at times as even enemies pulling apart and matching the strength of the one against the strength of the other. 1 * The natural gulf between employers and men is widened 1 because the men have an idea that it is to their interest to I restrict output. The attempt to restrict output, Taylor de- ] clares, dates back to the introduction gof the power-loom, the fear that machinery would cause unemployment having then bred bitter opposition and much violence on the* part of the impoverished hand- weavers. Though the abler labor leaders of to-day hold that improvement in manufacturing technique is beneficial to all, they, too, are on their guard against the creation of high records by workmen, lest these be used as an excuse for cutting piece-rates or speeding up the men. 1 Taylor, Hearings before Special Committee of the House of Repre- sentatives to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Man- agement, p. 1388. 445] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM Conflict over the division of the surplus, and this struggle to raise or lower output, together with the often inhuman policy of manufacturers towards hours and working con- ditions, have made it necessary for the employees to organ- ize. Industry has been rent asunder by the warfare be- tween employers' associations on the one hand, and labor unions on the other. Taylor recognized this development as natural under the circumstances, certainly as far as the men were concerned. He was not bitter in his attitude towards either leaders or men, as evidenced by the following typical statement : * ". . . while I shall have to say quite a little in the way of blame as to the views and acts of certain labor leaders during my talk, in the main I look upon them as strictly honest, upright, straightforward men.'* More- over, many years earlier, when Taylor could not yet have had his later strong motive for courting favor with labor men, he said : 2 The writer is far from taking the view held by many manu- facturers that labor unions are an almost unmitigated detri- ment to those who join them, as well as to employers and the general public. The labor unions particularly the trades unions of England have rendered a great service not only to their members, but to the world, in shortening the hours of labor and in modifying the hardships and improving the conditions of wage workers. However, labor unions were founded and owe their present usefulness to the existence of the above state of warfare, an industrial system which, according to Mr. Taylor, is entirely wrong. Mr. Taylor, therefore, acknowledged that under prevailing circumstances unions are desirable. But, in his view, the circumstances themselves need to be changed, and can be changed. 1 Hearings, op. cit., p. 1380. * " A Piece-Rate System," Transactions, vol. xvi, p. 882. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [446 r The central idea in Taylor's new industrial system is the substitution of " harmony " for " antagonism " : the de- velopment of a new " mental attitude " on the part of the employers and the employees towards the work, according to which they cooperate instead of contend with one an- other. The virtue in scientific management that is said to bring about this change is, first, the elimination of grounds for contention by determining through scientific analysis the proper task, wage, and working-day for each individual, the results being determined according to the laws of human nature and in a spirit of fairness and liberality; and second, the introduction of a positive teaching that the management should cultivate good feeling and mutual un- derstanding in its relations with the men. The more ob- viously influential of these two means of encouraging better relations is the first; it is effective directly in that it de- stroys grounds for dispute; and indirectly, in that the accompanying enlargement in the numbers and activity of the management means that more personal attention may be given to the men, and more of the men may be promoted to positions of responsibility. Mr. Taylor, however, laid more stress on the second cause, and not without some justi- fication ; for the dozen or so leaders most prominent in the scientific-management movement have indeed been unusu- ally well disposed towards their men, and it, is this attitude which is partly responsible for the good feeling which prevails in their shops. But whichever be the explanation adopted, there is abundant testimony to the effect that the alleged harmony does in many cases materialize ; and so it must be dealt with as a reality, and given due recognition as a possible solution of the labor situation. 1 1 While visiting the shop of the Link-Belt Company, the writer was strongly impressed by the cordial feeling existing between the manage- ment and the men. -The superitendent, as well as the president of the 447] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM Under the system thus described, what place do the sci- I entific-management experts reserve for the trade jqa-ion ? Scientific management may permit the organizations to re- main; but, if so, they are at least to be shorn of all their more important former functions. As one reason for this, the experts explain that scientific management is too complicated for the men to understand; therefore they should have no control over it. But a much more funda- 1 mental reason why the unions must be devitalized is that under the new -system there is nothing for them to look after. Harmony has now taken the place of antagonism. The great questions of wages, hours, and tasks are to be de- cided by science rather than by war. The one real problem that which is basic in all industry everywhere is to in- crease the output, to make the surplus so enormously great and the share of each individual so considerable, that there will no longer be a temptation as indeed there never has been a use to quarrel over the division of the profits. In attaining this one great end management and men are equally interested. The welfare of each individual is the gain of every other. All are co-partners. Among the various persons cooperating, the scientific-' management men say that the more intelligent should rule ; the workmen should leave the working-out of the science of wages and tasks, as well as all important direction of industry, to those best fitted for the same, namely, the management. Is it not ridiculous to decide how a shop should be run by "counting noses"? What possible in- telligence could be added through the collective bargain? In short, the philosophy of scientific management holds company, professed to know all the employees by name. The super- intendent has taken a personal interest in their individual welfare, tried to help various ones to good positions, and frequently given more thought to the men's interests than have the latter themselves. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [448 that a good management, like a good father, directs those under its care in ways more satisfactory than the latter could themselves choose. Above all, workmen should be treated individually and according to their personal pecu- liarities, not " herded " together in masses. Thus, while Taylor expressed himself as willing that /unions should exist to carry on educational and welfare 1 work among their members, he was, as a matter of fact, op- I posed to organizations of the type that concern themselves I with wages, hours, and output. As these are the prime / ends of modern unionism, we may conclude that organized 1 labor has met with scientific management's disapproval. 1 Another, and perhaps a sounder, way of looking at the situation is that expressed by H. K. Hathaway. He says that to organized labor in itself scientific management h^s no objection, but that the body of labor-union doctrine and policy is permeated by opposition to progressive industry. 2 It is because scientific management and the trade unions are seeking opposite ends that they are hostile. 3 1 " Mr. Godfrey. Can you say in one syllable what the relation of the labor unions should be to scientific management? " Mr. Taylor. Of all the devices in the world they ought to look upon scientific management as the best friend that they have. It is doing in the most efficient way every solitary good thing that the labor unions have tried to do for the workman and it has corrected the one bad thing that the unions are doing curtailment of output. That is the one bad thing they are doing." Testimony before special House committee, Hearings, p. 1508. 2 It is against certain tendencies of trade-unionism most fully exem- plified in England that Taylor lodged his strongest protest: He said that an investigation covering thirty trades showed that English work- men produce less than one-third as much as American workmen. (Tay- lor, testimony before Industrial Relations Commission [Washington, April, 1914], typewritten Hearings, p. 1225.) The English situation Taylor regarded as a triumph of trade-union principle. 3 For the views of the trade unions with respect to scientific manage- ment, cf. H. B. Drury, "Organized Labor and Scientific Management," Industrial Engineering, March, April, May, 1914. 449] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM ^^ 2. A SKETCH OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZED LABOR The story of the actual relations between scientific man- agement and organized labor is shorter than might be ex- pected considering the strength and conflicting ideals of the two forces, for the reason that until recently the move- ments have not had many points of contact. Thus Phila- delphia, the birthplace of scientific management, the home of Taylor and a group of other leaders, and the seat of the most advanced development of the system, is not a strongly unionized center. H. K. Hathaway, speaking of machine shops, testified before the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion that he did not know of a closed shop in the city. 1 Likewise in the case of the Bethlehem Steel Company, it was said that in the early part of 1910 not a single em- ployee was a member of a trade union ; 2 and we are told that on the Santa Fe railway the bonus system does not apply to any union men. 3 Though for a long time there was thus little or no direct contact in connection with which an issue could develop between scientific management and organized labor, the new system may, nevertheless, have sometimes been used to prevent the possibility of unions forming, or to ward off strikes. Harrington Emerson was called to the Santa Fe immediately following a strike among the machinists, boilermakers, and blacksmiths. The Tabor Manufacturing Company had been inconvenienced by labor troubles 1 Evidence Taken by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the Matter of Proposed Advances in Freight Rates by Carriers, (1910), p. 2672. 2 Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works, Sen. Doc. no. 521, 61 C, 2 S. 8 According to Vice- President W. B. Storey, Correspondence, March 17, 1914- SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [450 shortly before it sought reorganization. One of the best known experts once spoke to us with satisfaction of the manner in which, in a certain factory where there had been a number of union men, the labor organization had, upon the introduction of scientific management, gradually disin- tegrated. Frederick W. Taylor himself told the Industrial Relations Commission (Hearings, April, 1914) that mem- bers of labor unions had left in large numbers at Midvale, Bethlehem, Tabor, Link-Belt, and to a certain extent every company where he had ever been. Thus, while for many years there appears to have been no rupture between the two movements, it is possible that from the very first scien- tific management was here and there retarding the growth of the union idea, through building up loyalty to the man- agement. It is of interest to note the effects of scientific manage- ment on the labor problem in those earlier years when its development was carried on comparatively quietly; for the investigation shows that between the system and the men who work immediately under it there is no original cause for quarrel. From 1882 (when the system was started) until 1911, a period of approximately thirty years, there was not a single strike under it, 1 and this in spite of the fact that it was carried on primarily in the steel industry, which was subject to a great many disturbances. For in- stance, in the general strike in Philadelphia, one man only went out at the Tabor plant, while at the Baldwin Loco- motive shops across the street two thousand struck. 