The principles of scientific management

HAROLD B LE€ LIBRARY

BRJGHAM fOUNQ UN»VB?S<TY

PROVO. UTAH

^^^ 0 2 1888

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The Principles of
Scientific Management

The Principles of
Scientific Management

BY

FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR, M.E., Sc.D.

PAST PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF
MECHANICAL ENGINEERS

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

LIBRARY
PROVO, UTAH

COPYRIGHT, 191 1
BY FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD MASS. U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, in his address to
the Governors at the White House, prophet-
ically remarked that ^^The conservation of our
national resources is only preliminary to the larger
question of national efficiency/'

The whole country at once recognized the impor-
tance of conserving our material resources and a
large movement has been started which will be
effective in accomplishing this object. As yet,
however, we have but vaguely appreciated the
importance of ^Hhe larger question of increasing our
national efficiency."

We can see our forests vanishing, our water-powers
going to waste, our soil being carried by floods into
the sea; and the end of our coal and our iron is in
sight. But our larger wastes of human effort, which
go on every day through such of our acts as are
blundering, ill-directed, or inefficient, and which
Mr. Roosevelt refers to as a lack of '^national
efficiency, '^ are less visible, less tangible, and are
but vaguely appreciated.

We can see and feel the waste of material things.
Awkward, inefficient, or ill-directed movements of
men, however, leave nothing visible or tangible
behind them. Their appreciation calls for an act

5

6 INTRODUCTION

of memory, an effort of the imagination. And for
this reason, even though our daily loss from this
source is greater than from our waste of material
things, the one has stirred us deeply, while the other
has moved us but little.

As yet there has been no public agitation for
'^ greater national efficiency,'' no meetings have been
called to consider how this is to be brought about.
And still there are signs that the need for greater
efficiency is widely felt.

The search for better, for more competent men,
from the presidents of our great companies down to
our household servants, was never more vigorous
than it is now. And more than ever before is the
demand for competent men in excess of the supply.

What we are all looking for, however, is the ready-
made, competent man; the man whom some one else
has trained. It is only when we fully realize that
our duty, as well as our opportunity, lies in system-
atically cooperating to train and to make this com-
petent man, instead of in hunting for a man whom
some one else has trained, that we shall be on the
road to national efficiency.

In the past the prevailing idea has been well
expressed in the saying that ^^ Captains of industry
are born, not made''; and the theory has been that
if one could get the right man, methods could be
safely left to him. In the future it will be appreci-
ated that our leaders must be trained right as well
as born right, and that no great man can (with the
old system of personal management) hope to com-

INTRODUCTION 7

pete with a number of ordinary men who have been
properly organized so as efficiently to cooperate.

In the past the man has been first; in the future
the system must be first. This in no sense, however,
implies that great men are not needed. On the
contrary, the first object of any good system must
be that of developing first-class men; and under
systematic management the best man rises to the
top more certainly and more rapidly than ever
before.

This paper has been written:

First. To point out, through a series of simple
illustrations, the great loss which the whole country
is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our
daily acts.

Second. To try to convince the reader that the
remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic man-
agement, rather than in searching for some unusual
or extraordinary man.

Third. To prove that the best management is a
true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules,
and principles, as a foundation. And further to
show that the fundamental principles of scientific
management are applicable to all kinds of human
activities, from our simplest individual acts to the
work of our great corporations, which call for the
most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through
a series of illustrations, to convince the reader that
whenever these principles are correctly applied,
results must follow which are truly astounding.

This paper was originally prepared for presenta-

8 INTRODUCTION

tion to The American Society of Mechanical Engi-
neers. The illustrations chosen are such as, it is
beheved, will especially appeal to engineers and to
managers of industrial and manufacturing establish-
ments, and also quite as much to all of the men who
are working in these establishments. It is hoped,
however, that it will be clear to other readers that
the same principles can be applied with equal force
to all social activities: to the management of our
homes; the management of our farms; the manage-
ment of the business of our tradesmen, large and
small; of our churches, our philanthropic institutions,
our universities, and our governmental departments.

The Principles of
Scientific Management

CHAPTER I

Fundamentals of Scientific Management

nPHE principal object of management should be
^ to secure the maximum prosperity for the em-
ployer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for
each employe. ^ ^mi^mx \

The words ^'maximum prosperity'' are used, in
their broad sense, to mean not only large dividends
for the company or owner, but the development of
every branch of the business to its highest state of
excellence, so that the prosperity may be permanent.

In the same way maximum prosperity for each
employe means not only higher wages than are
usually received by men of his class, but, of more im-
portance still, it also means the development of each
man to his state of maximum efficiency, so that he
may be able to do, generally speaking, the highest
grade of work for which his natural abilities fit him,
and it further means giving him, when possible,
this class of work to do.

It would seem to be so self-evident that maxi-

9

10 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

mum prosperity for the employer, coupled with
maximum prosperity for the employ^, ought to be
the two leading objects of management, that even
to state this fact should be unnecessary. And yet
there is no question that, throughout the industrial
world, a large part of the organization of employers,
as well as employes, is for war rather than for peace,
and that perhaps the majority on either side do not
believe that it is possible so to arrange their mutual
relations that their interests become identical.

The majority of these men believe that the funda-
mental interests of employes and employers are
necessarily antagonistic. Scientific management, on
the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm
conviction that the true interests of the two are one
and the same; that prosperity for the employer
cannot exist through a long term of years unless it
is accompanied by prosperity for the employe, and
vice versa; and that it is possible to give the work-
man what he most wants — high wages — and the
employer what he wants — a low labor cost — for
his manufactures.

It is hoped that some at least of those who do not
sympathize with each of these objects may be led
to modify their views; that some employers, whose
attitude toward their workmen has been that of
trying to get the largest amount of work out of
them for the smallest possible wages, may be led to
see that a more liberal policy toward their men will
pay them better; and that some of those workmen
who begrudge a fair and even a large profit to their

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 11

employers, and who feel that all of the fruits of their
labor should belong to them, and that those for
whom they work and the capital invested in the
business are entitled to little or nothing, may be
led to modify these views.

No one can be found who will deny that in the
case of any single individual the greatest prosperity
can exist only when that individual has reached his
highest state of efficiency; that is, when he is turning
out his largest daily output.

The truth of this fact is also perfectly clear in the
case of two men working together. To illustrate:
if you and your workman have become so skilful
that you and he together are making two pairs of
shoes in a day, while your competitor and his work-
man are making only one pair, it is clear that after
selling your two pairs of shoes you can pay your
workman much higher wages than your competitor
who produces only one pair of shoes is able to pay
his man, and that there will still be enough money
left over for you to have a larger profit than your
competitor.

In the case of a more complicated manufacturing
establishment, it should also be perfectly clear that
the greatest permanent prosperity for the workman,
coupled with the greatest prosperity for the employer,
can be brought about only when the work of the
establishment is done with the smallest combined
expenditure of human effort, plus nature's resources,
plus the cost for the use of capital in the shape of
machines, buildings, etc. Or, to state the same

12 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

thing in a different way: that the greatest pros-
perity can exist only as the result of the greatest
possible productivity of the men and machines of the
establishment — that is, when each man and each
machine are turning out the largest possible output;
because unless your men and your machines are
daily turning out more work than others around
you, it is clear that competition will prevent your
paying higher wages to your workmen than are paid
to those of your competitor. And what is true as to
the possibility of paying high wages in the case of
two companies competing close beside one another
is also true as to whole districts of the country and
even as to nations which are in competition. In a
word, that maximum prosperity can exist only as
the result of maximum productivity. Later in this
paper illustrations will be given of several companies
which are earning large dividends and at the same
time paying from 30 per cent, to 100 per cent,
higher wages to their men than are paid to similar
men immediately around them, and with whose
employers they are in competition. These illustra-
tions will cover different types of work, from the
most elementary to the most complicated.

