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BY ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT

A few weeks ago Mr. Louis D. Brandeis startled the country by declaring at a hearing on railway rates before the Inter-State Commerce Commission that it would be possible for the railways of the country to make a saving estimated at a million dollars a day. Mr. Brandeis's statement was received with incredulity by many and with ridicule by some. A group of Western railways offered him any salary which he might name if he would undertake their management and bring about the saving which he had declared possible. Mr. Brandeis's assertion was so astounding that it sounded like the talk of a visionary with a patent panacea. But he based his assertion, not upon some quack nostrum, but upon scientific principles which he had seen applied in other industries with marvelous results. In the following article are set forth those principles of scientific management, and some of the benefits to the capitalist, the laborer, and the consumer which have actually been accomplished by their application.-The Editors.

"But glory' doesn't mean a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them-particularly verbs, they're the proudest-adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs. However, can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I Say!"

"Would you tell me, please," said Alice, "what that means?"

"Now you talk like a reasonable child." said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I meant by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."

"That's a great deal to make one word mean.” Alice said, in a thoughtful tone.

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

H

-Through the Looking-Glass.

UMPTY DUMPTY was evidently
a born manager.

Whether it is a football team or a college faculty, a shoe factory or a railway, a machine-shop or a hotel, every body of men engaged in a common task requires management. There are, however, two kinds of management, the old and the new. Humpty Dumpty would

fit in well with the traditional methods and the traditional attitude adopted by many successful managers of the past.

In recent years, however, a number of concerns have abandoned the traditional methods and the traditional attitude. They have done so because, frankly, they have found that it has paid to do so. One concern in Philadelphia, for example, a

It

company manufacturing machinery, was
a few years ago struggling with an annual
deficit. Now it is carrying on a business
which is highly profitable. It has doubled
its output.
What has made the differ-
ence? It has not installed any new ma-
chinery, except for some minor changes.
It has not enlarged its plant, except for
devoting more floor area for storage.
has not increased its force of workmen ;
on the contrary, it is putting out its in-
creased product with a force of men on
the whole smaller than that which it for-
merly employed. It has not made its
saving by reducing the wages of the men ;
on the contrary, it has increased those
wages over the former scale by at least
twenty-five to forty per cent. It has not
brought this change about by dismissing
its former employees and engaging a new
and better lot of men; on the contrary,
of its present force a large majority were
in its employ at the time of its depression.
It has not raised to the consumer the
price of its product; on the contrary, it
is charging less for its product than it
formerly did. Other concerns, large and
small, engaged in many kinds of product-
ive activity, have similar stories to tell.

This is something that concerns us all. It is not merely of interest to those engaged in business. It is of concern to us whose financial operations seem to consist mainly in paying the butcher, the grocer, the tailor, and other creators of the cost of living. If there is any way by which production can be increased, so that there will be more flour, more clothes, more building materials, more of all sorts of

necessities, and at the same time the men. In the first place, efficiency de

great mass of the people who produce these things shall have more money to buy them with, we shall not be worried any longer by the rising cost of living. If at the same time a manufacturer can be surer of his profits, and the wage-earner finds his work less of a strain, we shall get our benefits at a cost to no class except those who thrive on trouble. If there is something that will bring us these benefits, we ought to know about it.

What has made this difference in the concerns to which I have referred has been simply a revolutionary change in management.

The problem of management is to secure the best results of the whole body by securing at once the efficiency of each individual and the working together of all the individuals with each other. Some men seem to be born managers. The traditional method by which those responsible for a concern attempt to make the management of that concern effective is to find one of these born managers and put him in authority, and to supply him with subordinate bosses who, like him, have, but in lesser degree, the managerial instinct.