2 This is said to be typical of experiences which have occurred again and again. 1 Taylor, before special House committee, Hearings, p. 1390. "Hathaway, before Interstate Commerce Commission, Evidence, p. 2671. 45 1 ] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM That the early gulf between scientific management and organized labor was partly a matter of accident, or at least one not incapable of being bridged over, would seem to be indicated by the fact that with the spread of the system into new parts of the country and into a greater variety of industries, the principles have at points met with a rather favorable reception from union men. In most shops, in- deed, the numbers of union men are small and their influ- ence insignificant. 1 But in certain cases, as in bricklaying 2 and printing, 3 the leading features of scientific manage- ment have been introduced into closed shops. In one case at least the collective bargain has been utilized. 4 In general, however, the passing years have brought in- tensified opposition rather than cooperation between scien- tific management and organized labor. Serious opposition may be said to have been begun in 1911, immediately after certain testimony presented before the Interstate Com- merce Commission revealed to the country the strong move- ment setting towards scientific management. National labor leaders, wideawake as to what might happen in the future, decided that the new movement was a menace to their organization, and at once inaugurated an attack. The opposition reached its culmination when in 1913 and 1914 1 The managers may state that they have a few union men, but don't know exactly how many in fact don't pay much attention to such matters which shows, of course, that the unions might as well not exist. See Hathaway's testimony before Interstate Commerce Com- mission, Evidence, p. 2672. 2 See supra, pp. 125-6. 8 John H. Williams, before Interstate Commerce Commission, Evi- dence, p. 2781. 4 See infra, p. 187. Scientific management operating under the col- lective bargain, is, however, a very rare phenomenon. Mr. Taylor more than once declared his ignorance of any such cases. See testi- mony (January, 1912) before special House committee, Hearings, p. 1444, and again, p. 1508. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT the annual conventions of the American Federation of Labor adopted resolutions condemning the system. The arguments advanced, having to do with the human side of industrial life, will be discussed in the next chapter. Here it is only necessary to state that the present opposition was started in very high labor quarters, that it was probably adopted more as a policy for the future than because of serious damage done in the past, and that it has centered about the installation of scientific management in the Gov- ernment arsenal at Watertown. The attack there, having gained the ear of Congress, has met with at least tem- porary success. 1 But outside of the Government service, the opposition does not seem to have retarded very much the introduction of the system. In plants that have had a mind to install it there has usually been no serious trouble. However, the agitation has aroused in working- men, as well as in the general public, an interest in the question as to whether scientific management is right or wrong. Especially is the public desirous of solving the problem of the relationship between scientific management and the unions. 2 3. IS SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT A SATISFACTORY SUBSTI- TUTE FOR THE COLLECTIVE BARGAIN? To state the precise point at issue it may be said that during the last half-century the leaders of public opinion in matters concerning industrial relations have come to look with favor upon the organization of workmen. Even 1 For outline of the principal events connected with this struggle at Watertown, see supra, pp. 140-1, and for evidence as to the true situa- tion there, infra, pp. 188, n., 190-3. a The Industrial Relations Commission spent four days taking testi- mony on scientific management. 453] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM Taylor recognized a field for trade-unionism under the pre- vailing type of factory management. But now we are told that a new organization of industry called scientific management does away with the importance of labor organ- izations, and especially obviates the necessity of that whole- sale method of reaching an agreement as to wages, hours, and working conditions, known as the collective bargain. Perhaps, therefore, the most important subject for inquiry connected with the entire topic of scientific management is the question as to how the new system is likely to affect the need for, and the character of, the activity of labor unions. a. Scientific Management Removes from Labor Some In- centives towards Organisation Scientific management, especially of the true sort, may' be expected to weaken the forces which have in the past tended to solidify the ranks of labor. In the first place, centralization of authority in the hands of the management loosens the bond of common trade secrets and craft skill, which now makes brothers of the small group of men en- gaged in any given occupation. Especially is this true where unskilled persons are put at work formerly requir- ing long experience, the men being employed simply to work, and not because they have any specialized knowledge. While trade lines are broken down under scientific man-* agement, or there is a tendency in this direction, this does not mean that all the men are placed on one common footing as over against the members of the management. On the contrary, there is a greater differentiation than ever before between the various employees. In fact, instead of there being two large groups of persons, one at the top and the other at the bottom, a goodly number of employees are scat- tered in between. The management itself contains high 180 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [454 positions for some of the abler workmen, a considerable proportion of the men being employed as functional fore- men. The others are given specialized work to do varying in character and remuneration, payment being where pos- sible on an efficiency basis. Thus there is a change in the center of gravity which makes the management side much heavier. Class lines by occupation are blotted out, and dis- tinction according to individual capacity is substituted. By promotion or the pursuit of it overflowing energy is drawn off. Indeed the situation corresponds to that which exists in agriculture, where the relatively large number of farmers, as compared with "hands," opens a way for every one to reach the top, thus forming an effectual safety-valve against the formation of class sentiment. As long as scientific management is installed in only a small portion of industry, the fact that the system en- deavors to pay the men working under it higher wages than they would earn in competing plants makes it difficult to see what benefits could be derived by organization. It is the policy of the employer to give voluntarily whatever remuneration may be necessary in order to secure not only the time, but also the good-will of the workmen. This rate is necessarily considerably higher than the men could gain by force. Therefore the favored few working under it are apt to think it prudent to " let well enough alone." As scientific management is introduced more generally, this last argument of course vanishes. However, it is prob- able that in the future, even more than in the present, the up-to-date employer will find it a paying policy to relieve some of the conditions which have in the past spurred men on to collective action. Thus the relations between the men and the management will be made more pleasant, and much of the incentive to organize will be removed. Above all, scientific management deals with the indi- 455J SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM vidual, while the hope of the labor union rests upon the I consolidation of the masses. b. Scientific Management, However, Does Not Adequately Perform the Functions of the Collective Bargain From this enumeration of the difficulties which a trade union meets when it tries to operate under scientific man- agement, we turn now to criticize scientific management's own effort to solve the labor problem. It may be pointed out first that, contrary to the conviction of the advocates of scientific management, the relation between management and men is not inherently one of harmony; nor should their relationship be a pure antagonism; but employers and employees have many interests, some of which are nearly identical, others directly conflicting: it is necessary for both that the factory continue in operation; yet an employee might easily desire twice or a hundred times as big a wage as the management might desire to give. In the second place, it is questionable whether there is a 1 " scientific " way in which a correct reconciliation of in- terests can be effected. Mr. Taylor's method of dividing the surplus, even if quite satisfactory to the workman, is scientifically exact only in the sense that it gives the high- est possible returns to the management. The scheme of wage payment under scientific management consists in giv- ing the usual day rate, and then adding, for successful completion of a set task, a bonus ranging from 20 or 30 to 100 per cent, according to the kind of .work. 1 Now, the " scientific " features of this plan are the determination of a proper task, and of a proper percentage of bonus. The determination of a proper time for the doing of a given piece of work may indeed be undertaken according to scien- 1 For an enumeration of different kinds of work and their bonus percentages, see supra, p. 68. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [456 tific methods. But when it comes to a decision as to< the number of hours in the working-day, the day rate, and the percentage of bonus, it is misleading to apply the term " scientific." The length of the working-day should be fixed with a view to enabling the employee to get the most satisfaction out of life, as well as the greatest possible work out of his limbs. The general level of day wages is the resultant of countless bargains; there may indeed be no^close bargaining under scientific management, but the process is certainly being carried on by someone some- where. Should scientific management spread to the whole, or even to a considerable part, of an industry, these bar- gains would have to be carried on as a part of the system itself, and the setting of the day rate would then be shorn of even the semblance of scientific character. As regards bonus determination, Taylor explained the " science " to the special House committee as follows: 1 Half a dozen men were set at performing certain tasks for a period of six months on a premium of 15 per cent. Another set of men were put on trial at a 20 per cent in- crease, another set at 25 per cent, another at 30 per cent, another at 35 per cent, and so forth. Now, of the half a dozen who were working at 15 per cent almost all of them came at the end of the six months and said, " Now, see here, Fred, I have tried that scheme of yours, and I do not like feeling all the day long that I am tied down to any old pace, or to a new way of doing things. I should prefer going back to the old way." ... At the 20 per cent increase almost all of the men asked to return to their old conditions and their old pay. At the 25 per cent increase more than half of them stuck to the new conditions. ... At the 30 per cent increase all but one stuck to the new plan. 1 Hearings, p. 1498. SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM At 35 P er cent m y rememberance is that all stuck. ... It was in this way that we got at these percentages. I call that a scientific experiment. . . . But is this science? Is it not rather a scientific way of bargaining? Has not Mr. Taylor simply asked men to do work of very large value, and then found out by trial the least amount for which they will cheerfully perform it? Would this rough-and-ready solution of the wages ques- tion, which has worked so well where all are enjoying a careless prosperity, meet the situation when neighboring concerns begin to adopt the same methods, and costs and receipts are counted more closely by both men and man- agement? We would summarize our discussion thus far by expressing the belief that the "harmony" and "science" of Taylor's system, though very valuable, are really but the oil and skilful handling that make the machinery of wage-determination run smoothly. Possibly