If the above reasoning is correct, it follows that
the most important object of both the workmen
and the management should be the training and
development of each individual in the establishment,
so that he can do (at his fastest pace and with the
maximum of efficiency) the highest class of work for
which his natural abilities fit him. -^

#

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 13

These principles appear to be so self-evident
that many men may think it almost childish to
state them. Let us, however, turn to the facts, as
they actually exist in this country and in England.
The English and American peoples are the greatest
sportsmen in the world. Whenever an American
workman plays baseball, or an English workman
plays cricket, it is safe to say that he strains every
nerve to secure victory for his side. He does his
very best to make the largest possible number of
runs. The universal sentiment is so strong that
any man who fails to give out all there is in him in
sport is branded as a ^^ quitter,'^ and treated with
contempt by those who are around him.

When the same workman returns to work on the
following day, instead of using every effort to turn
out the largest possible amount of work, in a majority
of the cases this man deliberately plans to do as
little as he safely can — to turn out far less work
than he is well able to do — in many instances to
do not more than one-third to one-half of a proper
day's work. And in fact if he were to do his best
to turn out his largest possible day's work, he would
be abused by his fellow-workers for so doing, even
more than if he had proved himself a ''quitter''
in sport. Underworking, that is, deliberately work-
ing slowly so as to avoid doing a full day's work,
''soldiering," as it is called in this country, "hang-
ing it out," as it is called in England, "ca canae,"
as it is called in Scotland, is almost universal in
industrial estabhshments, and prevails also to a

14 TEE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

large extent in the building trades; and the writer
asserts without fear of contradiction that this con-
stitutes the greatest evil with which the work-
ing-people of both England and America are now
afflicted.

It will be shown later in this paper that doing
away with slow working and ^^ soldiering'' in all its
forms and so arranging the relations between em-
ployer and employ^ that each workman will work
to his very best advantage and at his best speed,
accompanied by the intimate cooperation with the
management and the help (which the workman should
receive) from the management, would result on the
average in nearly doubling the output of each man
and each machine. What other reforms, among
those which are being discussed by these two nations,
could do as much toward promoting prosperity,
toward the diminution of poverty, and the allevia-
tion of suffering? America and England have been
recently agitated over such subjects as the tariff,
the control of the large corporations on the one hand,
and of hereditary power on the other hand, and over
various more or less socialistic proposals for taxa-
tion, etc. On these subjects both peoples have been
profoundly stirred, and yet hardly a voice has been
raised to call attention to this vastly greater and
more important subject of ^^ soldiering,'' which di-
rectly and powerfully affects the wages, the prosper-
ity, and the life of almost every working-man, and
also quite as much the prosperity of every industrial
establishment in the nation.

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 15

The elimination of ^' soldiering ^^ and of the several
causes of slow working would so lower the cost of
production that both our home and foreign markets
would be greatly enlarged, and we could compete
on more than even terms with our rivals. It would
remove one of the fundamental causes for dull times,
for lack of employment, and for poverty, and there-
fore would have a more permanent and far-reaching
effect upon these misfortunes than any of the cura-
tive remedies that are now being used to soften their
consequences. It would insure higher wages and
make shorter working hours and better working and
home conditions possible.

Why is it, then, in the face of the self-evident
fact that maximum prosperity can exist only as the
result of the determined effort of each workman to
turn out each day his largest possible day's work,
that the great majority of our men are deliberately
doing just the opposite, and that even when the men
have the best of intentions their work is in most
cases far from efficient?

There are three causes for this condition, which
may be briefly summarized as:

FirsL^The fallacy, which has from time imme-
morial been almost universal among workmen, that
a material increase in the output of each man
or each machine in the trade would result in the
end in throwing a large number of men out of work.

Second. The defective systems of management
which are in common use, and which make it neces-
sary for each workman to soldier, or work slowly,

16 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

in order that he may protect his own best in-
terests.

Third. The inefficient rule-of-thumb methods,
which are still almost universal in all trades, and in
practising which our workmen waste a large part
of their effort.

This paper will attempt to show the enormous
gains which would result from the substitution by
our workmen of scientific for rule-of-thumb methods.

To explain a little more fully these three causes:

First, The great majority of workmen still believe
that if they were to work at their best speed they
would be doing a great injustice to the whole trade
by throwing a lot of men out of work, and yet the
history of the development of each trade shows that
each improvement, whether it be the invention of a
new machine or the introduction of a better method,
which results in increasing the productive capacity
of the men in the trade and cheapening the costs,
instead of throwing men out of work make in the
end work for more men.

The cheapening of any article in common use
almost immediately results in a largely increased
demand for that article. Take the case of shoes,
for instance. The introduction of machinery for
doing every element of the work which was formerly
done by hand has resulted in making shoes at a
fraction of their former labor cost, and in selling
them so cheap that now almost every man, woman,
and child in the working-classes buys one or two
pairs of shoes per year, and wears shoes all the time,

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 17

whereas formerly each workman bought perhaps one
pair of shoes every five years, and went barefoot
most of the time, wearing shoes only as a luxury or
as a matter of the sternest necessity. In spite of
the enormously increased output of shoes per work-
man, which has come with shoe machinery, the
demand for shoes has so increased that there are
relatively more men working in the shoe industry
now than ever before.

The workmen in almost every trade have before
them an object lesson of this kind, and yet, because
they are ignorant of the history of their own trade
even, they still firmly believe, as their fathers did
before them, that it is against their best interests
for each man to turn out each day as much work
as possible.

Under this fallacious idea a large proportion of
the workmen of both countries each day deliberately
work slowly so as to curtail the output. Almost
every labor union has made, or is contemplating
making, rules which have for their object curtailing
the output of their members, and those men who
have the greatest influence with the working-people,
the labor leaders as well as many people with phil-
anthropic feelings who are helping them, are daily
spreading this fallacy and at the same time telling
them that they are overworked.

A great deal has been and is being constantly
said about '' sweat-shop '^ work and conditions. The
writer has great sjnmpathy with those who are over-
worked, but on the whole a greater sympathy for

18 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

those who are under paid. For every individual,
however, who is overworked, there are a hundred
who intentionally underwork — greatly underwork
— every day of their lives, and who for this reason
deliberately aid in establishing those conditions
which in the end inevitably result in low wages.
And yet hardly a single voice is being raised in an
endeavor to correct this evil.

As engineers and managers, we are more inti-
mately acquainted with these facts than any other
class in the community, and are therefore best fitted
to lead in a movement to combat this fallacious idea
by educating not only the workmen but the whole
of the country as to the true facts. And yet we are
practically doing nothing in this direction, and are
leaving this field entirely in the hands of the labor
agitators (many of whom are misinformed and mis-
guided), and of sentimentalists who are ignorant as
to actual working conditions.

Second. As to the second cause for soldiering —
the relations which exist between employers and
employes under almost all of the systems of manage-
ment which are in common use — it is impossible
in a few words to make it clear to one not familiar
with this problem why it is that the ignorance of
employers as to the proper time in which work of
various kinds should be done makes it for the interest
of the workman to ^^ soldier.''

The writer therefore quotes herewith from a
paper read before The American Society of Mechan-
ical Engineers, in June, 1903, entitled ^'Shop Man-

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 19

agement/' which it is hoped will explain fully this
cause for soldiering:

^^This loafing or soldiering proceeds from two
causes. First, from the natural instinct and tendency
of men to take it easy, which may be called natural
soldiering. Second, from more intricate second
thought and reasoning caused by their relations
with other men, which may be called systematic
soldiering.

^^ There is no question that the tendency of the
average man (in all walks of life) is toward working
at a slow, easy gait, and that it is only after a good
deal of thought and observation on his part or as a
result of example, conscience, or external pressure
that he takes a more rapid pace.

