The Dominion. MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1911. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1086, 27 March 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1911. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.

While labour and those who employ it are engaged in the perpetual strife arising out of the demand for increased wages and better working conditions, a new factor is creeping into the struggle. It is known as "scientific management," and its chief apostle is Mr. F. W. Taylor. As a matter of fact, it is hardly correct to style it a new factor; it would bo more accurate to state that its possibilities are only now beginning to bo adequately recognised. Mr. Taylor has behind him over twenty years of successful work in connection with the Midvale Steel Work 3 in Philadelphia, and his record of achievements in the direction of scientific management makes most interesting reading. Mr. Taylor gives under four heads the steps necessary for the practice of scientific management :

(1)' Determine accurately by scientific analysis the elements of each piece of work and decide how it can best bo done.

(2) Select men who are fitted for the work—even for tho lowest kinds—and train them in the way that has been dotermhied to bo the best way of doing that task.

(3) By adequate supervision and a system of payment which gives tho men an. incer.ti.-e, make sure that the men practise the best methods all the time.

(4) Divide the work between tho management, and the men so that the management does all the work which it can do bettor than the men.

This will no doubt strike the average reader as a somewhat vague beginning, but Mr. A. W. Page, in the World's Work, gives concrete examples of the application o£ the principles enumerated which show very clearly what scientific management, in its true sense, really involves. As an illustration Mit. Page tells what was done by Me. ■Taylor for the Bethlehem Steel Company with the labourers employed at shovelling work. It is difficult to conceive that there is any science in the art of shovelling, but Mr. Taylor had no doubt on the point. He proved that something more than strength and practice were required to secure the best results.

There was a great yard at the Bethlehem Steel Company's works in which about 600 men were engaged shovelling sand, coal, ashes, etc. These men supplied their own ■shovels and each man worked according to his own method. Mil Tayloh's analysis showed that a first-class man, working at normal speed, could handle more material on a shovel that held a 21-pound load than on any other. _ A lighter load necessitated too high a speed, and a heavier load meant too great a strain on the man. Then there was the question, of how much more quickly and easily a man could load his shovel from an iron or wooden floor than from the ground. This and many other things were carefully worked out. Then the men themselves were taken in hand. They were carefully • instructed how to work and how fast to work. Mr. Page points out by way of illustration that it has long been known in the Army that nien can be trained to take a 30-inch step 120 times t<s the minute so that they will do ifc with case and regularity. So Mn. Taylok_ trained his workmen to shovel in the same way, and the training work was afterwards kept up by the foreman of each gang of new workmen. The inducement held outto the men to use the knowledge so imparted to the best advantage was a simple form of bonus system. The man had been accustomed to receive 1 dollar 15 cents a clay. If a man came to the works and used the science taught him he was able to shift some 59 tons of material a day, as against about 1C tons under the go-as-you-ploase method usually adopted. Whenever a man used the system and shifted his full load he received 1 dollar 85 cents a day— if he did not take advantage of what he had been taught he received only the 1 dollar 15 cents. Thus- the men had a direct incentive of 70 cents a day to work scientifically. But this was not all. To secure the best results special shovels were required for the different classes of material handled—coal, ashes, etc. So instead of the men having to provide their own shovels, practically all of the same class, the management provided the shovels. Other details wore attended to, which need not be enumerated here, such as planning and checking the work and so on. And the result? To quote Mn. Page:

At first sight it would seem a useless waste to have a tool house with many different tools for men who had been acciistomcd to supplying their own shovels; a further waste to have a lot of men planning work far a gang of shovellers, and others instructing and timing them, and more, folly yet lo investigate the science of shovelling—as if a man who had shovelled for fifteen years would not know how to do it. Certainly it all would have seemed foolish if it had not been for the results, which were these: The number of labourers was reduced from GOO to 100. The avernge number of lons handled per man per day was increased from 1C lo 50 The average earnings per niiin per day rose from ... 1 dol. 15 rents to 1 <101. SS cents. The avnrafre cost nf handling a long ton (221 Mb.) decreased from 7.2 cents to 3.3 cents. During the first year it is stated the saving to the company through -Ma, laWiOb's -'scientific 1 • management

was ;iG,417 dollars, and in the next six months, when the system was perfected, the saving was about as much more, or a total of some 72,000 dollars in 18 months. And this was accomplished without overworking the men, for, as Mn. Page explains, one fundamental idea underlying "scientific" management is that the men who are trained be induced to stay permanently, and this could not be done if they were overworked. There are aspects of Mr. Taylor's system which might. be discussed with interest and advantage, but not in the limited space of a single article. He has applied his ideas in a variety of directions and with most astonishing results. The speeding-up results arc, of course, opposed to trades-union principles; but just as machinery was at first opposed because it displaced workers, and afterwards came to be recognised as a universal blessing, so "scientific" management, by its elimination of waste, with its resultant cheapening of production, must also in time gain recognition for its economic value. Mr. Taylor's work has been chiefly confined to large undertakings, but the principles he advocates are, of course, capable of much wider applil cation with satisfactory results.