the hourly record of his brickmasons is chalked up. He has found
that this constant record of where they stand in the day's race is a
splendid stimulus.
=Sufficient Reward.= When a man produces more than has been his custom,
he feels entitled to a very large percentage of his increased output.
His sense of justice is keen on this matter, and rightly so. It is true
that he is not entitled to all the increase, for his employer may have
provided him with machines or tools of a better kind, for which payment
must ultimately be made. Moreover, more rapid work with any machine
means more rapid wearing─out of its parts, and a consequent expense to
the employer. Finally, the employer who has used his brains to devise
ways of increasing the output of the employees is entitled to a very
substantial reward. No one begrudges Thomas Edison his wealth. He has
earned it by virtue of his inventions. In like manner, every man should
be richly rewarded for every labor─saving machine or method which he
creates or which he applies. However, employers are prone to try to
take too large a part of the profit effected by an introduction of a
system of unit─payment for work done.
Mr. Fred W. Taylor says that a workman should receive 30 to 100 per
cent increase in wages upon the introduction of a piece─rate or
bonus system of payment. Mr. Halsey says that the workman should
receive one─third of increased value of his product resulting from an
application of the bonus or premium system of payment. But the fact
is that the employer should share liberally with his men; and, in the
long run, the competition of other employers who are bidding for the
services of workmen will force wages up to a point where the workman
secures all but a very moderate percentage of the value of his daily
product.
=Educational Supervision.= As previously stated, the old type of
foreman mingles the functions of a spy with the functions of a
mule─driver. The higher we go in the scale of human intelligence,
however, the more noticeable is the fact that _the supervisors are
teachers of the men they supervise_. These supervisors, foremen,
managers──call them what you may──have learned that it pays
better to spend time in training their men than to spend time in
tongue─thrashing. Only of late years has it been discovered that
systematic training of the least intelligent of workmen pays equally
as well as the training of the most intelligent. The manager who
recognizes the necessity of educational supervision, undertakes,
first, a careful time study of each class of work. Then he analyzes
the results, and deduces methods of securing greater economy.
Having evolved a method of procedure, he reduces it to writing, and
furnishes his foremen with detailed written or printed instructions
to be followed, or, where the workmen are intelligent enough, the
instructions are given to them directly; otherwise it is the function
of the foreman to instruct the workmen.
=Divorce of Planning from Performance.= We have just spoken of the
education of the workmen by the manager; but, before such education is
possible, the manager must educate himself. In brief, he must study
the problem and plan its most economic solution. According to the
old─style method of management, each foreman was left largely to his
own resources in planning methods, and, added to this duty, he had
several other duties to perform, such as "pounding the men on the back"
when lazy, seeing that materials were promptly supplied, employing and
discharging men, looking after the condition of machines, etc. This
multiplicity of duties can be properly performed, only by a foreman
possessed of a multiplicity of talents. Since few foremen can comply
with such a specification for brains, it follows that good foremen of
the old style are rare indeed. The modern system of management consists
in taking away from the foreman the function of planning the work, and
in providing a department that does all the planning. This planning
department should be under the supervision of the Cost─Analysis
Engineer, for it is he and his assistants who, by unit─timing of work
and by cost keeping, are best able to ascertain what methods should be
applied to get the most economic results. Having planned a method, the
Cost─Analysis Engineer delegates its pursuance to one or more foremen.
=Subdivision of Duties.= The previous rule of action comes under
another, still more general in character──namely, the law of the
_subdivision of duties_. Men are gifted with faculties and muscles that
are extremely variable. One man will excel at running a rock drill,
another at keeping time, another at surveying, and so on. It is clear,
therefore, that the fewer the duties that any one man has to perform,
the easier it is to find men who can perform the task well. But give a
man many duties to perform, and he is almost certain to do poorly in
at least one respect, if not in several. One foreman may have a great
knack at "keeping an eye on" machinery, and in having few break─downs
and delays. Then it is the part of wisdom to burden him with no other
duties, unless the magnitude of the work does not warrant dividing
the duties among two or more men. Let him be the _machinery and tool
foreman_, reporting directly to the Cost─Analysis Engineer, and
subordinate to no other foreman.
Another foreman may have a special knack at teaching workmen how to use
tools and machines. Let him have no other duty but to see that the men
have the proper tools, get them promptly, and use them properly. Let
him be the _gang foreman_.
According to the magnitude of the work, there may be different kinds
of foremen, all coming in contact with the same men, perhaps, but each
performing different functions.