for a time the amazing productivity of the system has brought the dollars so fast that the recipients have been content to watch them roll in. But if the system becomes at all general, employees' ideals as to income will expand, and with the opening of more shops in which the system has been installed there will be more competition for their services not to men- tion the possibility that managers' ideals as to wages may contract. Then wages will again be what the men can get and what the employers have to pay. In the final analysis, then, scientific management's method of handling the labor problem consists in reaching an understanding between the employing corporation on the one hand and the individual workman on the other. Perhaps the management is very considerate in its dealings with the men; but whether that is so or not, the point to be noted here is that there is no appeal from the manage- 184 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ment's decision. It is a case of the individual liking his treatment by the management, and staying, or disliking the conditions of his employment, and quitting. According to many, this relationship is a fit one for the basis of an industrial system. They think that it is fair to all, because any individual who is dissatisfied can with- draw. But does such a relationship between a huge cor- poration capitalized at many millions perhaps, on the one hand, and a poor workman on the other, place the two on an equal footing? Suppose that the workman does not want to work on Sundays: Is the management likely to care very much if he registers a complaint? Suppose that he feels that he is underpaid : Would it not often be a worse evil to pack up his belongings and move away from his old home to some distant place to get beyond the authority of his former employer? As a matter of fact, the indi- viduals of to-day are too many, and the corporations of the country too few, to permit of an equal contest. Thus noth- ing less than the entry of the Federal Government into* the parcel-post field could bring down the rates of the express companies. In the case of the railroads, the establishment of tariffs by competition has of necessity been abandoned, and control has been placed in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Of course few workmen are as helpless against their employers as shippers against a rail- road. Nevertheless such a combination as the United States Steel Corporation, when unrestrained by labor or- ganizations, has a power over the lives and welfare of its employees resembling that of a court of justice. The question amounts to simply this : Is it wise to place so much authority in the hands of a corporation, even though it be scientifically managed and of a kindly dispo- sition ? It must be remembered that the board of directors represent the financial interests. Where there is a conflict 459] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM between human and moneyed interests, is it reasonable to rely entirely on the judgment of those who represent the latter? In minor matters it might do. But it is not the spirit of the American people to tolerate such a procedure when it comes to anything that is worth while. In modern times little can be done by individuals working alone, and so for the purpose of promoting all their leading interests, men join forces in innumerable organizations. Is there any reason why matters of wages, hours of labor, and working conditions should be an exception to* the general rule? Certainly these things are as important as any others. It would seem that in the case of workingmen the need for organization would be greater than in most cases. For the individuals have neither the time nor the aptitude to bargain cleverly with their employers or to keep in touch with the possibilities in competing fields : they need leaders ; they need organization. 4. THE POSSIBILITY OF COORDINATING TRADE UNIONISM AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Though scientific management is based on a philosophy that is at variance with that of organized labor, and though its features appear to turn the activities of workmen into other channels than those of trade-unionism, it would be quite possible, if the necessity arose and both sides were willing, to bring the two into cooperation. Such a step could be taken much easier to-day than some years ago be- cause of certain changes in the methods of the scientific- management men themselves. Thus instead of the differ- ential rate, which would be rather hard to bring under the collective bargain, the management experts have voluntar- ily reverted to the day-rate principle, supplementing the same with a bonus whose rate is uniform for an entire trade. Both the day rate and the rate of bonus could very 186 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [460 easily be made the objects of the trade agreement. The setting of tasks jointly would be neither so necessary nor so simple; yet this, too, could probably be brought under the system. To the objection that the men do not understand scien- tific management, and therefore could not speak with ref- erence to it through their unions, it may be replied that the unions would not need to take the initiative in putting the system into operation. Organized labor would have to go into the matter only far enough to make terms with the management; and even under the present system the workmen must be able to do as much. If men are to work under scientific management at all, an understanding must be reached regarding wages, tasks, etc. ; and why should it be harder to do this collectively than individually? It may be said, therefore, that the main obstacle to the introduction of the collective bargain as a part of the scien- tific-management system is not that the former could not possibly be applied, but that the management experts regard is as worthless. Thus Taylor said : 1 " Under these cir- cumstances, then, [cooperation between management and men] collective bargaining becomes a matter of trifling im- portance. But there is no reason on earth why there should not be collective bargaining under scientific management just as under the older type, if the men want it." General Crozier thinks that scientific management should even facilitate collective bargaining. For when the time study has been made, the question as to how much is to be paid for work can be settled by agreement ; and the result of the time study should furnish the workmen with a vastly better ground upon which to bargain about wages. 2 1 Before special House Committee, Hearings, p. 1444. 3 Report of the Chief of Ordnance, 1912. 461] SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM ^7 The collective bargain is not only capable of being ap- plied ; it has been actually tried out. David Van Alstyne is responsible for the following account : x I made an agreement with the molders' and blacksmiths' union, which was the ordinary trade agreement, but the prin- cipal feature of it was that the union committed themselves to a maximum output of which the company was to be the judge, and the basis of it was the Emerson standard time system, and a bonus paid for efficiency about two-thirds in addition to a straight day's wages. ... In order to facilitate matters, we agreed to make the standard times by means of a demonstra- tor, and if there was no objection to that, we put the time into effect, and it became the standard ; it was provided for in the agreement that the shop committee could object at any time they wanted to, and if the shop officials and the shop committee could not agree, it was further provided that it would be offi- cially settled by me and the head of the union. This last method never had to be resorted to. There was no provision for reference of disputes to a third party. The above is the one example, as yet given publicity, of scien- tific' management brought under the collective bargain. The general public, which desires to see industrial feudal- ism supplanted by industrial democracy and nevertheless sees many good things in scientific management, hopes that the slight tendency to cooperation which has been thus far manifested will be strengthened, and that the better fea- tures of the two movements will eventually become the complementary parts of a single solution of the labor problem. 1 Testimony before Industrial Relations Commission, typewritten Hearings, p. 1680. CHAPTER VIII THE HUMAN SIDE A verdict as to the merits of scientific management should obviously be based on the changes that the system has itself introduced. If one sees under scientific manage- ment men working at tasks that are monotonous, or if the jobs described seem ugly and repulsive, or do not give suffi- cient play to ambition, those failings are not necessarily the fault of the reorganization. They may be sore spots in- herent in the prevailing industrial order. Of the changes which scientific management has intro- duced into industry, some need no discussion in a chapter dealing with the effect of the system upon the welfare of employees. They are recognized by all as harmless, and, in so far as they increase the productivity of industry, they clearly conduce to the public benefit. The main problems which here deserve attention are those which grow out of stop-watch time study and the giving of premiums to in- dividuals who increase their output. One charge made against these devices is that they speed up the workmen to an abnormal pace. Another is that to have one's acts timed by a stop watch is humiliating, and that the system, in its enforcement, makes machines or automatons out of men. 1 1 " . . . the opponents of the Taylor system had virtually concen- trated their attack upon the time-study and premium features under trial at the Watertown Arsenal, claiming that those features operated against the health and well-being of the employees . . . alleging that these features are only devices for ' speeding up ' the workman and reducing him ultimately to the level of a ' machine ' or ' beast of bur- den '." (General Crozier, in Report of the Chief of Ordnance, 1912.) 188 [462 4 6 3 ] THE HUMAN SIDE I. THE CHARGE THAT EMPLOYEES ARE OVERWORKED The scientific-management authorities announce that by their system machine output is multiplied by from three to five, 1 that barehanded laborers sometimes perform nearly four times as much work as formerly, 2 that among em- ployees as a whole the individual rate of production is on the average doubled. 3 These claims place on the shoulders of Mr. Taylor's followers the burden of proving that they do not abnormally speed up workmen. The scientific-management leaders cheerfully assume this task. The effort of the individual, they say, is not increased \ in nearly as great a proportion as is the output. Especially J in machine shops, much of the apparent intensification of effort is nothing more than specialization; the workman is able to get more out of his machine because he 'is relieved of that portion of the work which formerly called him away. 4 Much of the improvement, too, is due to the way in which the machines are operated, greater efficiency being the result of scientific study applied by the management. Instructions as to the best manner of handling everything 1 This is so in the case of the Tabor Manufacturing Company ac- cording to testimony of Hathaway. Evidence Taken by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the Matter of Proposed Advances in Freight Rates by Carriers. (1910), p. 2667. 2 Pig-iron handling. See supra, p. 78. 3 Estimate of Taylor. See supra, p. 168. 4 " Formerly, when we started a job, he had first to frequently hunt up the foreman to find out what he would do next. Then he might have to hunt up his materials and get them to the machine. After that he had to decide how the job was to be done, and look up his owin tools for it. He had to grind his own tools and all of the things that we now do in the planning department for him he had to do himself to a very large extent, while his machine was standing idle. As it is now, the machine runs along on other work while we are making preparations for his job ahead." (Description of Tabor Manufactur- ing Company, Hathaway, Evidence [Rate advance cases] p. 2668.) 