^' There are, of course, men of unusual energy,
vitality, and ambition who naturally choose the
fastest gait, who set up their own standards, and
who work hard, even though it may be against their
best interests. But these few uncommon men only
serve by forming a contrast to emphasize the ten-
dency of the average.

'^This common tendency to Hake it easy' is
greatly increased by bringing a number of men
together on similar work and at a uniform standard
rate of pay by the day.

^^ Under this plan the better men gradually but
surely slow down their gait to that of the poor-
est and least efficient. When a naturally ener-
getic man works for a few days beside a lazy
one, the logic of the situation is unanswerable.

20 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

'Why should I work hard when that lazy fellow
gets the same pay that I do and does only half as
much work? '

'^ A careful time study of men working under these
conditions will disclose facts which are ludicrous as
well as pitiable.

'^To illustrate: The writer has timed a naturally
energetic workman who, while going and coming
from work, would walk at a speed of from three to
four miles per hour, and not infrequently trot home
after a day^s work. On arriving at his work he
would immediately slow down to a speed of about
one mile an hour. When, for example, wheeling a
loaded wheelbarrow, he would go at a good fast pace
even up hill in order to be as short a time as possible
under load, and immediately on the return walk
slow down to a mile an hour, improving every oppor-
tunity for delay short of actually sitting down.
In order to be sure not to do more than his lazy
neighbor, he would actually tire himself in his
effort to go slow.

'^ These men were working under a foreman of
good reputation and highly thought of by his
employer, who, when his attention was called to
this state of things, answered: ^Well, I can keep
them from sitting down, but the devil can't make
them get a move on while they are at work.'

^^The natural laziness of men is serious, but by
far the greatest evil from which both workmen and
employers are suffering is the systematic soldiering
which is almost universal under all of the ordinary

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 21

schemes of management and which results from a
careful study on the part of the workmen of what
will promote their best interests.

^^ The writer was much interested recently in hearing
one small but experienced golf caddy boy of twelve
explaining to a green caddy, who had shown special
energy and interest, the necessity of going slow and
lagging behind his man when he came up to the ball,
showing him that since they were paid by the hour,
the faster they went the less money they got, and
finally telling him that if he went too fast the other
boys would give him a licking.

^^This represents a type of systematic soldiering
which is not, however, very serious, since it is done
with the knowledge of the employer, who can quite
easily break it up if he wishes.

^^The greater part of the systematic soldiering,
however, is done by the men with the deliberate
object of keeping their employers ignorant of how
fast work can be done.

^^So universal is soldiering for this purpose that
hardly a competent workman can be found in a
large establishment, whether he works by the day
or on piece work, contract work, or under any of
the ordinary systems, who does not devote a con-
siderable part of his time to studying just how slow
he can work and still convince his employer that he
is going at a good pace.

''The causes for this are, briefly, that practically
all employers determine upon a maximum sum
which they feel it is right for each of their classes

22 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

of employees to earn per day, whether their men
work by the day or piece.

'^Each workman soon finds out about what this
figure is for his particular case, and he also realizes
that when his employer is convinced that a man is
capable of doing more work than he has done, he
will find sooner or later some way of compelling him
to do it with little or no increase of pay.

^'Employers derive their knowledge of how much
of a given class of work can be done in a day from
either their own experience, which has frequently
grown hazy with age, from casual and unsystematic
observation of their men, or at best from records
which are kept, showing the quickest time in which
each job has been done. In many cases the employer
will feel almost certain that a given job can be done
faster than it has been, but he rarely cares to take
the drastic measures necessary to force men to do it
in the quickest time, unless he has an actual record
proving conclusively how fast the work can be done.

^^It evidently becomes for each man's interest,
then, to see that no job is done faster than it has
been in the past. The younger and less experienced
men are taught this by their elders, and all possible
persuasion and social pressure is brought to bear
upon the greedy and selfish men to keep them from
making new records which result in temporarily
increasing their wages, while all those who come
after them are made to work harder for the same
old pay.

'^ Under the best day work of the ordinary type,

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 23

wTaen accurate records are kept of the amount of
work done by each man and of his efficiency, and
when each man's wages are raised as he improves,
and those who fail to rise to a certain standard are
discharged and a fresh supply of carefully selected
men are given work in their places, both the natural
loafing and systematic soldiering can be largely
broken up. This can only be done, however, when
the men are thoroughly convinced that there is no
intention of establishing piece work even in the
remote future, and it is next to impossible to make
men believe this when the work is of such a nature
that they believe piece work to be practicable. In
most cases their fear of making a record which will
be used as a basis for piece work will cause them to
soldier as much as they dare.

^^It is, however, under piece work that the art
of systematic soldiering is thoroughly developed;
after a workman has had the price per piece of the
work he is doing lowered two or three times as a
result of his having worked harder and increased
his output, he is likely entirely to lose sight of his
employer's side of the case and become imbued with
a grim determination to have no more cuts if soldier-
ing can prevent it. Unfortunately for the character
of the workman, soldiering involves a deliberate
attempt to mislead and deceive his employer, and
thus upright and straightforward workmen are com-
pelled to become more or less hypocritical. The
employer is soon looked upon as an antagonist, if
not an enemy, and the mutual confidence which

24 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

should exist between a leader and his men, the
enthusiasm, the feehng that they are all working
for the same end and will share in the results is
entirely lacking.

^^The feehng of antagonism under the ordinary
piece-work system becomes in many cases so marked
on the part of the men that any proposition made
by their employers, however reasonable, is looked
upon with suspicion, and soldiering becomes such a
fixed habit that men will frequently take pains to
restrict the product of machines which they are
running when even a large increase in output would
involve no more work on their part.'^

Third. As to the third cause for slow work, con-
siderable space will later in this paper be devoted
to illustrating the great gain, both to employers
and employes, which results from the substitution
of scientific for rule-of-thumb methods in even the
smallest details of the work of every trade. The
enormous saving of time and therefore increase in
the output which it is possible to effect through
eliminating unnecessary motions and substituting
fast for slow and inefficient motions for the men
working in any of our trades can be fully realized
only after one has personally seen the improvement
which results from a thorough motion and time study,
made by a competent man.

To explain briefly: owing to the fact that the
workmen in all of our trades have been taught the
details of their work by observation of those immedi-
ately around them, there are many different ways in

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 25

common use for doing the same thing, perhaps forty,
fifty, or a hundred ways of doing each act in each
trade, and for the same reason there is a great
variety in the implements used for each class of
work. Now, among the various methods and
implements used in each element of each trade
there is always one method and one implement
which is quicker and better than any of the rest.
And this one best method and best implement can
only be discovered or developed through a scientific
study and analysis of all of the methods and imple-
ments in use, together with accurate, minute, motion
and time study. This involves the gradual substi-
tution of science for rule of thumb throughout the
mechanic arts.

This paper will show that the underlying phi-
losophy of all of the old systems of management in
common use makes it imperative that, each work-
man shall be left with the final responsibility for
doing his job practically as he thinks best, with
comparatively little help and advice from the
management. AndTTt^^wiIl also show that because
of this isolation of workmen, it is in most cases
impossible for the men working under these systems
to do their work in accordance with the rules and
laws of a science or art, even where one exists.

The writer asserts as a general principle (and he
proposes to give illustrations tending to prove the
fact later in this paper) that in almost all of the
mechanic arts the science which underlies each act
of each workman is so great and amounts to so much

26 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

that the workman who is best suited to actually
doing the work is incapable of fully understanding
this science, without the guidance and help of those
who are working with him or over him, either through
lack of education or through insufficient mental
capacity. In order that the work may be done in
accordance with scientific laws, it is necessary that
there shall be a far more equal division of the respon-
sibility between the management and the workmen
than exists under any of the ordinary types of
management. Those in the management whose
duty it is to develop this science should also guide
and help the workman in working under it, and
should assume a much larger share of the respon-
sibility for results than under usual conditions is
assumed by the management.