Such men having been selected, they undertake to get the best possible work out of the workers. How they do this depends partly on the bosses and partly on the bossed. Some born managers have the power to drive, others have the power to lead. For a section gang on a railway a man is chosen as boss usually because he is a good driver. He walks around among the men and sees that they work with their picks and shovels about as well as they know how. In a force of workers who are of a higher type mentally, on the other hand, as, for example, in a machine-shop, the man who, while exercising authority, also encourages the workers to make suggestions and try to improve on familiar methods of work is regarded as especially fit for his task. If by intimidation or tact he prevents friction, or by an abundance of good fellowship in himself he spreads among the workers a spirit of co-operation, he is unusually successful.

If

There are certain constant difficulties thus encountered in the management of

pends so greatly upon the personal equation that a change from one manager to another is sometimes fatal. In the second place, there is a continual condition of unstable equilibrium because the natural interest of the worker is to do as little work as he can without losing his recompense or forfeiting advancement, while it is the natural interest of the management to get as much work as possible out of the workers without increasing their recompense or foregoing the chance, when it comes, of reducing it. In the third place, the workers, as a whole, know more about their work and the right way to do it than the manager does, and are therefore in a position to seem to be accomplishing more than they really are. In the fourth place, the manager has such a number of details to look after that when something of apparently minor importance goes wrong he cannot afford to give his time to attend to it, and the worker must deal with it as best he can, although it may involve some one else over whom he may have no authority or concerning whose work he has no knowledge. In such a case the manager is entirely right in ignoring a minor matter in order to give his attention to a more important matter, in spite of the fact that the total effect of all the minor defects may be greater than the total effect of all the greater defects.

To overcome these difficulties many devices have been proposed. Instead of paying workers so much a day, many concerns pay them according to the amount of work each does. If a worker does more than his fellow, he gets more. He gets so much for every ton of coal he shovels, or every piece be turns out at his machine, or every coat he finishes. This is Humpty Dumpty's method. This acts. as an incentive to the worker to work as hard and as fast as he knows how. The workers in most industries, however, have come to the conclusion that this device is not for their benefit. It sets a pace that results in fatigue and in ultimate injury; and, moreover, it usually results in an ultimate reduction in wages, since the pacemaker tends to set the standard for a day's work, and everybody else finds that at the end of a day he has fallen behind, and, consequently, does not get even a

day's wage. Then there are many devices for reports, for time-checks, for accounts of stock, for daily cash balances, for inspectors, and "spotters," and spies. These, however, all tend to bring into the open the latent hostility between the workers and the managers, and render ineffective every effort to utilize tact and encour age good fellowship. In some concerns, whose directors are far-sighted men, there are systems of profit-sharing. These, admirable as they are in enlisting the loyalty of men to the concern of which they are made partners, do not, however, remove the chief difficulties of management. All such devices—whether good or bad-are based on the assumption that the workers themselves know how to do their work in the best way, and that what is needed is an incentive to induce them to do their best.

It is as if in the human body the brain for the toe were in the toe, the brain for the elbow were in the elbow, the brain for the arm, the hand, the knee, were respectively in the arm, the hand, and the knee; and as if the duty of the brain in the skull were ended by giving directions to the different members as to what they should do, and trying to get them to think out for themselves how and when to do it. As a matter of fact, the human body (however it may be with the body of the jellyfish) is organized on a different principle. The brain for the toe, the elbow, the arm, the hand, the knee, is all in the skull, with subordinate nerve ganglia at various centers charged with the duty of carrying out its orders. Under this arrangement the toe, the elbow, the arm, and every other member of the body is relieved of the duty of trying to plan its own functions. If the toe encounters any trouble-too great cold, for instance-it is not left to find a remedy for itself; it at once notifies the brain, and the brain knows just what to do under the circumstances. his way every member of the body has the planning department of the body at its instant service. The one brain is the servant of all. Under this arrangement the feet of the runner, the arm of the baseball pitcher, the fingers of the artist or the pianist, the throat of the orator or the singer, become highly skilled. If some organ of the body gets out of order, all

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the members, of course, suffer; but the planning department immediately gives the matter its attention, and, if it cannot restore normal conditions, it calls in an expert. The responsibility is concentrated where the knowledge is.