190 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [464 connected with the work, and a careful thinning-out of strength-taxing features, have been important factors gov- erning the increase in production. Where the workman does put forth more muscular energy, it is claimed that this is simply due to the elimina- tion of waiting or loafing; that is, better routing has pre- vented delay, or improved industrial relations have elimi- nated " soldiering." It is emphatically denied that the workman moves faster, or at any one moment exerts him- self any harder than was considered normal under the old regime. The student of scientific management is fortunate in being able to find evidence of a highly reliable sort as to whether or not these claims are just. In the first place, the special House committee composed of W. B. Wilson, for- merly a labor leader (and since appointed Secretary of Labor), Wm. C. Redfield, a manufacturer (later appointed Secretary of Commerce) who has written somewhat dis- paragingly of scientific management, and one other con- gressman reported after extended hearings that the Tay- lor and other " systems " had not " been in existence long enough" for the committee to "determine with accuracy their effect upon the health and pay of employees," and that the committee did not "deem it advisable nor expe- dient to make any recommendations for legislation upon the subject " at that time. Upon this report General Cro- zier comments : 1 In other words, the committee, properly zealous to protect the well-being of the employees, failed to find any ground in the representations made by the opponents of the system upon which to base condemnation or serious criticism of the meth- ods in effect or contemplated by this department, or any con- ditions which called for remedial legislation. 1 Report of the Chief of Ordnance, 1912. 465] THE HUMAN SIDE l g l That is, scientific management, after an ever- widening ap- plication for thirty years, could not yet be charged with having produced victims of overwork. The irresponsible character of many of the complaints made in regard to the effects of scientific management upon health is shown by General Crozier's reply to one such charge which had been included in the petition of the Watertown Arsenal unions of June 21, 191 3. 1 Complaint No. 13. This is a complaint that the majority of the men are failing in health. This is distinctly not true. There is no evidence of it, and no complaint of it. A number of men questioned on the subject denied it, no man being found who claimed or admitted that his health had been in- juriously affected; and no man has personally claimed that he has been overworked. In regard to the possibility of over- work, it is at least extremely improbable. In machine work particularly, where as stated before most of the premium jobs are found, the machinist usually stands for a considerable time looking on while the machine is doing the work. Such a job can be divided into machine time and handling time, and the machine time can be subdivided into that in which the feed is by hand and that in which the feed is by power. It is dur- ing the time that power feed is operating that the machinist simply stands and watches the work. Ten jobs, taken at random, have been examined and the following have been found to be the percentage which the power- feed time, that is,, the resting time, is of the whole time required for the job: job No. i, 5.75 [ ? sic] per cent; job No. 2, 68 per cent; job No. 3,, 40 per cent; job No. 4, 58 per cent; job No. 5, 35 per cent; job No. 6, 46 per cent; job No. 7, 78 per cent; job No. 8, 71 per cent; job No. 9, 80 per cent; and job No. 10, 54 per cent. Of course during the power- feed time the machinist has to fix his attention upon his work ; but it is not strained attention, 1 Memorandum for the Secretary of War, submitted by General Cro- zier, Sept. 6, 1913. 192 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [466 and is not of a wearing character. These figures coupled with the facts of moderate working hours, frequent holidays, and generally good working conditions show the practical impossi- bility, in the general case, of overworking a machinist. Perhaps the most direct way of arriving at the facts as to overwork though it unfortunately involves an analysis of conflicting claims is to sound the attitude of the Water- town and Frankford employees. Though it is alleged that the " worst " features of scientific management have not yet been introduced at Watertown, and no one claims that the system as a whole has been introduced at the Frank- ford Arsenal, yet official reports show a great decrease in cost of operation; and if, therefore, the type of scientific management known to these arsenals is unobjectionable and even attractive to employees, the system evidently has a great and proper field. The surface facts are, that in June, 1913, the Watertown employees petitioned for the abolition of the Taylor sys- tem, and in January, 1915, several hundred employees of the Frankford Arsenal petitioned for its continuance. In both cases, however, the employees' action was almost cer- tainly inspired from above or without, and the question has therefore been raised as to the genuineness of the ver- dict. The discussion pro and con in the House (February 5, 1915) and Senate (February 23) may be summarized as indicating (i) very strenuous opposition to the system on the part of general labor officers, (2) no certain evidence of a prevailing sentiment against it on the part of actual employees (though a few were shown to be opposed to it), and (3) a considerable measure of local enthusiasm for it. Senator Weeks, whose home is three miles from the Watertown Arsenal, presented evidence * to the effect that 1 Congressional Record, vol. 52, pp. 4890-91. 467] THE HUMAN SIDE while he had originally received a great many complaints from his constituents on this matter, on February 12, 1915, the very man who had been retained "to act as their counsel in the matter of their petition for the abolishment or change of the Taylor system," wrote to him his discovery that the workmen were " opposed to the amendment to the Army appropriation bill providing for the practical abolishment of time study and premium in Government shops. . . ." The senator had himself received letters from constitu- ents, employees in the arsenal, containing passages such as these: (i) "I have heard of no one that has been injured by a ' stop watch/ nor from over-work. The few agita- tors (shop lawyers) that caused this bill to be sent to Con- gress . . ." (2) " There has been some opposition made by a few self -constituted labor leaders who take it on them- selves to regulate matters to suit themselves without any consideration or regard for the rights of others." (3) "It seems that this gigantic move to abolish the system is backed by some outside selfish crew . . ." And again by the same writer: " There were 349 employees of this place who signed a petition to abolish the system. If the number who did not read that petition, and consequently did not know what they were signing, together with the number who signed it just to be agreeable, were deducted from the 349, there would be nobody left but the framers. It is proven beyond a doubt that after three years' experience with the premium system the conditions here are far better than any place of the kind in this country." On the other hand, the senator had received no complaints for a year, except from outside labor organizations. There was, furthermore, little proof to show that the Frankford employees had signed under pressure, or through ignorance, and considerable to show that their attitude was spontaneous. 194 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT The evidence as to strain under scientific management which the public can most readily avail itself of, however, is that furnished by a number of magazine writers, who* like Miss Wyatt have visited this or that establishment operating under scientific management, thinking that they would find men and women overworked ; but after making personal observations, and conducting a more or less thor- ough inquiry among the workers themselves, have reported that conditions in the shops investigated contrasted favor- ably with those in other plants. There are, however, certain developments of scientific management which one hesitates to approve. Mr. Taylor states that of the men who formerly handled pig iron at Bethlehem, only one-eighth would have had endurance enough to complete the tasks set under scientific manage- ment. This extreme situation was of course due to the fact that human beings differ greatly in their aptitude for this kind of work, and the task was designed for only those who were the fittest; and there is no evidence that any of these men were any the worse physically for their unusual exertions. Nevertheless, the specialization of cer- tain men to do as much heavy work as their physical capacity permits is a thing that one would dislike to see carried very far. There must be a cost of some kind, even for the fit a considerable cost; otherwise they would not refuse to do the work except for a sixty per cent addition to their pay. The question arises whether the cost which may be the dwarfing of part of the higher life of the men is not one that it is a loss to the community to allow them to bear. Perhaps only good has resulted in the specific in- stances in which men have undertaken these jobs; but it is a side of scientific management which would not form a part of an ideal civilization, and which most people would prefer to see curtailed. 469] THE HUMAN SIDE There is reason to believe that the scientific-management experts themselves hold much the same opinion, and that the enforcement of extremely difficult standards is not as common now as formerly. -HT hus that powerful incentive to maximum production, the differential rate, has given place to the milder stimulus of the Gantt bonus system, and the still more flexible modifications in use at Watertown (until 1915), and in the plants reorganized by Harrington Emerson. There is now less emphasis upon the selection of none but unusually able workmen, a growing precedent in favor of retaining practically unchanged the former staff of employees, and a vigorous insistence on the setting of tasks that any normal person can accomplish. To conclude this discussion, scientific management means for most persons an increase in the energy which they put into their work. There is, however, no evidence that em- ployees are injured physically, or that the effort is especi- ally disagreeable. Still most men would not choose the new system for its own sake. It is the association in thought between larger production and greater pay that makes men glad to turn their wits away from side issues, and concentrate them on making their movements count towards output. When transformed by this thought, work under the new system is perhaps not as tedious as work under the old; for it is not the effort, but the spirit, that makes work heavy or light. 2. THE CHARGE THAT MEN ARE MADE AUTOMATONS An objection to time study in itself would be trifling. An athlete does not feel humiliated because a stop watch records the seconds and fractions thereof which it takes him to make a run. And so with the workman, it is not the making of the studies, but the purpose for which they are to be used, that appears odious. I9 6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [470 The first fear respecting time study, that it will be used to speed up abnormally the employee, has been already covered. The other indictment against it is that it is the first and most powerful instrument in the introduction of a new order of industry, in which skill, initiative, and life itself, are divorced from the workmen, and radiate only from a central planning department, the men becoming mere machines or automatons. Some young college man measures the time taken for each swing of the arm, con- siders the necessity or uselessness of every turn of a bolt, decides, perhaps, how long the workman should rest after an exhausting move. Then there is made out an instruction card which tells the workman exactly what to do without relying on his own judgment. Eight functional foremen stand over him to guide him at every turn so that he can use no independence. In short, work is no longer the self- expression of the worker's individuality, its wholesomeness is destroyed, and life becomes a monotonous, unhealthful routine. With regard to these charges, we should first remind the reader that, as we have pointed out elsewhere, the extent to which planning is carried under scientific management is not nearly so great as the public sometimes imagines. In the second place, there was considerable monotony and sub- ordination of one individual to another before Mr. Taylor began his work. Nevertheless, if the introduction of scien- tific management is even a small step in the direction of increasing the drudgery of work, it