The body of this paper will make it clear that, to
work according to scientific laws, the management
must take over and perform much of the work which
is now left to the men; almost every act of the work-
man should be preceded by one or more preparatory
acts of the management which enable him to do his
work better and quicker than he otherwise could.
And each man should daily be taught by and receive
the most friendly help from those who are over him,
instead of being, at the one extreme, driven or
coerced by his bosses, and at the other left to his
own unaided devices.

This close, intimate, personal cooperation between
the management and the men is of the -essence of
modern scientific or task management.

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 27

It will be shown by a series of practical illustra-
tions that, through this friendly cooperation, namely,
through sharing equally in every day's burden, all
of the great obstacles (above described) to obtain-
ing the maximum, output- for each man and each
machine in the establishment are swept away. The
30 per cent, to 100 per cent, increase in wages which
the workmen are able to earn beyond what they
receive under the old type of management, coupled
with the daily intimate shoulder to shoulder contact
with the management, entirely removes all cause for
soldiering. And in a few years, under this system,
the workmen have before them the object lesson
of seeing that a great increase in the output per man
results in giving employment to more men, instead
of throwing men out of work, thus completely eradi-
cating the fallacy that a larger output for each man
will throw other men out of work.

It is the writer's judgment, then, that while much
can be done and should be done by writing and talk-
ing toward educating not only workmen, but all
classes in the community, as to the importance of
obtaining the maximum output of each man and
each machine, it is only through the adoption of
modt)rn scientific management that this great prob-
lem can be finally solved. Probably most of the
readers of this paper will say that all of this is mere
theory. On the contrary, the theory, or philosophy,
of scientific m^anagement is just beginning to be
understood, whereas the management itself has
been a gradual evolution, extending over a period

28 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

of nearly thirty years. And during this time the
employes of one company after another, including a
large range and diversity of industries, have grad-
ually changed from the ordinary to the scientific
type of management. At least 50,000 workmen in
the United States are now employed under this
system; and they are receiving from 30 per cent,
to 100 per cent, higher wages daily than are paid
to men of similar caliber with whom they are sur-
rounded, while the companies employing them are
more prosperous than ever before. In these com-
panies the output, per man and per machine, has
on an average been doubled. During all these
years there has never been a single strike among
the men working under this system. In place of
the suspicious watchfulness and the more or less
open warfare which characterizes the ordinary types
of management, there is universally friendly cooper-
ation between the management and the men.

Several papers have been written, describing the
expedients which have been adopted and the details
which have been developed under scientific manage-
ment and the steps to be taken in changing from
the ordinary to the scientific type. But unfortu-
nately most of the readers of these papers have
mistaken the mechanism for the true essence. Sci-
entific management fundamentally consists of certain
broad general principles, a certain philosophy, which
can. be applied in many ways, and a description of
what any one man or men may beheve to be the
best mechanism for applying these general principles

FUNDAMENTALS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 29

should in no way be confused with the principles
themselves.

It is not here claimed that any single panacea
exists for all of the troubles of the working-people
or of employers. As long as some people are born
lazy or inefficient, and others are born greedy and
brutal, as long as vice and crime are with us, just
so long will a certain amount of poverty, misery, and
unhappiness be with us also. No system of manage-
ment, no single expedient within the control of any
man or any set of men can insure continuous pros-
perity to either workmen or employers. Prosperity
depends upon so many factors entirely beyond the
control of any one set of men, any state, or even
any one country, that certain periods will inevitably
come when both sides must suffer, more or less.
It is claimed, however, that under scientific manage-
ment the intermediate periods will be far more
prosperous, far happier, and more free from discord
and dissension. And also, that the periods will be
fewer, shorter and the suffering less. And this wiU
be particularly true in any one town, any one section
of the country, or any one state which first substi-
tutes the principles of scientific management for the
rule of thumb.

That these principles are certain to come into
general use practically throughout the civilized
world, sooner or later, the writer is profoundly con-
vinced, and the sooner they come the better for all
the people.

CHAPTER II

The Principles of Scientific Management

T^HE writer has found that there are three ques-
tions uppermost in the minds of men when they
become interested in scientific management.

First. Wherein do the principles of scientific man-
agement differ essentially from those of ordinary
management?

Second. Why are better results attained under
scienti^c management than under the other types?

Third. Is not the most important problem that
of gettingthe fight man at the head of the company?
And If you have the right man cannot the choice
of the type of management be safely left to him?

One of the principal objects of the following pages
will be to give a satisfactory answer to these ques-
tions.

THE FINEST TYPE OF ORDINARY MANAGEMENT

Before starting to illustrate the principles of scien-
tific management, or ^Hask management'' as it is
briefly called, it seems desirable to outline what the
writer believes will be recognized as the best type of
management which is in common use. This is done
so that the great difference between the best of the

30

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 31

ordinary management and scientific management
may be fully appreciated.

In an industrial establishment which employs say
from 500 to 1000 workmen, there will be found in
many cases at least twenty to thirty different trades.
The workmen in each of these trades have had their
knowledge handed down to them by word of mouth,
through the many years in which their trade has
been developed from the primitive condition, in
which our far-distant ancestors each one practised
the rudiments of many different trades, to the
present state of great and growing subdivision of
labor, in which each man specializes upon some com-
paratively small class of work.

The ingenuity of each generation has developed
quicker and better methods for doing every element
of the work in every trade. Thus the methods which
are now in use may in a broad sense be said to be
an evolution representing the survival of the fittest
and best of the ideas which have been developed
since the starting of each trade. However, while this
is true in a broad sense, only those who are inti-
mately acquainted with each of these trades are fully
aware of the fact that in hardly any element of any
trade is there uniformity in the methods which are
used. Instead of having only one way which is
generally accepted as a standard, there are in daily
use, say, fifty or a hundred different ways of doing
each element of the work. And a little thought
will make it clear that this must inevitably be the
case, since our methods have been handed down from

32 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

man to man by word of mouth, or have, in most
cases, been almost unconsciously learned through
personal observation. Practically in no instances
have they been codified or systematically analyzed
or described. The ingenuity and experience of each
generation — of each decade, even, have without
doubt handed over better methods to the next.
This mass of rule-of -thumb or traditional knowledge
may be said to be the principal asset or possession
of every tradesman. Now, in the best of the ordinary
types of management, the managers recognize frankly
the fact that the 500 or 1000 workmen, included in
the twenty to thirty trades, who are under them,
possess this mass of traditional knowledge, a large
part of which is not in the possession of the manage-
ment. The management, of course, includes fore-
men and superintendents, who themselves have been
in most cases first-class workers at their trades.
And yet these foremen and superintendents know,
better than any one else, that their own knowledge
and personal skill falls far short of the combined
knowledge and dexterity of all the workmen under
them. The most experienced managers therefore
frankly place before their workmen the problem of
doing the work in the best and most economical
way. They recognize the task before them as that
of inducing each workman to use his best endeavors,
his hardest work, all his traditional knowledge, his
skill, his ingenuity, and his good- will — in a word,
his ^^ initiative,'^ so as to yield the largest possible
return to his employer. The problem before the

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 33

management, then, may be briefly said to be that
of obtaining the best initiative of every workman.
And the writer uses the word ^^ initiative'' in its
broadest sense, to cover all of the good quahties
sought for from the men.

On the other hand, no intelligent manager would
hope to obtain in any full measure the initiative of
his workmen unless he felt that he was giving them
something more than they usually receive from their
employers. Only those among the readers of this
paper who have been managers or who have worked
themselves at a trade realize how far the average
workman falls short of giving his employer his full
initiative. It is well within the mark to state that
in nineteen out of twenty industrial establishments
the workmen believe it to be directly against their
interests to give their employers their best initiative,
and that instead of working hard to do the largest
possible amount of work and the best quality of work
for their employers, they deliberately work as slowly
as they dare while they at the same time try to make
those over them believe that they are working fast.^

The writer repeats, therefore, that in order to
have any hope of obtaining the initiative of his
workmen the manager rnustgive some special
incentive to his men beyond that which is given to
the a^verage" of The" trade.- "This incentive can be
given in several different ways, as, for example,

1 The writer has tried to make the reason for this unfortunate state of
things clear in a paper entitled "Shop Management," read before the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers."