That, in brief, is the difference between Humpty Dumpty management and scientific management.

Let us see what this difference means when applied to a machine-shop. Here, let us say, is a factory which makes cylinders of all kinds. Under Humpty Dumpty management, the order goes

forth from the president's office that a dozen cylinders of a certain size are to be manufactured. The foremen announce the order, and the mechanics go after the tools and the material. Then the foremen and the mechanics stand around in groups, and with measures and dividers decide what size the different parts shall be, what holes shall be bored, and what bolts shall be used. Each mechanic is encouraged to make suggestions; and every one who shows ingenuity is rewarded in some way. Finally, when, after much discussion and interchange of opinion based on experience, a design or set of designs is decided upon, the work begins. Each mechanic decides how to set his lathe, what feed to use, and on what cone he shall slide the belt. All set to work. Over each group of mechanics is a boss who watches them to see that no one shirks. He has watched men before, and has an idea as to what constitutes a day's work. If the men do not work as fast as he thinks they ought, he calls them to account, and threatens discipline.

No shop is managed exactly on that plan, because no one really believes thoroughly in Humpty Dumpty management. Practically every shop has a designing-room. Why? Because it is perfectly plain that highly trained mechanical engineers know more about the designing of machines than mechanics do. So every shop has at least a rudimentary planning department. This department plans exactly what shall be made. The plans are based on the results of scientific experiment. A vast amount of time has been spent in testing the strength of metals, in calculating the effect of strains, in watching the results of chemical combinations. From

the information thus gained in the laboratory certain laws have been discovered. So when a machine is to be manufactured, designing engineers, who understand these laws, make plans of the machine. But, it may be objected, these designing engineers have to be paid much higher wages than mechanics. Of course; but the cost of employing these highly trained men is more than offset by the saving that is consequent upon having the designs properly made. So every machineshop devotes valuable space and a good deal of money to what is not directly productive work. In that part of manufacture, therefore, which determines what shall be made, management is now almost universally scientific.

This, however, is the lesser part of management. The greater part of the management of a shop has to do, not with the "what," but with the "how." Under scientific management, the designing-room. which now plans the "what," is expanded into a Planning Department which plans not only the "what" but also the "how." In a big contracting business or in the financial management of a university the planning department would be different in form but not different in principle, so far as the "how" is concerned. Most concerns are managed according to the methods of Humpty Dumpty. In most machine-shops, after the designs are drawn and the duplicates are sent out to the shop, the methods of work are left to the initiative and ingenuity of the workmen. The reason for this is simple: there is no one in the shop who knows better than the workman how the work should be done.

Before, then, a machine-shop can put its brains completely in its head, where they belong, it must collect its brains. It now has brains for the determination of what shall be made; it must now develop brains for the determination of how it shall be made. And the methods in this case are the same as in the other-the methods of the scientific laboratory. In other words, if management is to be really scientific, it must adopt other than traditional ways of securing knowledge about methods of work. At present a man is a mechanic by virtue of having picked up his knowledge from another mechanic who

has picked up his knowledge in turn from still another mechanic. So with the bricklayer, the typesetter, the weaver, the shoveler. In each case the man with a trade has acquired by word of mouth and by watching others at work the accumulated experience of the workmen of that trade. So long as this is the only knowledge that exists in a shop, a planning department for methods of work is useless. No foreman, no superintendent, can pick up more knowledge about the trades he is supervising than can all the workmen under him; and unless he knows more than his subordinates he cannot direct them how to work. And yet to-day there are machine-shops in which not only the designs for the machines to be made are minutely drawn, but the plans for the way in which those machines shall be made are drawn and written down with even greater minuteness. How has this been brought about?