=Limitations of Military Organization.= Most industrial organizations
to─day resemble military organizations, with their generals and
intermediate officers, down to sergeants, each man reporting to but one
man higher in rank. There is little doubt that the present tendency in
industrial organizations is to abandon the military system to a very
large extent, and for the following reasons:
A soldier has certain duties to perform, few in number, and simple in
kind. Hence the man directly in command can control the actions of
his subordinates easily and effectively. Control, moreover, should
come invariably from the same officer, to avoid any possibility of
disastrous confusion, and _to insure the instant action of a body of
men as one single mass_.
On the other hand, industrial operations do not possess the same
simplicity, particularly where men are using machines; nor is
there the necessity of action in mass. The military organization,
therefore, should be modified to suit the conditions; and one of these
modifications is the introduction of two or more foremen in charge
of certain functions or duties of the same men or groups of men, as
explained in the paragraph on _Subdivision of Duties_.
=Opposition to Change.= All men have a certain mental inertia which
makes them resist any change of their methods and habits. Foremen are
particularly resistant to change, because of their custom of giving
orders more frequently than receiving orders. Hence the Cost─Analysis
Engineer who is trying to introduce modern methods is sure to meet with
violent opposition from foremen; and the older the foreman, the more
violent the opposition. When the Cost─Analysis Engineer introduces
a new method, he must personally attend to every detail, or it will
surely "go wrong." The old foreman will see to it that it does "go
wrong," just to show that the "new─fangled ideas" are worthless.
Opposition may also develop among labor unions, particularly if it is
proposed to pay on the piece─rate plan──that is, to pay so and so much
for each unit of work performed. The bonus plan and the premium plan
(to be described later) are schemes to overcome this opposition to the
piece─rate plan, but in essence they are all the same.
No manager of men can attain great success unless he has grit enough
and tact enough to overcome the opposition to change which he will
encounter from all quarters. If he realizes in advance that such
opposition is as certain to manifest itself as it is certain that it
takes power to change the direction or speed of motion of a heavy
body, he will have possessed himself of one of the laws of successful
management.
A man cannot impart motion to a very heavy rock by violent impact of
his own body against it; but he can separate it into fragments, and
move each fragment by itself. In like manner, no attempt should be
made to change all the methods of an industrial organization at one
stroke. Separate it into elements, and take one element at a time,
beginning with the simplest. Apply your cost─keeping system to that
element──it may be only the hauling of materials with teams──and effect
the change desired. Then take another element of the organization, and
apply the system to it. Continue thus, fragment by fragment, and you
will overcome the opposition that would otherwise resist your greatest
effort.
=Respect Your Own Ability.= One of the most common mistakes made by
managers lies in assuming that a skilled workman necessarily knows
better how to perform work than does the manager himself. A manager
should first aim to familiarize himself with the methods used by the
best workmen, and then, by an itemized time study, he should set his
own wits to work to improve the methods. Workmen, for the most part,
do their work just as robins build their nests──by the pattern of
precedent. They put little or no brains into improving the process,
because it usually means no money in their pockets to effect an
improvement, and because they reason that an improvement that effects
a saving in time may actually result in the discharge of some of their
fellow workmen. It should be a cardinal law of management to give very
little weight to the claims that workmen make as to their own skill or
knowledge; and the same holds true as to foremen. Because a man has
blasted rock for twenty years, should not make his opinion of such
force as to prevent a manager from undertaking to show that man how to
do rock─blasting more economically. We have frequently effected great
economies in rock─blasting after a time study occupying fewer weeks
than the blaster had occupied of years in the same sort of work. The
trained mind of the Cost─Analysis Engineer enables him to analyze costs
and methods, and to develop improvements which no amount of so─called
"practical experience" can effect.
Weigh carefully every _reason_ against any proposed change in method,
and act accordingly; but pay no attention whatsoever to predictions of
failure that are bare of reasons. Do not be influenced even by many
positive statements that your proposed method has been tried and has
failed; for its failure may have been purposely brought about, or some
small condition essential to its success may have been absent.
Therefore, respect your own ability. The manager who cannot improve
upon methods used by his men is not fit to manage.
=Profit Does Not Mean Excellence.= Many a manager points to the profits
of his business as the profit of his ability. He forgets that to a
plainsman a small hill looks like a mountain. The general level of
mediocrity makes such managers fancy that they are quite extraordinary
if their business shows a large profit.