34 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

the hope of rapid promotion or advancement;
higher wages, either in the form of generous piece-
work prices or of a premium or bonus of some kind
for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor;
better surroundings and working conditions than are
ordinarily given, etc., and, above all, this special
incentive should be accompanied by that personal
consideration for, and friendly contact with, his
workmen which comes only from a genuine and
kindly interest in the welfare of those under him.
It is only by giving a special inducement or ^incen-
tive ^' of this kind that the employer can hope
even approximately to get the ^^ initiative^' of his
workmen. Under the ordinary type of manage-
ment the necessity for offering the workman a
special inducement has come to be so generally
recognized that a large proportion of those most
interested in the subject look upon the adoption
of some one of the modern schemes for paying men
(such as piece work, the premium plan, or the
bonus plan, for instance) as practically the whole
system of management. Under scientific manage-
ment, however, the particular pay system which is
adopted is merely one of the subordinate elements.

Broa^lyLspeakingy theiv- the best. type .of manage-
meixtuin^ordinary use inary be defined as manage-
ment in which the workmen give their best initiative
and_jn return_i:e(^f^ive^some svecial incentive from
their employers. This type of management will be
referred "to" as the management of ^^initiative_ and
incentive^l in contradistinction to scientific manage-

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 35

ment, or task management, with which it is to be
compared.

The writer hopes that the management of '^ initia-
tive and incentive'' will be recognized as representing
the best type in ordinary use, and in fact he believes
that it will be hard to persuade the average mana-
ger that anything better exists in the whole field than
this type. The task which the writer has before him,
then, is the difficult one of trying to prove in a
thoroughly convincing way that there is another
type of management which is not only better but
overwhelmingly better than the management of
'^initiative and incentive."

The universal prejudice in favor of the manage-
ment of ^^ initiative and incentive" is so strong that
no mere theoretical advantages which can be pointed
out will be likely to convince the average manager
that any other system is better. It will be upon a
series of practical illustrations of the actual working
of the two systems that the writer will depend in
his efforts to prove that scientific management is so
greatly superior to other types. Certain elementary
principles, a certain philosophy, will however be
recognized as the essence of that which is being illus-
trated in all of the practical examples which will be
given. And the broad principles in which the scien-
tific system differs from the ordinary or ^^rule-of-
thumb" system are so simple in their nature that it
seems desirable to describe them before starting with
the illustrations.

Under the old type of management success depends

36 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

almost entirely upon getting the ^'initiative'' of the
workmen, and it is indeed a rare case in which this
initiative is really attained. Under scientific man-
agement the '^ initiative'' of the_workmen (that is,
theirTiafd work, thejr^good-will, and their ingenuity)
is obtained with absolute uniformity and to a greater
extentTEan is possible under the oLd system ; and in
addition to this improvement on the parFoTtEe men,
the managers assume new burdens, new duties, and
responsiblttties^ never dreamed of in the past . The
managersrassume, for instanuey^he burden of gather-
ing together all of the traditional knowledge which
in the past has been possessed by the workmen and
then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing this
knowledge to rules, laws, and formulae which are im-
mensely helpful to the workmen in doing their daily
work. In addition to developing a science in this way,
the management take on three other types of duties
which involve new and heavy burdens for themselves.

These new duties are grouped under four heads:

First. They develop a science for each element
of~~a" man's work, which replaces the old rule-of-
thumb method.

Second, They scientifically select and then train,
teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the
past'he chose his own work and trained himself as
best he could.

Third, They heartily cooperate with the men so
as to~ihsufe^air of the work being done in accord-
ance with the principles of the science which has
been developed.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 37

Fourth, There is an almost equal division of the
work and the responsibility between the management
and the workmen. The management take over all
work for which they are better fitted than the work-
men, while in the past almost all of the work and
the greater part of the responsibility were thrown
upon the men.

It is this combination of the initiative of the work-
men, coupled with the new types of work done by
the management, that makes scientific management
so much more efficient than the old plan.

Three of these elements exist in many cases, under
the management of ^'initiative and incentive,'^ in a
small and rudimentary way, but they are, under this
management, of minor importance, whereas under
scientific management they form the very essence of
the whole system.

The fourth of these elements, ^'an almost equal
division of the responsibility between the manage-
ment and the workmen, ^^ requires further explana-
tion. The philosophy of the management of '^ initia-
tive and incentive'^ makes it necessary for each
workman to bear almost the entire responsibility
for the general plan as well as for each detail of his
work, and in many cases for his implements as well.
In addition to this he must do all of the actual
physical labor. The development of a science, on
the other hand, involves the establishment of many
rules, laws, and formulae which replace the judgment
of the individual workman and which can be effect-
ively used only after having been systematically

38 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

recorded, indexed, etc. The practical use of scientific
data also calls for a room in which to keep the books,
records,^ etc., and a desk for the planner to work at.
Thus all of the planning which under the old system
was done by the workman, as a result of his personal
experience, must of necessity under the new system
be done by the management in accordance with the
laws of the science; because even if the workman
was well suited to the development and use of
scientific data, it would be physically impossible
for him to work at his machine and at a desk at the
same time. It is also clear that in most cases one
type of man is needed to plan ahead and an entirely
different type to execute the work.

The man in the planning room, whose specialty
under scientific management is planning ahead, in-
variably finds that the work can be done better and
more economically by a subdivision of the labor;
each act of each mechanic, for example, should
be preceded by various preparatory acts done by
other men. And all of this involves, as we have
said, ^'an almost equal division of the responsi-
bihty and the work between the management and
the workman."

To summarize: Under the management of ^^initia-
tive and incentive'' practically the whole problem
is ''up to the workman,'' while under scientific
management fully one-half of the problem is ''up
to the management."

*For example, the records containing the data used under scientific
management in an ordinary machine-shop fill thousands of pages.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 39

Perhaps the most prominent single element in
modern scientific management is the task idea.
The work of every workman is fully planned out
by the management at least one day in advance,
and each man receives in most cases complete writ-
ten instructions, describing in detail the task which
he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be
used in doing the work. And the work planned in
advance in this way constitutes a task which is to
be solved, as explained above, not by the workman
alone, but in almost all cases by the joint effort
of the workman and the management. This task
specifies not only what is to be done but how it is
to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it.
And whenever the workman succeeds in doing his
task right, and within the time limit specified, he
receives an addition of from 30 per cent, to 100
per cent, to his ordinary wages. These tasks are
carefully planned, so that both good and careful
work are called for in their performance, but it
should be distinctly understood that in no case is
the workman called upon to work at a pace which
would be injurious to his health. The task is always
so regulated that the man who is well suited to his
job will thrive while working at this rate during
a long term of years and grow happier and more
prosperous, instead of being overworked. Scientific
management consists very largely in preparing for
and carrying out these tasks.

The writer is fully aware that to perhaps most
of the readers of this paper the four elements

40 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

which differentiate the new management from the
old will at first appear to be merely high-sounding
phrases; and he would again repeat that he has no
idea of convincing the reader of their value merely
through announcing their existence. His hope of
carrying conviction rests upon demonstrating the
tremendous force and effect of these four elements
through a series of practical illustrations. It will
be shown, first, that they can be applied absolutely
to all classes of work, from the most elementary to
the most intricate; and second, that when they are
appHed, the results must of necessity be overwhelm-
ingly greater than those which it is possible to attain
under the management of initiative and incentive.