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Two simple instances may make this clear. For hundreds of years the art of bricklaying has been practically stationary. Men to-day lay bricks in much the same fashion as they did when the Assyrian Empire flourished. A few years ago Mr. Frank B. Gilbreth, a contractor, who had become interested in the experiments which Mr. F. W. Taylor had conducted in the art of cutting metals, decided to make some experiments in bricklaying. analyzed the motions of the bricklayer by going through them himself with the aid of his wife. The first thing he discovered was that every time a bricklayer stooped down to pick up a brick he lifted about a hundred and ten pounds. The upper part of a man's body weighs somewhat more than a hundred pounds; and in order to pick up a five-pound brick he had to lift the weight of his body too. Not much of the wasted effort was saved if he picked up two bricks. He at once concluded that immense effort would be saved if the bricklayer did not have to stoop at all. The next thing he discovered was that the bricklayer used up time and effort in turning the brick around in his hand until he got it in the correct position (for a brick has a top and a bottom), and he concluded that the brick should be delivered to the bricklayer right side up. Then he discovered that the

bricklayer used up time and effort in tapping the brick to see whether it was sound. He concluded that only sound brick should be delivered to the bricklayer. So by analysis he discovered that in bricklaying there were two distinct sets of motions on the one hand useful and useless, and on the other agreeable and disagreeable. By study of the subject he so eliminated the useless and the disagreeable motions as to reduce the total number from eighteen to five. As a consequence, in spite of the incidental cost involved in making some change in apparatus (a moving scaffold, for example, on which bricks could be delivered at the right height), in employing some extra helpers for sorting the brick, and the like, he increased the output from something like a thousand brick a day per man to about twenty-seven hundred. This increase in output enabled him to promise every workman who followed his directions a great increase in pay. On the other hand, the workmen, so far from being "speeded up," were actually enabled to do their work with less fatigue.

Another example is still more striking. No work seems more simple, more unlikely to be subject to scientific study, than the art of carrying pig iron. This, however, has been subjected to the most careful scientific study. Men at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, were loading pig iron on cars at the rate of about twelve tons a day. Certain pig-handlers were given extra wages for doing this work under special direction. An attempt was made to ascertain the relation between the amount of horse-power which each man exerted and the fatigue he incurred. Long-continued experiment furnished a vast amount of information, but, apparently, no Finally, Mr. F. W. Taylor, who was conducting the experiments, handed the data over to an associate who was apt at mathematical problems. Very soon he reported that he had discovered the law that fatigue varied in proportion to a certain relation between the amount of load

and the periods of rest. For example, a man carrying a ninety-two-pound pig had, in order to avoid fatigue, to be at rest fifty-eight per cent of the time. The discovery of this law involved a great amount of data, including certain physiological

facts concerning the poisonous effects of waste tissue upon the blood, and difficult mathematical formulæ, including the plotting of curves. As a result, the pighandlers were directed exactly how to lift and carry their loads and when to rest, and the amount of pig iron handled by each man every day increased from twelve and a half tons to forty-seven. Of course the men received a great advance in wages.

Now, neither the bricklayer nor the pighandler, even with the greatest amount of ingenuity, could have made such improvement in methods. The bricklayer could not, because he had no authority to say how the bricks should be delivered to him, even if by chance he had discovered that such a method of delivery would have been better; and the pig-handler could not, because such scientific study as was necessary for the discovery was altogether beyond his mental resources, as it would be beyond mine or those of most of my readers.

Similarly, scientific experiments have laid bare a world of knowledge regarding the art of cutting metals. I cannot here relate the story, which Mr. Taylor has told me, of his interesting study of this subject that has been continued for a period of twenty-six years at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars—a study which has resulted in the construction of a simple slide rule by which any workman can set a lathe to the best advantage. No mechanic, however skilled, could possibly attain by experience any such knowledge.

Similar study has been applied to scores of industries, and has resulted in the discovery of methods of work that enormously increase production. Indeed, the result has proved as revolutionary in increasing output as the introduction of machinery was.

When the management of a concern has such knowledge, scientifically acquired, at its command, it is in a position to transfer its brains to its head-that is, to create a planning department.

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