STANDARDIZATION AND LABOR 1. Goal of every producer.—One of the chief dif ferences between machine-made and hand-made goods is that the latter possess greater individuality. The recent revival of the handicraft trade shows what a strong hold this quality in a ware has upon the con sumer. Nevertheless, when the producer of a hand made article finds that competition is threatening his market he begins the standardization of his product. He may first adopt a definite brand for his article, by which method he hopes to impress a community with the fact that his goods possess a standard of pur ity or some other excellence which is highly desired in the market. Failing to monopolize the trade by this method, he may attempt to hold his market by a re duction in the cost of making his goods. If his goods are made altogether by hand, the costs will be lessened by turning out a larger product than before in a given period of time. This he can do with the best results if he makes a standard type and confines himself to manufactu- ring it over and over again.
2. Production limited by hand labor.—This is standardization, but its effects cannot be carried very far under a system of handicraft labor, for the work ing power of a man is limited. However, with the addition of steam power and machinery to the work man's shop, the problem of fatigue is largely solved; the question of being tired does not apply to either the engine or the tools. The more work the machines can be made to do, the higher will be the productive capacity of the shop. Thus, even in a primitive fac tory where tools and machines are simple, and the motive power chiefly that of the operator, attempts will be made to use the equipment as much as possible according to some sort of standardization. But be fore the producer can determine the highest efficiency of a shop, he not only must know his own endurance and skill, but must determine what the possibilities of his machines are under the best conditions.
Here then we have the vvhole problem of stand ardization, which has become more and more difficult to solve. All machine work may be divided into two parts: (1) the work of the machine and (2) the work of the man who runs it. But as the years have rolled
by, new inventions and new conditions have added many variables to an already complex problem.
3. Three factors conditioning output.—The three principal factors conditioning the output of both man and machine are speed, the character of the material and the tools. It is therefore necessary to determine what particular speed, what particular grade of ma terial, what particular quality, what particular kind of tools can all be united in producing the greatest amount of goods of a, given quality during any pro duction period. When these have been determined for each of the factors, we have what is known as standard speed, standard materials and standard tools. But while this problem is simple to state, the actual work involved in determining any one of these standards is enormous. It took Air. Taylor, with a body of experts, a whole year to standardize the shovels in the Bethlehem coal yards. If the problem of standardization is so difficult of solution with so simple a thing as a shovel, what about the complex machine which has at least a dozen variables such as the angle of the cutting part, the angle of its edge, the depth of the cut, the speed of the cut, and so on? The combinations which are possible with even nine vari ables, amount to 416,880.
Thus a machine is actually capable of being set many thousand ways. It will be recalled that Air. Taylor made over 50,000 recorded experiments in the determination of standard feed and speed for cut ting metals.
4. New standards must be developed continually.— As the size of the industry increases and the number of men and machines grows, it becomes necessary to apply the principle of standardization to new proc esses, equipments and appliances. Thus we find standard times for handling the work, standard times for assembling, standard office forms, and finally a standard wage, which rests upon a consideration of the relations of all those processes which have been standardized, to the labor which is necessary to direct them.