The first illustration is that of handling pig iron,
and this work is chosen because it is typical of
perhaps the crudest and most elementary form of
labor which is performed by man. This work is
done by men with no other implements than their
hands. The pig-iron handler stoops down, picks
up a pig weighing about 92 pounds, walks for a few
feet or yards and then drops it on to the ground or
upon a pile. This work is so crude and elementary
in its nature that the writer firmly beheves that it
would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla so as
to become a more efficient pig-iron handler than any
man can be. Yet it will be shown that the science
of handling pig iron is so great and amounts to
so much that it is impossible for the man who is
best suited to this type of work to understand the
principles of this science, or even to work in accord-

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 41

ance with these principles without the aid of a man
better educated than he is. And the further illustra-
tions to be given will make it clear that in almost
all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies
each workman^s act is so great and amounts to so
much that the workman who is best suited actually
to do the work is incapable (either through lack of
education or through insufficient mental capacity)
of understanding this science. This is announced
as a general principle, the truth of which will become
apparent as one illustration after another is given.
After showing these four elements in the handling
of pig iron, several illustrations will be given of their
application to different kinds of work in the field
of the mechanic arts, at intervals in a rising scale,
beginning with the simplest and ending with the
more intricate forms of labor.

One of the first pieces of work undertaken by
us, when the writer started to introduce scientific
management into the Bethlehem Steel Company,
was to handle pig iron on task work. The opening
of the Spanish War found some 80,000 tons of pig
iron placed in small piles in an open field adjoining
the works. Prices for pig iron had been so low that
it could not be sold at a profit, and it therefore had
been stored. With the opening of the Spanish War
the price of pig iron rose, and this large accumulation
of iron was sold. This gave us a good opportunity
to show the workmen, as well as the owners and
managers of the works, on a fairly large scale the
advantages of task work over the old-fashioned day

42 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

work and piece work, in doing a very elementary
class of work.

The Bethlehem Steel Company had five blast
furnaces, the product of which had been handled
by a pig-iron gang for many years. This gang, at
this time, consisted of about 75 men. They were
good, average pig-iron handlers, were under an
excellent foreman who himself had been a pig-iron
handler, and the work was done, on the whole,
about as fast and as cheaply as it was anywhere
else at that time.

A railroad switch was run out into the field, right
along the edge of the piles of pig iron. An inclined
plank was placed against the side of a car, and each
man picked up from his pile a pig of iron weighing
about 92 pounds, walked up the inclined plank and
dropped it on the end of the car.

We found that this gang were loading on the
average about 12^ long tons per man per day.
We were surprised to find, after studying the matter,
that a first-class pig-iron handler ought to handle
between 47^ and 48 long tons per day, instead of
12i tons. This task seemed to us so very large
that we were obliged to go over our work several
times before we were absolutely sure that we were
right. Once we were sure, however, that 47 tons
was a proper day's work for a first-class pig-iron
handler, the task which faced us as managers under
the modern scientific plan was clearly before us.
It was our duty to see that the 80,000 tons of pig

* See foot-note at foot of page 60.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 43

iron was loaded on to the cars at the rate of 47 tons
per man per day, in place of 12i tons, at which rate
the work was then being done. And it was further
our duty to see that this work was done without
bringing on a strike among the men, without any
quarrel with the men, and to see that the men were
happier and better contented when loading at the
new rate of 47 tons than they were when loading at
the old rate of 12i tons.

Our first step was the scientific selection of the
workman. In dealing with workmen under this
type of management, it is an inflexible rule to talk
to and deal with only one man at a time, since each
workman has his own special abilities and limita-
tions, and since we are not dealing with men in
masses, but are trying to develop each individual
man to his highest state of efficiency and prosperity.
Our first step was to find the proper workman to
begin with. We therefore carefully watched and
studied these 75 men for three or four days, at the
end of which time we had picked out four men
who appeared to be physically able to handle
pig iron at the rate of 47 tons per day. A careful
study was then made of each of these men. We
looked up their history as far back as practicable and
thorough inquiries were made as to the character,
habits, and the ambition of each of them. Finally
we selected one from among the four as the most
likely man to start with. He was a little Pennsyl-
vania Dutchman who had been observed to trot back
home for a mile or so after his work in the evening,

44 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

about as fresh as he was when he came trotting down
to work in the morning. We found that upon
wages of $1.15 a day he had succeeded in buying a
small plot of ground, and that he was engaged in
putting up the walls of a little house for himself
in the morning before starting to work and at night
after leaving. He also had the reputation of being
exceedingly ^^ close/ ^ that is, of placing a very high
value on a dollar. As one man whom we talked to
about him said, ^^A penny looks about the size of a
cart-wheel to him.'' This man we will call Schmidt.

The task before us, then, narrowed itself down to
getting Schmidt to handle 47 tons of pig iron per
day and making him glad to do it. This was done
as follows. Schmidt was called out from among the
gang of pig-iron handlers and talked to somewhat
in this way:

'^Schmidt, are you a high-priced man?''

^^Vell, I don't know vat you mean."

^^ Oh yes, you do. What I want to know is whether
you are a high-priced man or not."

^^Vell, I don't know vat you mean."

^'Oh, come now, you answer my questions. What
I want to find out is whether you are a high-priced
man or one of these cheap fellows here. What I
want to find out is whether you want to earn $1.85
a day or whether you are satisfied with $1.15, just
the same as all those cheap fellows are getting."

''Did I vant $1.85 a day? Vas dot a high-priced
man? Veil, yes, I vas a high-priced man."

''Oh, you're aggravating me. Of course you want

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 45

$1.85 a day — every one wants it! You know per-
fectly well that that has very little to do with your
being a high-priced man. For goodness^ sake answer
my questions, and don't waste any more of my time.
Now come over here. You see that pile of pig
iron?''

'^Yes.''

^^You see that car?''

'^Yes."

"Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will
load that pig iron on that car to-morrow for $1.85.
Now do wake up and answer my question. Tell
me whether you are a high-priced man or not."

"Veil — did I got $1.85 for loading dot pig iron
on dot car to-morrow?"

"Yes, of course you do, and you get $1.85 for
loading a pile like that every day right through the
year. That is what a high-priced man does, and
you know it just as well as I do."

"Veil, dot's all right. I could load dot pig iron
on the car to-morrow for $1.85, and I get it every day,
don't I?"

"Certainly you do — certainly you do."

"Veil, den, I vas a high-priced man."

"Now, hold on, hold on. You know just as well
as I do that a high-priced man has to do exactly as
he's told from morning till night. You have seen
this man here before, haven't you?"
No, I never saw him."

Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will do
exactly as this man tells you to-morrow, from morn-

46 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

ing till night. When he tells you to pick up a pig
and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when
he tells you to sit down and rest, you sit down.
You do that right straight through the day. And
what's more, no back talk. Now a high-priced
man does just what he's told to do, and no back
talk. Do you understand that? When this man
tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to
sit down, you sit down, and you don't talk back at
him. Now you come on to work here to-morrow
morning and I'll know before night whether you are
really a high-priced man or not."

This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed
it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or
even an intelligent laborer. With a man of the
mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate
and not unkind, since it is effective in fixing his
attention on the high wages which he wants and
away from what, if it were called to his attention,
he probably would consider impossibly hard work.

What would Schmidt's answer be if he were talked
to in a manner which is usual under the manage-
ment of ^^ initiative and incentive"? say, as follows:

''Now, Schmidt, you are a first-class pig-iron
handler and know your business well. You have
been handling at the rate of 12 J tons per day. I
have given considerable study to handling pig iron,
and feel sure that you could do a much larger day's
work than you have been doing. Now don't you
think that if you really tried you could handle 47
tons of pig iron per day, instead of 12| tons?"

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 47

What do you think Schmidt's answer would be
to this?