is a matter in which the public should feel concerned. What are the facts ? In the first place, a word should be said as to the likeli- hood that control over a man's movements by a higher authority will lead to nervous and physical discomfort. One would almost imagine, judging by some of the attacks made on scientific management, that men are held in a vise 471 ] THE HUMAN SIDE IOy ;r and that a boss standing by pulls the strings to let the workman know when to move the one arm and when the other. A little reflection, however, is enough to convince any one that men who are paid high wages for rapid, spir- ited work will not be interfered with in any way that is dis- agreeable to them. To carry motion study to such a point would not only involve prohibitive expense, but would defeat its own end. One could imagine a greedy employer giving a man too difficult a task ; but it would be nonsense to imagine him fettering his hands or grating on his nerves. While it would be unreasonable to think of scientific management as carrying its supervision of work down to an automaton level, where movements would be directed to the point of physical discomfort, or men would take on a slave-like lack of spontaneity, it is not so self-evident that the system will leave unimpaired the higher intellectual life. Actual monotony, indeed, is probably not as great under scientific management as under other systems ; and the evi- \ dence bears out the assertions of Taylor and others that/ the " mental revolution " carries with it a sympathy and fellowship between men and management, which makes/ conditions in a shop unusually attractive. Nevertheless, ' men of enterprise, men who would not only chafe under restraint but who are also ambitious to exert an influence in the outer world, would probably hesitate to enter the lower ranks of a system where they would be given little liberty to try things their own way; they would shun a job which meant constant work at a narrow range of activi- ties and no more than a very vague comprehension of the industry as a whole. The thirty per cent bonus would be purchased at too dear a price. We are inclined to think, however, that scientific man- agement is the more practical, and, for the present at least, the more commendable, in that it has adapted itself to a I9 8 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [472 state of civilization in which men as a rule are obviously not of this ambitious, intellectual type. Mr. Taylor, in his unflinching and rather uncanny way, classified men into groups as distinct from one another as are the different breeds of horses : Thus, corresponding to the dray horse or, better yet, the ox there is the man with the muscle suitable for handling pig iron and the mentality incapable of understanding percentage ; corresponding to the grocery- wagon horse there is another type of man suitable for a somewhat higher grade of work ; the trotter has his human counterpart; and so on up to the top. This distinction, while unpleasant, is not altogether fanciful : there are dif- ferences between men; and it is probable that the majority of workmen would prefer to avoid the trouble of system- atically planning complicated work. They need guidance. They are perhaps better off for remaining at one employ- ment and confining themselves to a limited range of activ- ities. Yet it is probable that many of these men, if they had enjoyed better opportunities earlier in life, would not now be of the " type of the ox." While scientific management does well to adjust itself temporarily to human nature as it finds it, possibly with the more general extension of edu- cational advantages much of this analysis of men into types will eventually break down; and a socially meritorious scientific management must take this possibility into ac- count; it must soften, not perpetuate nor intensify, class distinctions. So it is to be hoped that in the future, rules in regard to work will be imposed only where there are clear advantages to be gained ; and finally, that as rapidly as pos- sible men may be led to follow good methods on their own responsibility, because they realize that they are the best, and not because they are forced to do so. 473] THE HUMAN SIDE 3. PROMOTION SKILL WAGES It is the policy of shops operating under scientific man- agement to fill the higher positions by promoting able men from within the ranks. Inasmuch as the proportion of good positions under this system is much greater than in the case of the ordinary forms of management because of the functional foremen and planning department the chances for promotion are decidedly better. Furthermore, such promotion as there is should be on a more just basis under scientific management than elsewhere, because its more adequate records covering the work of each indi- vidual enable the head men to know just who are the most capable workers. The capable but rather unobtrusive man in fact ranks higher under scientific management than he would elsewhere; he is worth more; for the things that he needs for his work are supplied as a matter of course; and it is not necessary, as in some shops, to use personal pres- sure to get others to treat one fairly: hence true efficiency and not audacity counts towards output^ One of the objects of having functional foremen as well as certain other of the features of scientific manage- ment is to enable inferior men to do what was formerly regarded as skilled work. Thus we are told that at Beth- lehem ninety-five per cent of the rough machine work was done by low-priced men under expert guidance. 1 For the inferior men who are put at such work this means higher wages and greater skill than they would otherwise attain. For the class of persons who formerly performed the jobs it means that that much of their field has been lost. The elimination of the need for skill is one of those changes which benefits the race at large, but is apt to work 1 Hearings before Special Committee of the House of Representa- tives to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Manage- ment, p. 1488. 200 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [474 hardship upon individuals. For of the on-coming genera- tion, those who seek special training can pick out some other field, while those who can not or do not prepare themselves for any definite work will be very glad for the increase in the demand for unskilled men. There is thus little loss, and the public gains because of the reduced price of the finished product. The thought of the future gain is, however, a poor consolation for those who already have their training in the abandoned line. These persons are apt to be thrown out of employment and to suffer greatly, and for no fault of their own. So much for the antedating of skill in the abstract. As a matter of fact, up to the present time the share that scientific management has had in this process has been accompanied by little if any inconvenience to workmen. One reason for this is the fact that the new system requires a long time for its introduction. Changes in the personnel of most shops naturally occur comparatively rapidly, so that if the scientific-management men exercise a little care, they are able to contract the field for skill without a dis- charge of any former employees. Moreover, the better workmen must be retained to do the work which still re- quires special knowledge, and to serve as functional fore- men. We may conclude that while scientific management is ever seeking to get along with as little skill as possible, at the same time it takes skill to accomplish this very end ; so that it is rather hard to say whether in the long run there will be required a widened or lessened distribution of it. We may be sure of this much, however: that there is a shifting of the points at which skill is applied; and that of the higher grades much more is required. In all probability, the changes will continue to go on without much unusual suffering to anyone. 475] THE HUMAN SIDE 2OI As to wages, Taylor claimed that the men working under scientific management receive from 20 to 100 per cent more than men of equal caliber working under the ordinary types of management. 1 Except for men doing very strenuous manual work, however, we may remark that the great mass of employees seem to be at the lower end of this range: 25 per cent would, perhaps, be a typical average for the increase in machine shops. 2 The rise in wages, even at the latter more moderate estimate, is seen to be a considerable one. This point being settled, there next arises the more im- portant question : Will the high wages of scientific man- agement prove permanent, or are those critics of scientific management right who say that after a little these rates will be cut, and eventually workmen will receive, in spite of their increased speed, wages no greater than in the first place ? It is not probable that the near future will witness a radical reduction in the wages paid under scientific man- agement; for certain companies which have tried such a policy have found to their sorrow that the men would not turn out the enlarged product unless their rewards were kept at about the above figures. The whole situation may be quite different, however, if scientific management is ever introduced generally throughout the country. The work- men would then have no alternative system which they could fall back upon ; and they might be compelled to work in the new way if they were to obtain satisfactory employ- ment of any kind, and to do so regardless of whether wages had been substantially increased or not. On the other 1 Testimony before the Industrial Relations Commission, April, 1914. 2 See statistics for the Tabor Manufacturing Company, supra, p. 131 ; for the Link-Belt Company, p. 135 ; and for the Watertown Arsenal, p. 138. 202 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [476 hand, it is equally possible that if the number of plants using scientific management grows until there is a scarcity of workmen able to turn out these large outputs, their wages may be forced up still higher. At any rate, the present method of fixing wages under scientific management is a transitional one, and the forces lying behind the wage-determination of tKe future will probably be more complex. There is no reason why the workman should fear that scientific management will bring anything but favorable changes in the level of wages. Yet his greatest gain will probably come, not in the form of higher pay, but in that of cheaper commodities. 4. THE HUMANIZING OF MANAGEMENT The discussion should by this time have alleviated, or cleared away altogether, most of the fears which have been entertained regarding the effect of scientific management upon the welfare of employees. As a matter of fact the movement is in the very opposite direction : as far as there is anything distinctive about scientific management, it represents a shifting of thought from machines to men. Whether rightly or wrongly, the claim of the system for special merit is based upon its seeing more truly the deeper motives that actuate men; upon its adaptation of factory conditions to conform more perfectly to man's comfort, productive efficiency, and satisfaction; upon its coming down more intimately to the temper and capacity of the individual worker. Scientific management is thus, first of all, a study of man, of his nature, of his ideals. It is based upon the principle that cheerful workmen are more profit- able than sullen ones, that to fit the work to the man is better than to try to fit the man to the work, that the indi- vidual is a more satisfactory unit of study and adminis- tration than the mass. 477] THE HUMAN SIDE 203 As long as scientific management retains these ideals as the essence of its program and the lives of the leaders testify that they have practiced them up to date it is hard to see how the system could be anything else than agree- able and beneficial to the workmen. If step number one is the humanizing of industry, step number two a response on the part tff the men to this change, and step number three the realization of profit by the management, then if the system is to work at all, it is only because in the first place the shop is made to appear to the men a better place to live and work. But fifty year's from now, when Taylor, Gantt, Barth, Cooke, Dodge, and the others will have been followed by men who know not the kindly spirit of these pioneers, when shop management is once again regarded only as a money- making proposition, and when the new men look about them to see whether Taylor was right in saying that money- making and harmony and human welfare are not incon- gruous, what then will be the situation? An enlightened self-interest, reinforced by the demands of a growing public sentiment, will probably dictate that as working machines, men be kept in good condition, that hours and tasks be reasonable, that the work be varied and pleasant. But when it comes to a fair division of the profits between employer and men, when it comes to the things that will make for the larger intellectual and social life of the work- ingman, it may be doubted whether scientific management will in itself offer anything better than other systems. Its contribution will be an increase in productivity which will make better conditions possible. But the hope of bringing these better conditions into actual existence should in the future, as in the past, be founded upon something more substantial and equitable than the altruism of the factory manager. While scientific management is thus hardly a 204 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [478 complete solution of the problem of human welfare in fac- tories, the influence of its leaders should nevertheless prove to be an exceedingly powerful force in the right direction. 