Mr. Taylor was looking for the law controlling the efficiency of shoveling. Accordingly, he first selected the type of man who was best adapted to the work. He did not, as he says, take a trotting horse as his standard to find out what a first-class draft horse should do in hauling coal. So when he wanted to study the science of shoveling he selected two men and spoke as follows: You are good shovelers ; we want you to work squarely. We are going to ask you to do a lot of fool things, and we are going to pay you double wages while this investigation is going on. It will probably last two or three months. This man will be over you all day long with a stop-watch. He will time you ; he will count the shovel-loads and tell you what to do. He does not want you to hurry ; just go at your ordi nary pace. But if either of you fellows tries to soldier on us, that will be the end of it ; we will find you out as sure as you are born, and we will fire you out of this place. All we want is a square day's work ; no soldiering. If you don't want to take that job, don't, but if you do we are very glad to pay you double wages while you are doing it.
These men took the job and did a fair day's work thruout the period of investigation. Mr. Taylor con tinues: We began by taking the maximum load on the shovel and counting the shovelfuls all day long and weighing the tonnage at the end of the day. I think it was about thirty-eight pounds to the shovel. We found how much those men could do when they were shoveling at thirty-eight pounds to the shovel on an average, and then we got shorter shovels, holding about thirty-four pounds, and measured the tonnage per day, and it was greater than when they were using the thirty eight pound shovel. They shoveled more with the thirty-four pound shovel-loads than with the thirty-eight pound shovel loads. Again we reduced the load to thirty pounds and they did a still greater tonnage ; again, to twenty-eight pounds, and another increase ;- and the load kept on increasing as we diminished the shovel-load until we reached about twenty-one pounds, where the man did his biggest day's work. With twenty pounds, with eighteen pounds, with seventeen, and with fourteen, they did again a smaller day's work. Starting with a thirty-eight pound shovel, they went higher and higher until the biggest day's work was done with a twenty-one pound shovel ; but when they got the lighter shovel the load went down as the shovel-load diminished.
The conclusion reached from this long experiment was that the highest efficiency in shoveling depends upon supplying the workingmen with a shovel which holds twenty-one pounds, no matter what the material may be.
9. Effect of a new standard.—But a standard es tablished in one department meant a change of condi tions in other departments. The principle of the dis tribution of functions applies to departments as well as to men, and upon a correct balancing of them de pends the success of a management which would avoid waste thru a correct correlation of its productive forces. This principle is well illustrated in the final
outcome of the experiments with the shovelers. First the management had to build a shovel-room for the common laborers. Up to this time the men had owned their own shovels, but now all this was changed, for it was• found necessary to equip the shovel-room with eight or ten different types. One shovel, for instance, would be suitable for rice coal; another for a very heavy ore, etc., but each would carry just a twenty one pound load.
The establishment of a shovel-room was a simple thing in itself, but it meant organization where before there had been none. • A good shovel is of little use un less the right laborer has it at the right place, and in a yard two miles long and half a mile wide, and employ ing six hundred men doing all kinds of miscellaneous work, the arranging of a working schedule is no small task. This meant more organization and a redistribu tion of managerial functions from the foreman's point of view. Instead of having the old-fashioned fore man, who walk-ed around with his men and told them what to do, a large building was erected for a labor of fice and three highly trained men with their assistants, planned the work of the shovelers at least one day ahead of the work.
10. Furnishing the men with a teacher.—The final element in business management also is illustrated by the methods described in the experiment which has been described. The teaching element is no new thing in management. It has always been there, but generally it has been so confused with other functions that it has been lost sight of in these days of big and complex business operations. Every boss is supposed to be an instructor, but he uses his authority more often than his knowledge of the particular j ob to keep the laborer to his pace.
In some of the more recent attempts to discover the principles of management, the function of instruction has been again emphasized. This, also, is seen in Mr. Taylor's experiments with the shovelers. Having provided a physical organization for handling his six hundred or more men, he made out a time-table show ing just how long it took the men to do each kind of work. Then it devolved upon the management to in form the men each day just what they had done the day before, and just what they were to do that day.
The teacher would stand beside the man as friend and show him how to earn his premium. Or if he found men too light for the work the teacher would recommend that the men be transferred to a job better suited to their strength. Kindly and intimate per sonal study of the workingman is the surest way to find the work best suited for each man. The instruc tor coordinates the work of the planning room with the work of the laborer and in that way facilitates the flow of productive force in the business organization.