Schmidt started to work, and all day long, and
at regular intervals, was told by the man who stood
over him with a watch, ''Now pick up a pig and
walk. Now sit down and rest. Now walk — now
rest,'' etc. He worked when he was told to work,
and rested when he was told to rest, and at half-
past five in the afternoon had his 47i tons loaded
on the car. And he practically never failed to work
at this pace and do the task that was set him during
the three years that the writer was at Bethlehem.
And throughout this time he averaged a little more
than $1.85 per day, whereas before he had never
received over $1.15 per day, which was the ruling
rate of wages at that time in Bethlehem. That
is, he received 60 per cent, higher wages than were
paid to other men who were not working on task
work. One man after another was picked out and
trained to handle pig iron at the rate of 47i tons
per day until all of the pig iron was handled at
this rate, and the men were receiving 60 per cent,
more wages than other workmen around them.

The wTiter has given above a brief description of
three of the four elements which constitute the
essence of scientific management: first, the careful
selection of the workman, and, second and third,
the method of first inducing and then training and
helping the workman to work according to the
scientific method. Nothing has as yet been said
about the science of handling pig iron. The writer

48 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

trusts, however, that before leaving this illustra-
tion the reader will be thoroughly convinced that
there is a science of handling pig iron, and further
that this science amounts to so much that the man
who is suited to handle pig iron cannot possibly
understand it, nor even work in accordance with the
laws of this science, without the help of those who
are over him.

The writer came into the machine-shop of the
Midvale Steel Company in 1878, after having served
an apprenticeship as a pattern-maker and as a
machinist. This was close to the end of the long
period of depression following the panic of 1873,
and business was so poor that it was impossible for
many mechanics to get work at their trades. For
this reason he was obliged to start as a day laborer
instead of working as a mechanic. Fortunately for
him, soon after he came into the shop the clerk of
the shop was found stealing. There was no one else
available, and so, having more education [than the
other laborers (since he had been prepared for col-
lege) he was given the position of clerk. Shortly
after this he was given work as a machinist in run-
ning one of the lathes, and, as he turned out rather
more work than other machinists were doing on
similar lathes, after several months was made gang-
boss over the lathes.

Almost all of the work of this shop had been done
on piece work for several years. As was usual
then, and in fact as is still usual in most of the shops
in this country, the shop was really run by the work-

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 49

men, and not by the bosses. The workmen together
had carefully planned just how fast each job should
be done, and they had set a pace for each machine
throughout the shop, which was limited to about
one-third of a good day^s work. Every new work-
man who came into the shop was told at once by
the other men exactly how much of each kind of
work he was to do, and unless he obeyed these in-
structions he was sure before long to be driven out
of the place by the men.

As soon as the writer was made gang-boss, one
after another of the men came to him and talked
somewhat as follows:

^^Now, Fred, we're very glad to see that youVe
been made gang-boss. You know the game all right,
and we're sure that you're not likely to be a piece-
work hog. You come along with us, and every-
thing will be all right, but if you try breaking any
of these rates you can be mighty sure that we'll
throw you over the fence."

The writer told them plainly that he was now
working on the side of the management, and that
he proposed to do whatever he could to get a fair
day's work out of the lathes. This immediately
started a war; in most cases a friendly war, because
the men who were under him were his personal
friends, but none the less a war, which as time
went on grew more and more bitter. The writer
used every expedient to make them do a fair day's
work, such as discharging or lowering the wages of
the more stubborn men who refused to make any

50 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

improvement, and such as lowering the piece-work
price, hiring green men, and personally teaching them
how to do the work, with the promise from them that
when they had learned how, they would then do a
fair day's work. While the men constantly brought
such pressure to bear (both inside and outside the
works) upon all those who started to increase their
output that they were finally compelled to do about
as the rest did, or else quit. No one who has not
had this experience can have an idea of the bitter-
ness which is gradually developed in such a struggle.
In a war of this kind the workmen have one expe-
dient which is usually effective. They use their
ingenuity to contrive various ways in which the
machines which they are running are broken or
damaged — apparently by accident, or in the regular
course of work — and this they always lay at the
door of the foreman, who has forced them to drive
the machine so hard that it is overstrained and is
being ruined. And there are few foremen indeed
who are able to stand up against the combined pres-
sure of all of the men in the shop. In this case the
problem was complicated by the fact that the shop
ran both day and night.

The writer had two advantages, however, which
are not possessed by the ordinary foreman, and these
came, curiously enough, from the fact that he was
not the son of a working man.

Firstj owing to the fact that he happened not to
be of working parents, the owners of the company
believed that he had the interest of the works more

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 51

at heart than the other workmen, and they therefore
had more confidence in his word than they did in
that of the machinists who were under him. So
that, when the machinists reported to the Superin-
tendent that the machines were being smashed up
because an incompetent foreman was overstraining
them, the Superintendent accepted the w^ord of the
writer when he said that these men were dehberately
breaking their machines as a part of the piece-work
war which was going on, and he also allowed the
writer to make the only effective answer to this
Vandalism on the part of the men, namely: ^' There
will be no more accidents to the machines in this
shop. If any part of a machine is broken the man in
charge of it must pay at least a part of the cost of
its repair, and the fines collected in this way will all
be handed over to the mutual beneficial association
to help care for sick workmen.'^ This soon stopped
the wilful breaking of machines.

Second, If the writer had been one of the work-
men, and had lived where they lived, they would
have brought such social pressure to bear upon him
that it would have been impossible to have stood out
against them. He would have been called ^^scab''
and other foul names every time he appeared on
the street, his wife would have been abused, and his
children would have been stoned. Once or twice
he was begged by some of his friends among the
workmen not to walk home, about two and a half
miles along the lonely path by the side of the rail-
way. He was told that if he continued to do this

52 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

it would be at the risk of his life. In all such
cases, however, a display of timidity is apt to increase
rather than diminish the risk, so the writer told
these men to say to the other men in the shop that
he proposed to walk home every night right up that
railway track; that he never had carried and never
would carry any weapon of any kind, and that they
could shoot and be d .

After about three years of this kind of struggling,
the output of the machines had been materially
increased, in many cases doubled, and as a result
the writer had been promoted from one gang-boss-
ship to another until he became foreman of the
shop. For any right-minded man, however, this
success is in no sense a recompense for the bitter
relations which he is forced to maintain with all of
those around him. Life which is one continuous
struggle with other men is hardly worth living.
His workman friends came to him continually and
asked him, in a personal, friendly way, whether he
would advise them, for their own best interest, to
turn out more work. And, as a truthful man, he
had to tell them that if he were in their place he
would fight against turning out any more work,
just as they were doing, because under the piece-
work system they would be allowed to earn no more
wages than they had been earning, and yet they
would be made to work harder.

Soon after being made foreman, therefore, he
decided to make a determined effort to in some way
change the system of management, so that the inter-

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 53

ests of the workmen and the management should
become the same, instead of antagonistic. This
resulted, some three years later, in the starting of
the type of management which is described in papers
presented to the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers entitled ''A Piece-Rate System ^^ and
'^Shop Management."

In preparation for this system the writer realized
that the greatest obstacle to harmonious cooperation
between the workmen and the management lay in
the ignorance of the management as to what really
constitutes a j)roper_ day'a work for a workman. He
fully realized that, although he was foreman of the
shop, the combined knowledge and skill of the work-
men who were under him was certainly ten times as
great as his own. He therefore obtained the per-
mission of Mr. William Sellers, who was at that time
the President of the Midvale Steel Company, to
spend some money in a careful, scientific study of
the time required to do various kinds of work.

Mr. Sellers allowed this more as a reward for
having, to a certain extent, ^^made good" as foreman
of the shop in getting more work out of the men,
than for any other reason. He stated, however,
that he did not believe that any scientific study of
this sort would give results of much value.