1 1 After explaining that he had been putting into scientific manage- ment every cent of surplus income and a little more for a good many years, including payment of "the salary of quite a number of [men] for several years while they [were] learning the introduction of scien- tific management " all this without hope of profit Mr. Taylor then de- clared himself as follows : " And I want to make it perfectly clear, because I do not think it is clear, that my interest, and I think the interest of every man who is in any way engaged in scientific management, in the introduction of the principles of scientific management must be first the welfare of the working men. That must be the object. It is inconceivable that a man should devote his time and his life to this sort of thing for the sake of making more money for a whole lot of manufacturers." Testimony before Industrial Relations Commission, April, 1914. Scientific management's vision of leadership is rich in promise for the future. The unexplored possibilities of this field are nowhere indi- cated more clearly and profoundly than in Professor Edward D. Jones' resourceful paper on " The Relation of Education to Industrial Effi- ciency," read before the American Economic Association in December, 1914, and published in the March, 1915, supplement to The American Economic Review. CHAPTER IX OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS I. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT BUT ONE FACTOR IN SOCIAL LIFE IF our criticism has on the whole been favorable to scientific management, it is because we believe that there is a large amount of good in the system. To maintain that it is perfect would be to overlook the fact that it is hardly yet beyond its formative period. Since Mr. Taylor first began its application, about 1882, there have been numerous and important changes. There is no reason why there should not be other alterations in the future. While scientific management seems to us a force for good, it should not be regarded as a panacea capable of curing all industrial and social ills. On the contrary, it should be supplemented by* social agencies whose field of operation is wider than a single shop or a single manage- ment. Especially along the lines of industrial and cul- tural education, of regulation by the state of the condi- tions of employment, and of other movements designed to round out the lives of workmen, to better their sur- roundings at work, at home, and during recreation, is there a possibility of solving directly many of the problems that scientific management approaches only through the roundabout road of increasing output. We must not forget that the end of production is consumption. We must not think so much about running our factories at 479] 205 2 o6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT full speed that we neglect the simpler and more direct methods of increasing human satisfaction and welfare. It would be demanding too much of scientific management to expect that it make the most of development along all of these broader lines. Through making industry more productive the shop manager may furnish the ma- terials for, but others may be better qualified to superin- tend the reconstruction of, our social life. Furthermore, if other agencies be permitted to become strong, so that scientific management is held in check, it will not be necessary for the public to be greatly con- cerned as to exactly how far scientific management should be permitted to extend its operations. The future may be trusted to solve that problem. Grant that it is a loss to have men work harder ; but that, on the other hand, it is a gain to swell the volume of output. If there are well-organized movements backing each of the opposing interests, we may safely leave to their interaction the determination of precisely how much of one advantage may be surrendered for the sake of the other. Through- out life, men are confronted by situations in which they realize that they cannot have everything that is attractive, but must give up one profit to attain another. Is it de- sirable, for instance, to live in a city? The city man longs sometimes for the freedom of the wilds or for the quiet and beauty of the country. But that, on the whole, the oppor- tunities of urban life more than make up for the unques- tioned sacrifices which are involved is attested by the fact that people continue to live in cities. So with scientific management. On the one hand it demands effort, on the / other offers reward. The extent to which it will be car- ried will be the result of an equilibrium of these two, as well as of many other forces. 481] OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS 207 2. THE LARGER SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Scientific management's first great significance is in connection with the problem presented by the size and complexity of modern industrial organization. There would not have been much of a field for scientific man- agement in an age when all men worked for themselves or were associated in groups of ten or twenty. But the system is an outgrowth of the concentration under one ownership and control of operations carried on over a large stretch of territory and participated in by thousands of employees. Scientific management may do for work\ what money has done for exchange ; as the one fixes the values of commodities, so the other establishes labor val- ues, values that are definite and that can be traded in throughout world industry. The Eastern capitalist can know that he is getting his money's worth when he pays an Arizona section hand to drive a spike ; the foreman of an excavating gang can quote the market value of the dumping of a scoop; the heads of great corporations may be sure of a proper return from their smallest and remotest working unit. In an age when industrial re- lations are becoming ever more complex, the coordinat- ing value of a system such as this is full of high promise. It strikes at the root inefficiency of big business. It opens up new worlds for industrial integration. Scientific management is again significant because it is teaching the world a new way of gathering wealth. In the past the way to become rich has too often been that of exploiting one's fellows. But under scientific manage- ment perhaps more consciously than in the case of any other of the rising modern movements one notes a shifting of emphasis towards efforts to increase total wealth. Scientific management's method of increasing 208 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [ 4 g 2 total output is in part, to so adjust the inner workings of the factory, that much of the old activity is rendered unnecessary, while the remaining tasks are rationalized and coordinated so that output is disburdened of much of its human labor. It is perhaps true that the scientific-management men overemphasize the capacity of this phase of their system to rid the age of its pressing social problems. It is not so much the lack of wealth as the pitiable unevenness in distribution that is disturbing modern tranquillity. The invention of the past has already given the present, re- sources adequate enough to enable all men to live in a certain degree of comfort and with considerable satisfac- tion, provided the social income were more equally divided, and the one half of the people were not rendered discontented by observing the more fortunate lot of their betters. The people of to-day lay a false stress upon the possession of material wealth. If individuals could only cease vying with each other in the amount of expense which they display in their living, is it not possible' that they could easily attain to a greater happiness than'would follow an augmentation, at great effort, of the stock of material commodities? Yet, generally speaking, material welfare is the founda- tion of culture. Wholesome food, comfortable lodging, freedom from long or exhausting labor, and opportunities for travel and education, are the requisites of art, litera- ture, science, and the beautiful in life and thought. In seeking to produce material things at less cost, scientific management is sounding the keynote of a new campaign, in which all should join, and in the success of which lies great hope. Men have hitherto thought that there was certain work to be done. Scientific management may in years to come show that this is a myth that a new spirit 483] OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS 209 of study and enterprise may reduce human toil to an inconsiderable minimum, perhaps eliminate the toil- someness altogether. Scientific management may also be said to present an object lesson in the gains which follow coordinated effort. If it is possible in a shop which has already been under one management to effect such great savings through giving more attention to routing, to planning, to in- struction of workmen, and so forth, how much more could be achieved if the various branches of industry now competing were managed scientifically in their relations one to another. If not an argument for socialism, sci- entific management at least suggests the promising field open to those who would devote their lives to a study of how industrial life as a whole may be operated more economically and satisfactorily. Scientific management can not, however, accomplish all or a part of these things without introducing problems of its own. The system means concentration of author- ity and subordination of the individual. It means that the value of the clever man will be greatly increased; that there will be more very high-salaried men ; and that all the way down to the bottom, there will be a new differenti- ation as to pay. This situation is rather disturbing in a country of democratic ideals. Yet, inasmuch as the system calls for a closer cooperation and a more complete understanding between persons occupying different levels, the actual evils will probably not be great, and may be atoned for by a considerable good. Such regret- able consequences as follow must be excused as almost inevitable when a world in which the capacities of men are so different is stirred to really vigorous action. 2io SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [484 3. THE ORIGINALITY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT There is a tendency in some quarters to regard scien- tific management as not different in kind from common sense and skill applied to industrial undertakings. Thus to quote one opinion : There have been no new discoveries in scientific management of industrial institutions. Common-sense men have used common-sense methods always. The term " scientific man- agement " is a catch-word which assumes that industrial institutions have not been scientifically managed which is not the case. My experience and the experience of my friends has been that there has been no new element injected into the art of management. Now, of the mass of efficiency devices associated with the Taylor system, a large proportion are, to be sure, traceable to this or that extraneous source; Mr. Taylor, himself, was inclined to minimize the originality of his own system. But the observer who has noted how this man has inspired followers, and who has studied the testimony of manufacturers who have introduced his system, must be convinced that, in addition to the minor devices, there are certain great unifying principles which are as original with Taylor as is an invention or a masterpiece of literature original with its author. These principles have been explained in one place and another in the foregoing chapters. The foremost are the setting of a " task " for each employee, and the determination of what this task shall be by making a very careful analysis of just what enters into the work preferably using the stop watch to discover the " unit times " required for the various work elements. This alone is enough to form the basis for a system especially when it is coupled with the idea of carrying the study down to the humblest 485] OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS 2 II worker, to his simplest jobs, and to their minutest details. The " science " of the Taylor system may indeed be nothing more than ordinary intelligence and common sense ; but it is because the intelligence is applied to these new and distinctive ends that scientific manage- ment may be pronounced original. 