The Cost─Analysis Engineer can frequently take a profitable business
and convert it into a wealth─producer beyond all dreams of the ordinary
self─satisfied manager. Nor should the Cost─Analysis Engineer himself
grow satisfied. _There is positively no limit to the economies in
production which may be effected by the human brain._
=The Human Engine.= The human body is an engine, or rather a boiler
and engine combined. Its fuel is about 3 pounds of solid food daily,
containing about as much energy as one pound of carbon or coal. One
pound of coal will develop energy enough to perform about 10,000,000
foot─pounds of work; that is, it will raise 10,000,000 pounds one foot
high, if there is no loss of power. But in all boilers and engines
there is a loss of power, due to heat lost by radiation, heat carried
away in the escaping gases and solids, etc., and heat developed by
friction. A steam boiler and engine suffers so much loss of heat energy
from these sources, that it rarely develops an efficiency of more than
10 per cent of the theoretical energy of the coal consumed. Curiously
enough, the human body is not much more efficient than a steam boiler
and engine; so that, while the one pound of carbon fed into the human
body has a theoretical energy of about 10,000,000 foot─pounds, the
actual useful work performed by a man is seldom more than 1,500,000
foot─pounds a day, or about 15 per cent of the theoretical energy of
the food consumed.
When a man is walking, his whole body rises and falls each step, the
rise being about one─seventh of a foot. Hence, in walking 25 miles
in a day, about 2,000 steps per mile, a man weighing 140 pounds does
1,000,000 foot─pounds of work in raising the weight of his own body,
to say nothing of the energy consumed in swinging his legs. A man may
walk the 25 miles in 10 hours, or he may walk it in 8 hours. In either
case, he does substantially the same amount of work, and burns up
substantially the same amount of food.
It should be clear, therefore, that when workmen are doing intermittent
work, with periods of comparative rest, they are capable of working
correspondingly harder during the periods of exertion. Thus, in running
a rock drill, the physical labor is light, except when shifting the
drill or when changing drill bits. At such times, the men should be
required to work with great vigor in order to reduce the lost time.
It should also be clear that workmen should be taught to make no
unnecessary movements of the body in doing work. Yet it is a fact that
few workmen economize their energy by avoiding unnecessary motions.
It should also be clear that it pays to house workmen at no great
distance from their work, so as to reduce the labor of going to and
from the work; for every foot─pound of energy spent in going or coming
reduces by that much the available energy of the man.
If it were practicable to measure the amount of resistance involved
in doing each class of physical work, we could readily reduce to a
science the setting of reasonable daily tasks. The authors are of the
opinion that a careful study of _resistances_ will eventually enable
managers to fix certain tasks with great accuracy. To illustrate, let
us assume that it is desired to know how much sand a workman should be
able to shovel into a wagon box 5 feet from the ground in a day. It
is not impracticable to measure the force required to push the shovel
into the sand, and the distance pushed. The average weight of the
earth on a shovel, and the weight of the shovel can be ascertained.
The vertical height that this load is lifted, is easily measured. If
the workman bends his body to fill the shovel, the weight of his body
above the waist, multiplied by the height that the center of gravity of
that weight travels will give the foot─pounds of work done in bending
the body. And thus, by a calculation of each element of work done, an
accurate forecast of the total possible work could be made.
Such a study as this will often disclose an unsuspected lack of economy
in using certain tools. From such a study, for example, it is perfectly
clear that the long─handled shovel, universally used in the far West
for shoveling sand, gravel, etc., is a more economical tool than the
short─handled shovel used in the East. Men have argued about this
matter for years without coming to a definite conclusion, the reason
being that workmen accustomed to the short─handled shovel prefer it,
while workmen accustomed to the long─handled shovel show an equal
preference for that type of tool.
COST GETTING
In taking of time and in the application of the cost of labor to
the cost of work, there are probably as many systems as there are
organizations doing work; and even within any one organization using a
well─defined system throughout its entire operations, there will be no
two men making the same interpretation of the rules laid down, or──more
especially──whose methods of attack will be the same. But in spite of
these many variations of method, there are several primary systems
which are standard, and which can be found in one form or another on
all properly conducted work.
The starting point of all cost getting is the taking of the time in the
field, and it is here that the greatest variation in individual method
is found. The most common way of taking this time record from which
the pay─roll and the cost distribution is made, is for the time─keeper
to go over the work with a notebook and put down therein with a pencil
the number of each man and the particular part of the work that he is
engaged on.
Two systems of record keeping, of which small cards form the
basis, are also in vogue. One of these systems uses what is known
as _punch─cards_──that is, cards in which the records of time,
distribution, and performance are made by means of an ordinary
conductor's punch; and the other has the record made in a way somewhat
similar to the entries in a notebook──a written record being made on
the cards with a pencil. Another system bases its records upon reports
turned in by foremen.
=Time─Keeper with Notebook.= While the manner of taking time with
a notebook varies according to the training and experience of the
time─keeper, it may be said that there are in general two ways in which
such notes are kept. In the first, the time─keeper has a list of the
numbers of all men on the work, and, as he goes over the work, simply
checks off the numbers, showing that each particular man is at work and
indicating upon what branch of the work he is engaged.
