UNIVERSAL FORMULA =. Op Materials + Man Costs + Equipment Charges Costs + TW IR Materials = Q P in which Q is quantity of units and P is price per unit.
Personnel = TW in which T is total hours of work of all men for the period and W is average rate of wages per hour.
Equipment = a? in which I is hours each day and R is tate per hour for all equipment for the period.
When the efficiency engineer has thus stated his problem he attempts to bring about that combination of Q and P, of T and W, of t and R which will make the cost of each group a minimum. What combination of materials, of personnel, of equipment is under the cir cumstances most rational? Shall it be little equipment and many men or shall it be much equipment and few men? The sand along the Suez Canal was removed in part by young women, digging with their bare hands, carry ing the load in baskets on their heads and dumping it on the bank. At Panama immense steam dredges were used, scraping 10-ton loads at a stroke, yet the cubic yard of exca vation may have cost more at Panama than at Suez. Which was the better method? The cheapest transportation the world has perhaps ever known was of ivory, hides, etc., from the interior of Africa to the sea coast. But it was one-way traffic. The means of transport, slaves, bought for a few dollars in the interior, were worth hundreds of dollars each at the coast. In this case in the universal equation PQ, materials is very small, tR, equipment, is less, TW, wages is negative, since the sale of the slave brought a revenue. But after the questions of relative proportion of materials, of personnel and of equipment have been set tled the next problem is to determine whether large quantity and low quality is better than small quantity and high quality. Is it cheaper to build a bridge out of cast iron blocks at $20 a ton or out of piano wire at $200 a ton? Efficiency engineering is immediately concerned with industrial wastes not with moral wastes. It may be a great moral shortcoming to use up frivolously the coal, the natural gas and the crude oil of the world but from the point of view of the efficiency engineer the Diesel engine in a submarine may be efficient and a burden bearing Bhudda be inefficient. Is it cheaper to walk 500 miles barefoot in 25 days or to go through in a night on a fast train? If wages are $0.10 a day and meals cost nothing it would be cheaper for some men to walk, as the tramps do. With board and lodging at $0.25 a day and wages at 0.40.a day it is cheaper to ride.
Usually economy is secured by increasing the quality items, price, wage rate, equipment rate, thus reducing the quantity items of weight and of time. The best result is when the value produced is a maximum with QP, T, and tR very small, but W very large. An infinitely bad result is when QP, Ti',' and tR are a maximum, millions of costly shells, millions of hours of time daily with low wages, 24 hours a day of almost infinitely costly equipment, all to produce unmeasured and unmeasurable de struction. There are different summarized efficiencies for each of the six factors Q, P, T, W, t, R. There are different efficiencies for each separate part of each. Each of a thou sand men in a plant will have a different average efficiency and each man will have a different efficiency for each different item of work. To check all these million possibilities
of wastes and leaks becomes as necessary as to have every joint tight in a 100-mile pipe line, to have every rail in a 1,000-mile road, sound and in line, or to have every item right in the deposits and withdrawals from a bank, or to have every word, every letter, in a book proofread.
Nevertheless it has been found efficient to attack inefficiencies under group headings rather than individually on the same principle that it is better to prevent any yellow fever mosquitoes rather than to kill those that fly around. The systematic application of a few principles, some ethical, some practical, brings about general improvement: (1) What is the main isJeal? Stick closely to it. Eliminate clashes and interferences. Fast trains are run on the principle of the free and unobstructed track. (2) Is common sense being used? Mostly it is absent, as in the adoption of a cost plus profit plan by the United States gov ernment, for its war orders. (3) Has the best advice been sought, been considered and been followed? (4) Is there the strict discipline, the spirit, that makes the difference between army and mob? (5) Is the fair deal practised toward all? (6) Is there a direct and tangible connection between individual excellence of per formance and individual pay? (7) Are all operations minutely planned in advance? (8) Are they carefully and scientifically scheduled as to time and cost? (9) Are all operations dispatched, i.e., put through in accordance with plan and schedule? (10) Are all conditions standarized? (11) Are all operations standard ized? (12) Are there permanent written stand ard practice instructions? (13) Are there rec ords, necessary, reliable, immediate, adequate, convenient? It is the method of group attack that has proved important rather than the particular principles for which others might be substituted.
An able teacher has enunciated the three principles of picking the right man, giving him power, letting him alone. This is excellent but it leaves us without means of analyzing re sults. Not so many years ago, some black smiths pretended to be able to smell the quality of iron and to judge of the heat by the color. To-day steel quality depends on alloy and heat W treatment. We still depend on the good man but we check him and perpetuate his excellence by analysis and pyrometers, and for efficiency work a few principles are very useful. In considering the human element in production it is important to encourage every man to make the most of himself, whatever the conditions. There are noble chiefs in Indian villages. It is not less important to so establish conditions that each man whether inferior, average or superior can accomplish most. The wise In dian chief had he been in different surround ings might have been a Lincoln, a Lloyd George.
A diagram often used by teachers of effi ciency consists of a series of rectangles illus trating by their height the excellence of con ditions and by dots above the base the achieve ment of the individual.