1 Of course Mr. Taylor was not independent of his age. The opportunity for his work was presented by the con- ditions which followed the industrial revolution, and, more recently, by the rise of large-scale industry and specialized manufacture in this country, coupled with the growing differentiation into social classes which by the eighties was already alienating the interests of work- men from the success of their employers. In several respects, too, scientific management may be characterized as having simply fitted itself into the pre- vailing currents of industrial evolution. Scientific manage- ment emphasizes the importance of steady, consistent work] but in this, the system is surely not a pioneer. We are told that among primitive peoples, sustained labor was entirely unknown ; but that conquest and slavery first imposed upon a portion of the population the necessity of application. 2 The rigor of work under 1 For a more detailed study of the originality of scientific management, /. supra, Chapter II, pp. 30-52, where the earlier systems are described; pp. 54-63, where Taylor's central philosophy is given at length; and pp. 64-5, where, in conclusion, Taylor's system is contrasted with those antecedent devices which come the nearest to being its prototype. Upon these passages, the conclusions in this chapter are in part based. * ' ' And it may be safely inferred from all that is known of actual sav- ages and primitive peoples that prior to the period of social integration, and at the beginning of the period of conquest, mankind, both of the conquered and conquering races, were utterly incapable of sustained labor and had no conception of it." Lester F. Ward, Pure Sociology, 2 ed., p. 277. 212 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [486 the earlier industrial systems was slight ; but its inten- sity has been constantly increased as society has become organized on lines more and more modern ; in the last century the tendency has been to make work more reg- ular and more solid. The rapid pace set by American workmen and their almost perfect concentration upon the work at hand has certainly paved the way for the ad- vance of scientific management. If there is any originality in scientific management's ideal as to work, it is in its emphasis on efficiency rather than strain. Scientific management is the culmination of a progress towards the utilization of scientific, rather than drive methods. The human machine, which was before blindly urged on until it broke, is now analyzed, and given work in accordance with its strength and special characteristics. Again, when scientific management proposes to recon- struct the way in which work is done, it is but following in the footsteps of such movements as the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and the establishment of chemical and physical laboratories. It has been possible to arouse interest in scientific management only because it has come to life in an age when men are filled with the idea that there is no limit to the wonderful things which they may achieve, if they only go about the task in the proper way. Mr. Taylor would have met with but slight success in a country where everyone believed in follow- ing the precedents handed down by his great-grandpar- ents. Scientific management is the product of an age of daring and innovation in industrial processes. Scientific management was foreshadowed, too, by the emergence of the specialist in matters of management. It would be possible to apply it only in a period when factories were being standardized to conform to the best 487] OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS 213 existing practice. Scientific management has been brought in by the age of " system." It follows that, while Mr. Taylor's system is as a whole original and unique, it borders at many points on com- peting ideas suggested by similar stimuli. Especially is this noticeable as time goes on and the world at large has been benefited by the earlier suggestions of the founder of scientific management himself. Others, both within and without the immediate Taylor following, acting under the impulse of his inspiration, have de- veloped the technique of shop management in this direction or that to a more advanced point than Mr. Taylor had opportunity to attain. Giving Taylor due credit for both his direct and his indirect influence, it would yet be folly to attribute to the one man the entire modern drift towards efficiency and analysis of work; just as it is usually a superficial verdict that gives to an inventor the sole credit for having started industry along channels which but for his life would never have become known. Mr. Taylor's contribution consists in having seen more clearly, attacked more persistently, and solved with greater success problems of whose existence most other persons were but dimly aware. Among those who have been intimately associated with Taylor, there is manifest a stanch loyalty and respect for his leadership, that is ever strengthening his title to rank if not as the creator at least as one of the foremost spirits behind the modern efficiency movement. 1 1 Elihu Root, for instance, (Congressional Record, Feb. 23, 1915, vol. 52, p. 4887) deprecated the use of the term "Taylor system," inasmuch as the effort in this direction "was begun in our Ordnance Bureau long before Mr. Taylor was generally known." In support of the principle 2i 4 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT [488 4. THE FUTURE The possibilities latent in scientific management have already been discussed in the chapter on the productivity aspect. How far such hopes will actually be realized in practice and to what extent the achievements will be regarded as "scientific management," that is, of course, another question. It is at present evident that there will be many obstacles which will impede progress. The unfriendliness of organized labor has been noted. The scientific-management men, strange to say, complain more of the opposition of employers. Besides being sceptical as to the merits of the system, those in author- ity generally hesitate to permit outsiders to reorganize their plants ; the result is that the innovations introduced, whether by the regular management themselves, or in a sporadic way by efficiency specialists, are apt to fall far short of conforming to any regular type. Even in plants where scientific management has been installed by the most skillful experts, as soon as the leaders are out of sight there is a tendency to drift back into old habits. Hence the growing insistence on having an "up-keep man," someone permanently connected with the staff, who will supervise efficiency features. Many go so far as to urge that the consulting specialists be eliminated entirely. Each plant, it is maintained, must solve its own problems. In view of these practical considerations, it would be very strange indeed if the scientific management which we have discussed is not in the future greatly transformed and differentiated. One may say that this or that thing involved, however, Mr. Root, who has been interested along these lines ever since he was Secretary of War, made one of the strongest appeals that has yet been presented. 489] OTHER CRITICISMS AND CONCLUSIONS 2 I$ seems good and that the indications are that it will come into wide use; but to maintain that scientific manage- agement, as it is now known, will one day dominate the industry of America or of the world, would be to make a hazardous prediction. 1 Nevertheless, it is certain that industry is in a general way moving in the direction of scientific management ; and there is a strong belief on the part of many inti- mately acquainted with present conditions that it will eventually arrive at many of the things described in this treatise. *For instance, the fundamentals of the Halsey "Premium System" frequently find a place beside elementary time study, motion study, rout- ing, and other scientific-management features, in a highly composite system. INDEX (NOTE: Consult analytical Table of Contents.) Acme Wire Co., 100 American Economic Review, 204 American Engineer and Railroad Journal, 127 American Federation of Labor, 140, 178 American Locomotive Co., 94 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, interest in manage- ment, 17, 30-32, 36, 38, .41, 54 66, 74; sci. man. applied to, io6n. ; support of sci. man., 119; report on sci. man., 145-147 Army appropriations, sci. man. outlawed in, 141 ; see Congress, Watertown Arsenal. Arsenals, see Watertown Ar- senal, Frankford Arsenal, Rock Island Arsenal. Automatons, charge that men be- come, 159, 188, 195-197; see In- struction cards, Motion study, Planning. Babcock, G. D., 145 Bancroft, J., works of, 94 Bargain, see Collective bargain. Earth, C. G., 22n., 26, 92, 96-99, 122, 130, 134, 138 Bethlehem Steel Co., 26, 77-79, 89, 92-94, 97, non., 120-124, I56n., 175, 176, 194, 199 " Betterment work," 126-129, see Santa Fe. Bibliography, on efficiency, 2on., 21 ; foreign literature, 90, 148 ; Taylor's works. 91 ; Gantt's works, 96n. ; Gilbreth's works, 113; Emerson's works, 117; other authorities, i8n., 19, 20, 22n., 28n,, 31, 32, 37n., 38, 42, 49n., 6sn., io8n., 117, 118, 122, 49i] I27n., 138, 139, 145, I46n., 149, 162, I74n., 175, i78n., i92n., 2O4n., 21 in., 2i3n. Bicycle-ball-bearing inspection, 79, 124 Bonus to foremen, 94, 129, 140 Bonus to workmen, place of, in- sci. man., 24, 67, I47n., 166, 169; Gantt's invention of, 92-94 ; variations of, 115, 122, 125, 139, 142 ; effect on output, 121, 165 ; effect on wages, 109, I23n., 129, 134* 135, 139, 144, 201 ; attitude of labor towards, 140, 177, 188, 192, 193; debarred from arse- nals, 141 ; determination of, 182 ; under collective bargain, 185, 187 ; effect on health, 189-195 Brandeis, L. D., 15-18, 21, 82, 131 Bricklaying, 79, 107, 109-111, 125- 126, 159 Brighton Mills, 95, 117 Building trades, 26, 107, 108 Bulletin-boards, 127, 133, see Routing. Canadian Pacific Railway, 94, 158 Carnegie Foundation for the Ad- vancement of Teaching, 101-106 Cheney t Silk Mills, 95 Class distinctions, sci. man.'s posi- tion with reference to, i72n., 179, 198, 199, 204n., 209, 211 Closed shop, sci. man. in, 177 "Coaching" workmen, 159; see Motion study. Collective bargain, introduction under sci. man.,, 125, 177, 185- 187 ; view of sci. man. respect- ing, 173; desirability of, 178-185 Columbia University, ign., 102 Commons, J. R., 49n. 217 218 INDEX [492 Concentration, see Industrial inte- gration. Congress, action of, concerning sci. man., 19, 140, 141, 177, 178, 188, 190-193 Consumers' League, Illinois, 142 Cooke, M. L., 26, 101-106, 149, 153 Cotton industry, 141-144, 158 Crozier, Gen., 124, 138-141, 155, 159, 1 86, 188, 190-192 Curtis Publishing Co., 145 Dartmouth College Conference, 19 ; see Tuck School Conference. Day, C, 117 Day & Zimmerman, 117 Day rate, as basis of premium or bonus plan, 43-46, 51, 93, 94, 115, 122, 125, 134, 135, 140, 185 Day-work, 32, 33, 42, 54, 67, 139, 156 Departmental system, 162, 163 Differential rate, 59-63; see Wage systems Taylor's. Disciplinarian, shop, duties of, 86 Dispatching, see Routing. Division of labor, 84-86, 103, 104, 163, 167, 189, 194, 212 ; see Plan- ning, separated from perform- ing. Dodge, J. M., 22n., 118, 119, 135, 137 Duncan, J. C., 162 Earle, Mr., 94 Efficiency, proposed as name for what is now called sci. man., i8n. ; society organized to pro- mote, 19; bibliography on, 21; contrasted with sci. man., 114; employee's per cent of, 115; idea of, popularized, 117 Efficiency Society, Inc., 19, 118 Effort under sci. man., 189, 190, 191, 195; see Initiative, Over- work. Elementary rate-fixing, 55, 63, 69, 70 Elementary time study, 55-59; see Time study. Emerson, H., 18, 22n., 108, 113- 117, 126-129, 147, 148, 162, 187, 195 Emerson Co., 114 Employees, attitude of, towards sci. man., 121, 126, 140, 143, 144, 172, 176, 188, 191-193, 196 Employers, attitude of, towards sci. man., 119, 120-124, 125, 128, 129, 138, 214 Employment, tenure of, 136, 160, 200 England, profit sharing in, 37; premium plan in, 49; Rowan plan in, 50; trade unions in, 171, I74n. Europe, profit sharing in, 37, 39; sci. man. in, 53, 90, 148; pro- gressive wages in, 65n. ; Taylor educated in, 88 ; influence of, on Emerson, 113 Fairbanks Scale Co., 99 Fatigue study, 78, no, 143, 190 Feed of metal-cutting machines, definition of, 74n. Ferracute Machine Co., 144 Forbes Lithograph Co., 144 Foremen, as teachers, 83; scarcity of good all-around, 84 ; types of, under sci. man., 85, 86 ; bonus to, 94, 129, 140; selection of, 199 ; see Functional manage- ment. Frankford Arsenal, 192, 193 Franklin, H. H., Mfg. Co., 145 Frederick, Christine, 28n. Froggatt, Morrison & Co., 117 Functional management, i8n., 84- 86, 103, 104, I25n., 132, 133, 137, 161-163, 196 Future, sci. man. in the, 166-168, 179, 1 80,* 187, 200, 20 1, 203, 204, 205, 207-209, 214 Gain-sharing, H. R. Towne's, 38- 41, 48n. Gang boss, duties of, 85, 133 Gantt, H. L., i8n., 22n., 26, 67, 92- 96, 115, n6n., 121, 122, 141, 142, 195 Gilbreth, F. B., i8n., 22n., 79, 108- 113, 125-126 Gilman, N. P., 37, 38n., 4in. Godfrey, H., 117 Going, J. B., 22n. Gompers, S., 140 Government service, sci. man. in, see Watertown Arsenal, Con- gress. 