4. Department specialization.—Between the two extremes of specialization, that of the machine at one end and that of the management at the other, comes an intermediate type of specialization. This may be called departmental specialization, and often serves as a step to the more advanced form of specialized management. This intermediate type is illustrated in the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Works. Here all lathes are divided into groups and subgroups. The main groups are put into departments by themselves and are there arranged into subgroups according to the size, class of work, etc. For instance, one section is known as the turret department and is divided into subgroups of automatic chucking machines, automatic screw machines, flat and hexagon turret lathes and hand screw machines. The larger turret lathes of the Gisholt type are not included in the department, but form separate groups. The hand and spur gear-cut ting machines form separate groups. The milling machines are classified as vertical, horizontal, Lincoln type and hand groups. The drilling machines are divided into radial, heavy-duty, medium and sensi tive groups. The grinders are grouped as internal, plain and surface. Specialized supervision is thus naturally induced to a limited degree, for an assistant foreman is put in charge of each subdivision of ma chines and is responsible to the foreman, who has direct charge of the departmental groups.
The necessity for this growing practice of depart mental grouping is due to the great burden which ex tensive specialization in the agents of production has put upon the manager. Departmental grouping is an attempt to bring as many common factors as possible into one group for purposes of supervision. It pro vides a more efficient means of watching the wastes and coordinating the efforts of many individual and highly specialized machines. The experiment of the Pierce-Arrow Company shows a practical application of the economic principle that coordination, is a neces sar complement to specialization if the highest effi: ciency is to e o tame . , 5. Cooperation and specialization must always go together.—Just as the forces of a business must be cor related, and the machine processes coordinated, so must the laboring force cooperate in order to let spe cialized employment and divisions of labor produce their full results. The enormous product turned out by the factories and transportation systems of today is possible because the machine has developed into a spe cialist of the highest type. Specialization does not stop, however, with the factory processes, the ware house, the bank or the transportation system. The management of these various business activities is dividing its work more and more into specialties. One man no longer tries to do all the work of manag ing a factory, but calls to his aid superintendents, fore men and bosses.
Such is the predominant type at present but it is rapidly becoming modified. The machines, the men, the departments, the responsibilities of a large factory are so numerous that further specialization must go on if this century is to keep up with the last in the pro duction of goods.
6. Scientific methods of investigation.—Scientific knowledge rests upon one great underlying principle —the conservation of energy and the 'correlation of forces. There are, however, two ways in which a sub ! lject may be studied. These May be called the "specu lative" method and the "practical" method. The first has been largely instrumental in the development of the sciences of astronomy and biology, and the sec ond has been chiefly employed for investigations in chemistry. Sciences differ among themselves in the extent to which one or the other of these methods is used, and it is essential that a new science adopt the method most suitable for its development. So far as management is concerned, both methods are applicable to a certain degree, but the practical method, in which experiment is the basis of drawing scientific conclu sions, is the one which must predominate.
Only a few deductions can be drawn in the science of management. But these few are most important, since they serve as guides for the experiments in, and analysis of, factory, shop and office conditions. They look to the avoidance of waste and the gaining of in creased power flirt' a thoro knowledge of men, ma chines and conditions. If investigators of manage ment problems would keep this one idea clearly in mind, they would then at least be in the right attitude to begin their study. With this goal in view, the in vestigator can follow the practical method without confusing his principles with the mechanism. Such an investigator will hold the factory or shop in proper perspective and will not feel bound by traditions and prejudices. He studies the departments as a whole and compares them with those of other plants as he knows them. This method enables him to analyze the proposition into units which permit of numberless ex perimental recombinations.
All this takes time and patience, for superficiality has no place in any science. Mr. F. W. Taylor, for instance, to achieve one result, performed 50,000 ex periments, all of which were recorded, studied and classified; they involved an outlay of material amount ing to 800,000 pounds of steel and an expenditure of $200,000. Similar care and attention must also be given where the data to be collected pertain to men and not to material. The laws of fatigue and rest are even more complex than the laws of materials. It is not till these laws have been discovered that standards of production can be established and methods set forth for their accomplishment.