A more common way, however, is for the time─keeper to make headings
corresponding to the distribution used in making up the office
records, and to write under each of these headings the numbers of the
men working upon the part of the work so named. This method is often
simplified by the time─keeper becoming so familiar with the foreman,
and the numbers of the men under the particular foreman, that he
is able to dispense with the headings entirely, and simply use the
foreman's name or number in place of it. This, of course, makes the
time─keeper's notes more or less unintelligible to anyone but himself,
and makes it necessary for him to do office work as well as his field
work. Moreover, not being a permanent or intelligible record, it is
impossible for even the man who made the notes to return to them in
case any dispute arises or a mistake is found to have been made, and
get information after the notes have "grown cold." The time─keeper
becomes so familiar with the appearance of the men who are on the
work, that he learns to know their numbers, and often attempts to put
them down without seeing their numbered checks. This is often a source
of error, as the uneducated foreign laborer is very liable to make a
mistake in stating his number; and if he does, there will exist no
record of his having worked that day, and he will get no pay for it.
The apportioning of the cost of his labor to any work that he may have
been on, will also be the cause of trouble.
Of course, the time─keeper's memory serves him if any men are absent
from the gang for any reason, and he is able to ask the foreman whether
or not that particular man is working. A man may be away from the gang
and be missed by the time─keeper altogether. In this case, no chance is
given for correction of the record, unless the time─keeper goes over
the work again soon after; and the consequence is that costs will be in
error, and the men will be short of pay at the end of the month. This
is especially liable to be true when night work is being done.
Men may be changed from gang to gang, or a whole gang may be changed
from one job to another, and the time─keeper knows nothing of it
unless he happens to be on the spot at just the right time. Such a
change would not show in his time record; and while the men would get
credit for their full time, the distribution of costs would be much
in error. The difficulty in recording such changes can be seen from
the following extract from a report of a Consulting Engineer after
inspecting work upon a road─making contract:
"In one case, at 10:30, there were eight men carrying stone to the
crusher, and three men on the crusher platform. Two others were in the
cut, loosening earth and loading; and half an hour later, two of the
four men who had been blasting were also loosening and loading."
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Time─Keeper's Slip. Duplicate record is made
automatically on a similar slip by carbon paper.]
This, of course, indicates an unusually loose organization, but is an
example of what a time─keeper with a notebook has to contend against.
In case of emergency──say in steam shovel work──a train of dump cars
goes over the side of a dump, and a track gang is called upon to help
the regular dump gang so that the difficulty may be overcome as soon as
possible. The time─keeper might fail to make record of an hour or an
hour and a─half which the track gang put on this work, because he did
not see them at work at that particular time. This, of course, affects
the distribution of cost. One advantage from the notebook is that
much of the distribution is made in the field, with a corresponding
reduction of office work.
=Punch─Cards.= The keeping of time by means of punch─cards has been
tried with considerable success on many jobs, but only recently has it
been reduced to a practical basis for use on large construction work.
The Construction Service Company of New York City has developed a
system of time and cost keeping, using the duplicate punch─card almost
entirely. Several of these cards are reproduced in connection with this
text.
As a general thing, the punching of the cards is done by foremen of the
gang, or by someone who has the performance of the gang under direct
observation. The cards show not only the time worked by each man upon
any one day, but just as exactly the time worked upon any job by all
the men. A duplicate of the record is made automatically, to be kept in
the time─keeper's office, the other going to headquarters for permanent
record.
The record thus obtained is absolutely exact, especially as to
distribution; but the system has some of the same objections that
the notebook has. For instance, unless the cards are kept by the
foreman himself, whoever punches them may inadvertently miss a man.
This, however, is not so liable to happen as when a notebook is used.
Whenever a single punch appears opposite a man's number, it is apparent
that all his time must be accounted for in some way or other; while,
with a notebook, it may be that, having been missed once, no record of
any time will appear.
There is absolutely no opportunity for a time─keeper or for a foreman
to "fudge" his account in any way, for a punch mark once made in the
card cannot be erased or destroyed in any way. The record stands.
=Time─Keeper's Cards.= Instead of the time─keeper keeping his records
in a notebook, as has been described, he may be provided with slips of
tough paper of such size and shape as will readily go into his pocket,
or will fit in a filing cabinet.
The _modus operandi_ of these cards or slips is as follows:
Each card or slip is devoted to but one gang and one ledger
account──such, for example, as placing ties in railroad work, gang No.
6. It will show the foreman's name; the name or number, or both, of
each man; and the amount of time that he spent on this particular class
of work. The sum of the amounts for the gang on this classification,
will be the cost for this gang and this account for the day in
question.