493] INDEX 219 Halsey, F. A., 41-52, 5411., 64, 155, 21511. Harmony, ideal of, under profit sharing, 36; under gain-sharing, 39; under premium plan, 47; under sci. man., 23, 25n., 62, 63, 144, 155, 172, 176, 181, 183; see Employees, attitude of. Harvard University, ign., 20, 88, 1 02, 104 Hathaway, H. K., 22n., 99, loo, 130, I3in., 174, 175, i89n. Health, effect of sci. man. on, 141-144, 196, 197; see Over- work. High-speed steel, Taylor-White, 90, 137, 164 House of Representatives, special committee of, to investigate sci. man., -19, 140, 190; action re- garding sci. man., 141 ; debate, 192; see Congress. Human nature, Taylor's analysis of, 68, 84, 198 Illinois Consumers' League, 142 Industrial Engineering, 118 Industrial integration, 167, 207, 209, 2ii Industrial Relations Commission, 9in., I23n., 136, I47n., 176, 17811., 187, 2O4n. Industrial revolution, 168, 211 Initiative, rousing of, 24, 66-69, 101, 153-156, 165, 169 Inspector, duties of, 85, 133 Instruction-card clerk, duties of, 86 Instruction cards, 73-77, 122, 133, 137, 158, 196 Integration, industrial, 167, 207, 209, 211 Intellectual life under sci. man., 197, 198 International Association of Ma- chinists, 140 Interstate Commerce Commission, rate-advance cases, 15-22, 140, 177 Jones, E. D., 20411. Journal of Political Economy, 20, io8n., Kendall, H. P., 22n., 144 Kent, R. T., i8n., 22n., 118, 145 Wm., 3811., 48, 117 Labor^ see Automatons, Bonus to workmen, Class distinctions, Di- vision of labor, Employees, atti- tude of, Employment, Harmony, Health, Leadership, Organized labor, Promotion, Restrictions on output, Selection of employ- ees, Skill, Strikes, Supermen, Time study, Wages, Wage sys- tems. Leadership, 83, 173, 2O4n. Leclaire, M., 37 Leroy-Beaulieu, M., 6sn. Lewis, W., 130 Library of Congress, 2on. "Line and staff," Emerson's, 115, 162, 163 Link-Belt Co., 27, 98, 99, 100, 117, 134-138, I72n., 176 Low-priced labor, no, 199; see Wages. McClure, S. S., 142 McElwain, W. H., I7n. Machinery, 168, 170, 202, 212 Machines, charge that men be- come, see Automatons. Machinists, International Associa- tion of, 140 Management, importance of, 25n., 31, 137, 168, 215; Emerson's type of, 115, 127; Gantt's, 95, 96; Gilbreth's, 112; Taylor's, 9in.; see Functional management, Sci- entific management," Shop Man- agement," Wage systems. Manhattan Press, 145 " Mental revolution," the, 25n., 144, 172, 197; see Harmony. Merrick, D. V., 117 Metal-cutting, 73-77, go, 92, 97, 137, 164 m Methods, improvement of, 24, 69- 82, 102, 157-161, 166, 167, 189, 207, 208 Meyer, H. H. B., 2on., 21 n. Micro-motion study, in Midvale Steel Co., 22, 23, 70, 88, 92, 99, 1 20, 176 Mixter, C. W., 118 Morrison, C. J., 117 Motion study, examples of, 77-79, 80, 106-108, 109-112, I23n. ; place in sci. man., 159; effect on workmen, 197 ; see Time study. 22O INDEX [494 Navy appropriations, sci. man. outlawed in, 141 ; see Congress, Watertown Arsenal. New England Butt Co., in, 164 Non-industrial applications of sci. man., 19, 28n., 101-106, 112, 148, i68n. Non-repetitive work, 58, 156, I57n. O'Connell, J., 140 Order of work or route clerk, duties of, 73, 133 Ordnance, Chief of, see Gen. Cro- zier. Organization, 82-86, 103, 104, 161- 163; see Functional manage- ment, Industrial integration, Harmony. Organized labor, 19, 34, 125, 126, 140, 141, 144, 169-187, 188, 191- 193; see Strikes, Employees, attitude of, Overwork, Autom- atons. Outlook, i8n. Overwork, evidence suggestive of, 67, 78, 79, no, I23n., 154; inves- tigations into, 141-144, 188-195; natural checks on, 206; sci. man.'s plan of avoiding, 212 Parkhurst, F. A., 116, 117, 144 Partridge, W. E., 38n. Petitions for abolishment of sci. man., 141, 188, 192, 193; see Employees, attitude of. Philadelphia government, sci. man. in, 106 Phillips Exeter Academy, Taylor at, 88 Photographic records of motions, 112 "Piece-Rate System, A," 54-65, 70, 7i, 153 Piece-work, antagonism resulting from, 23 ; ordinary course of, 32-36; Halsey's adaptation of, 42-47; Taylor's indictment of, 54; advantages of scientifically established, 58, 59; differential rate, 59-65, 67; resemblance of Gantt's plan to, 93; Gilbreth's substitute for, 125 ; when least loss under straight, 155, 156, I57n. Pig-iron handling, 77-79, 123, 124, 159, 194 Planning, separated from per- forming, 82, 84, 198; see Meth- ods, Organization, Leadership. Planning department, 75, 83-86, 132, 133, i89n, 196 Plimpton Press, 144 Popular interest in sci. man., 16, 17, 18-21, 108, 117, 148 Premium, see Bonus. Premium plan, F. A. Halsey's, 41- 52, 64, 155, 2i5n. Profit sharing, 36-38, 39, 42 Progressive wages, 6sn. Promotion, 160, 180, 199 Pullman Co., 99 Quarterly Journal of Economics, I46n. Railroads, sci. man. on, 16, 17, 18, 22n., 94, 113, H4, 126-129, 158; rate-advance cases, see Inter- state Commerce Commission. Railway Age Gazette, ign. Rate-advance cases, see Inter- state Commerce Commission. Rate-cutting, evils of, 23, 121 ; reason for, 34-35 ; Halsey's plan to avoid, 42-47 ; Rowan's plan to avoid, 50, 51 ; Taylor's plan to avoid, 54, 55, 59; effects of stopping, 62 Rate-fixing, 55, 63, 69, 70; see Time study. Reagan, J. C, 145 Redfield, W. C, 141, 190 Repair boss, duties of, 85 Remington Typewriter, 95n. Restrictions on output, 34, 47, 54, 62, 170, I74n. Rock Island Arsenal, 140 Root, Elihu, 2i3n. Routing, function of, 71-73; ex- amples of, I23n., 127, 133. 136; value of, 158, 209 Rowan plan, 50-52 Santa Fe Railway, 114, 126-129, 175 Sayle's Bleacheries, 94 Scheduling, see Routing. Schloss, D. F., 32, 38n. Schwab, C. M., 120-122 Secretary of War, memorandum submitted to, 139 495] INDEX 221 Selection of employees, 79, 80, 160 ; see Promotion. Sellers & Co., Wm., 96, 98 Senate, 141, 192; see Congress. Sheel, H. V., i8n., 22n., < 117 Shop disciplinarian, duties of, 86 " Shop Management," Taylor's paper on, i6n., 48n., 66-87, IOQ, 116, 122, 130, 153; suggested as name for what is now called sci. man., i8n. Shoveling, at Bethlehem, 77n., 123, 124, I57n., 159; coal, 154 ".Singing tone," studies of, 112 Skill, 179, 199, 200 Slide rule, 75, 92, 97 Smith, A. B., 113 Socialism, 209 Society for the Promotion of the Science of Management, 118, MS "Soldiering," 190; see Restric- tions on output. Special Libraries, 2On. Specialization, see Division of labor. Speed of metal-cutting machines, definition of, 74n. Speed boss, duties of, 85, 133 Speeding up, see Overwork. Springer Torsion Balance Co., 48 " Staff, line and," Emerson's, 115, 162, 163 Standardization, 69-71, 81, 107, 127, 157, 158 Stevens Institute of Technology, 89, 92 Stop watch, 56, in, 139, 141, 188- 198; see Time study. Stores management, 80, 132, 133, 136, 139, 161 Storey, W. B., 129 Strikes, 121, 125, 126, 130, 140, 169, 175, 176 Supermen under sci. man., 67, 79, 127, 160 Supplies, 80, 81 ; see Stores man- agement. Surgery, micro-motion study of, 112 Survey, i8n. Symonds Rolling Machine Co., 79, 124, Tabor Mfg. Co., 27, 73, 81, 83, 130-135, 137, 138, 147, 176, 189 n. i, n. 4 Task-setting, under sci. man., 23, 68, 101, 102, 153, 154, 173, 181, 186 ; see Time study, Overwork ; under premium plan, 46 "Task Work with a Bonus," Gantt's, 24, 67, 92-94, US, 122, 195; see Bonus. Taylor, F. W., life of, 88-91 ; methods used by, 54-87, 9in., 160, 161, 169-174, 182, 186, 198; as leader in sci. man., 16, 22-27, 30, 92, 97, 98, 99, 108, 109, 113, 114-117, 118, 130, 134, 145, 148, 210-213; outcome of work of, 120-125; statements by, 33, 48n., 106, 108, 136, 147, 166, i68n., 176, I77n., 2O4n. Taylor system, i8n., 29, 99, 141, 190, 2i3n. Taylor-White high-speed steel, 90, 137, 164 Thompson, C. B., 2on., io6n., I25n., I46n. r I47n. ; S. E., 106-108, I25n. Tilson, J. Q., 141 Time and cost clerk, duties of, 86 Time study, place in sci. man., 23, 55. 63, 69, 70, 153-155: elemen- tary, 56-59; Taylor's, 9m.; Thompson's, 106-108; Gilbreth's, in; Emerson's, 115; at Bethle- hem, 122; on Santa Fe, 127; at Tabor, 134; at Link-Belt, 136; at Watertown, 139; opposition to, 141, 188-195 ; when profitable, 156; under collective bargain, 173, 181, 186, 187; see Motion study. Tool rooms, under sci. man., 81, 132 Towne, H. R., 22n., 31, 38-41, 48n., 64, 118, 119 Trade agreement, see Collective bargain. Trade lines, under sci. man., 179 Trade unions, see Organized labor. Training for sci. man., 134; see University courses in sci. man. Tuck School Conference, I9n., 34n., io6n. Union Typewriter Co., 95 Unions, see Organized labor. 222 INDEX [496 United States, profit sharing in, 37 ; premium plan in, 49 ; Rowan plan not followed in, 50; as home of sci. man., 148 Unit times, 65, 68, 153, 154; see Elementary time study. Universities, sci. man. applied to, 101-106, i68n. University courses in sci. man., 19, 118, 2O4n. University of Pennsylvania, Tay- lor given degree by, 90 University of Toronto, 104 Up-keep man, 214 Van Alstyne, D., 187 Wages, on railroads, 16; under sci. man., level of, 67, 68, 121, 180, 190, 195, 201-202; how fixed, 86, 173, 181-183, 185, 186, 187; groups receiving low, no, 199 Wage systems Taylor's, 54-69, 9in., 182; Gantt's, 67, 92-94, 95, 195; Emerson's, 115, 187; in bricklaying, 109, 125 ; at Bethle- hem, 122; on Santa Fe, 127, 129; at Tabor, 134 ; at Link-Belt, 135 ; at Watertown, 139; in cotton industry, 142 ; see Day-work, Piece-work, Profit sharing, Gain- sharing, Premium plan, Rowan plan. War Department and sci. man., 141 ; see Watertown Arsenal. Watertown Arsenal, 124, 138-141, 155, 159, 164, 178, 188, ioo-i93> 2i3n. Weeks, Sen., 192 Wentworth, G. A., 88 Western Economic Association, 20 Westinghouse Electric Co., 95 Wheeler, Col., I4in. White, Maunsel, 90 Williams, C. C., I4in. ; J. H., 22n., I77n. Wilson, W. B., I9n., 141, 190 Women under sci. man., 142-144 Wyatt, Edith, 142-144, 158 Yale & Towne Mfg. Co., 41 n., 99, 118, 145 VITA THE author was born August 21, 1888, at Dayton,. Ohio. After completing the usual primary and second- ary work there, he attended Otterbein University (1906- 10), University of Chicago (summer quarter 1911), and Columbia University (1912-14). At Columbia he worked in the seminars of Professors Seligman, Seager, Mussey, and Simkhovitch, being under the special direc- tion of Professors Seager and Mussey. In addition to the above, he studied economics under Professors Clark, Mitchell, Fetter, and Anderson. His work included courses in sociology under Professors Giddings and Chaddock, in the history of English law under Dr. Hazeltine, in municipal science under Professor McBain,. in industrial history under Professor Shotwell, and in psychology under Professors Dewey and Woodworth. The author holds the degrees of A. B. (Otterbein, 1910) and A. M. (Columbia, 1913); and was at the latter institution President's University Scholar in Economics (191,3-14). He has published " Organized Labor and Scientific Management," Industrial Engineering, March, April, May, 1914, the same being reprinted in part in Greater Efficiency, March-April, 1914. He was an in- structor in Southwestern University (1911-12), and since 1914 has been Instructor in Economics and Soci- ology, Ohio State University. 223 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 10Apr ? 59CSj iOV 13 1959 eneral Library versit of California LD 21A-50m-9,'58 (6889slO)476B UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY I *' -