Scientific Management

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. The science of industrial management began in a machine-shop and was there developed by careful and systematic experiment and observation and guided, controlled and directed by an able, patient and persistent student, Frederick Winslow Taylor (q.v.). Writing in 19ii, after he had retired from practice, Taylor said "at least 50,000 workmen in the United States are now employed under this (the Taylor) system of scientific management, and they are receiving from 30% to i00% higher wages daily than are paid to men of similar calibre with whom they are surrounded ; while the companies employing them are more prosperous than ever before. In these companies the output per man and per machine has, on the average, been doubled. During all these years there has never been a strike among the men working under this system. In place of the sus picious watchfulness, and more or less open warfare which charac terize the ordinary types of management there is now free co operation between the management and the men." No doubt, most of us when we first hear of such a thing as the science of shovelling by hand, are apt to be amused ; shovelling is labour which anybody is supposed to be fitted for if he is sufficiently strong and phlegmatic. So far as is known, no one ever made a systematic study of shovelling, until Taylor, whose personal experience in manual work had been only as a machinist and pat tern-maker, undertook to develop the science of shovelling in a large steel plant where many kinds of material were being handled, the heaviest being iron ore, the lightest, small size anthracite coal. Taylor selected a few of the better shovellers whom he placed under the instruction of trained observers ; these men worked on various materials, using several sizes of shovels under differing con ditions. Careful records were kept of every phase of the work; the effect of rest periods of different lengths and frequency was noted. It was finally determined that the best results were obtained when the shovel load was kept as close as possible to 21 lb., which was much less than the usual load for the heavier materials and much more than for the lighter ones, in other words, shovels had been regularly over-loaded for the heavy iron ore and much under-loaded for the lighter coal. Special shovels were then se

cured, each designed to hold 21 lbs. of the material for which it was to be used. Teaching and supervision were maintained, and when the new plan was in full operation, the average wages of the shovellers were 63% higher, though the cost of handling had decreased 54%. During the first year the total savings to the works in the cost of shovelling, including all increased overhead, amounted to $36,417.69.

Scientific management has sometimes been confused with the division and specialization of labour, and with mass production— both of which are fundamentally different. Adam Smith (1723– I 790) described in his Wealth of Nations the division of labour and also mass production (q.v.) in the making of pins by hand. This same principle now made use of in the abattoir processes, and in the manufacture of automobiles, is sometimes erroneously called scientific management, though it frequently is combined with highly scientific management methods.

Machine Shop Tests.

In 1879, in a department of the Mid vale Steel works, Philadelphia, a group of men were operating lathes on heavy work, mostly steel forgings. Taylor, who had been placed in charge of that department, soon became convinced that the men knowingly were not and did not intend doing the work they could easily accomplish. For certain reasons—not all traceable to the men—Taylor could not secure their co-operation in experiments designed to show how much work could be done.

Finally, a 66 in. boring- and turning-mill was set aside to be used only for Taylor's experiments. During a period of six months many steel tires for locomotive driving-wheels were reduced to chips at various cutting speeds and feeds, using many different shapes of cutting tools; and, though it was then clear that only a begin ning had been made in the development of the science of metal cutting, enough had been learned to more than pay for this pioneer work. Through a period of years many thousands of controlled experiments were made, and more than 800,000 lbs. of steel were cut up. The chemical and physical characteristics of each piece of metal were known, and it was thus revealed that for each variety of material there is, for each lathe, an optimum combination of cutting speed, etc.