Among several investigations which were under-
taken at this time, one was an attempt to find some
rule, or law, which would enable a foreman to know
in advance how much of any kind of heavy laboring
work a man who was well suited to his job ought

54 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

to do in a day; that is, to study the tiring effect
of heavy labor upon a first-class man. Our first
step was to employ a young college graduate to
look up all that had been written on the subject
in English, German, and French. Two classes of
experiments had been made: one by physiologists
who were studying the endurance of the human
animal, and the other by engineers who wished to
determine what fraction of a horse-power a man-
power was. These experiments had been made
largely upon men who were lifting loads by means of
turning the crank of a winch from which weights
were suspended, and others who were engaged in
walking, running, and lifting weights in various
ways. However, the records of these investigations
were so meager that no law of any value could be
deduced from them. We therefore started a series
of experiments of our own.

Two first-class laborers were selected, men who
had proved themselves to be physically powerful
and who were also good steady workers. These men
were paid double wages during the experiments, and
were told that they must work to the best of their
ability at all times, and that we should make certain
tests with them from time to time to find whether
they were '' soldiering '^ or not, and that the moment
either one of them started to try to deceive us
he would be discharged. They worked to the best
of their ability throughout the time that they were
being observed.

Now it must be clearly understood that in these

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 55

experiments we were not trying to find the maxi-
mum work that a man could do on a short spurt or
for a few days, but that our endeavor was to learn
what really constituted a full day^s work for a first-
class man; the best day^s work that a man could
properly do, year in and year out, and still thrive
under. These men were given all kinds of tasks,
which were carried out each day under the close
observation of the young college man who was con-
ducting the experiments, and who at the same time
noted with a stop-watch the proper time for all of
the motions that were made by the men. Every
element in any way connected with the work which
we believed could have a bearing on the result was
carefully studied and recorded. What we hoped
ultimately to determine was what fraction of a
horse-power a man was able to exert, that is, how
many foot-pounds of work a man could do in a day.
After completing this series of experiments, there-
fore, each man^s work for each day was translated
into foot-pounds of energy, and to our surprise we
found that there was no constant or uniform relation
between the foot-pounds of energy which the man
exerted during a day and the tiring effect of his work.
On some kinds of work the man would be tired out
when doing perhaps not more than one-eighth of a
horse-power, while in others he would be tired to no
greater extent by doing half a horse-power of work.
We failed, therefore, to find any law which was an
accurate guide to the maximum day's work for a
first-class workman.

56 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

A large amount of very valuable data had been
obtained, which enabled us to know, for many
kinds of labor, what was a proper day^s work. It
did not seem wise, however, at this time to spend
any more money in trying to find the exact law
which we were after. Some years later, when more
money was available for this purpose, a second series
of experiments was made, similar to the first, but
somewhat more thorough. This, however, resulted
as the first experiments, in obtaining valuable infor-
mation but not in the development of a law. Again,
some years later, a third series of experiments was
made, and this time no trouble was spared in our
endeavor to make the work thorough. Every minute
element which could in any way affect the problem
was carefully noted and studied, and two college men
devoted about three months to the experiments.
After this data was again translated into foot-pounds
of energy exerted for each man each day, it became
perfectly clear that there is no direct relation between
the horse-power which a man exerts (that is, his
foot-pounds of energy per day) and the tiring effect
of the work on the man. The writer, however, was
quite as firmly convinced as ever that some definite,
clear-cut law existed as to what constitutes a full
day^s work for a first-class laborer, and our data
had been so carefully collected and recorded that
he felt sure that the necessary information was
included somewhere in the records. The problem
of developing this law from the accumulated facts
was therefore handed over to Mr. Carl G. Barth,

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 57

who is a better mathematician than any of the rest
of us, and we decided to investigate the problem
in a new way, by graphically representing each
element of the work through plotting curves, which
should give us, as it were, a bird's-eye view of every
element. In a comparatively short time Mr. Barth
had discovered the law governing the tiring effect of
heavy labor on a first-class man. And it is so simple
in its nature that it is truly remarkable that it
should not have been discovered and clearly under-
stood years before. The law which was developed
is as follows:

The law is confined to that class of work in which
the limit of a man's capacity is reached because he
is tired out. It is the law of heavy laboring, cor-
responding to the work of the cart horse, rather than
that of the trotter. Practically all such work con-
sists of a heavy pull or a push on the man's arms,
that is, the man's strength is exerted by either hft-
ing or pushing something which he grasps in his
hands. And the law is that for each given pull
or push on the man's arms it is possible for the work-
man to be under load for only a definite percentage
of the day. For example, when pig iron is being
handled (each pig weighing 92 pounds), a first-
class workman can only be under load 43 per cent,
of the day. He must be entirely free from load
during 57 per cent, of the day. And as the load
becomes lighter, the percentage of the day under
which the man can remain under load increases.
So that, if the workman is handling a half-pig,

58 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

weighing 46 pounds, he can then be under load
58 per cent, of the day, and only has to rest during
42 per cent. As the weight grows lighter the man can
remain under load during a larger and larger per-
centage of the day, until finally a load is reached'
which he can carry in his hands all day long without
being tired out. When that point has been arrived
at this law ceases to be useful as a guide to a
laborer's endurance, and some other law must be
found which indicates the man's capacity for work.

When a laborer is carrying a piece of pig iron
weighing 92 pounds in his hands, it tires him about
as much to stand still under the load as it does to
walk with it, since his arm muscles are under the
same severe tension whether he is moving or not.
A man, however, who stands still under a load is
exerting no horse-power whatever, and this accounts
for the fact that no constant relation could be traced
in various kinds of heavy laboring work between
the foot-pounds of energy exerted and the tiring
effect of the work on the man. It will also be clear
that in all work of this kind it is necessary for the
arms of the workman to be completely free from
load (that is, for the workman to rest) at frequent
intervals. Throughout the time that the man is
under a heavy load the tissues of his arm muscles
are in process of degeneration, and frequent periods
of rest are required in order that the blood may
have a chance to restore these tissues to their normal
condition.

To return now to our pig-iron handlers at the

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 59

Bethlehem Steel Company. If Schmidt had been
allowed to attack the pile of 47 tons of pig iron
without the guidance or direction of a man who
understood the art, or science, of handling pig iron,
in his desire to earn his high wages he would probably
have tired himself out by 11 or 12 o'clock in the day.
He would have kept so steadily at work that his
muscles would not have had the proper periods of
rest absolutely needed for recuperation, and he
would have been completely exhausted early in
the day. By having a man, however, who under-
stood this law, stand over him and direct his work,
day after day, until he acquired the habit of resting
au proper intervals, he was able to work at an even
gait all day long without unduly tiring himself.

Now one of the very first requirements for a man
who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation
is that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that
he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up
the ox than any other type. The man who is
mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason
entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the
grinding monotony of work of this character. There-
fore the workman who is best suited to handling
pig iron is unable to understand the real science
of doing this class of work. He is so stupid that the
word ^^ percentage '^ has no meaning to him, and he
must consequently be trained by a man more intel-
ligent than himself into the habit of working in
accordance with the laws of this science before he
can be successful.

60 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

The writer trusts that it is now clear that even
in the case of the most elementary form of labor
that is known, there is a science, and that when the
man best suited to this class of work has been care-
fully selected, when the science of doing the work
has been developed, and when the carefully selected
man has been trained to work in accordance with
this science, the results obtained must of necessity
be overwhelmingly greater than those which are
possible under the plan of ^^ initiative and incentive/'

Let us, however, again turn to the case of these
pig-iron handlers, and see whether, under the ordinary
type of management, it would not have been possible
to obtain practically the same results.

The writer has put the problem before many
good managers, and asked them whether, under
premium work, piece work, or any of the ordinary
plans of management, they would be likely even to
approximate 47 tons ^ per man per day, and not a

^ Many people have questioned the accuracy of the statement that
first-class workmen can load 47i tons of pig iron from the ground on to a
car in a day. For those who are skeptical, therefore, the following data
relating to this work are given:

First. That our experiments indicated the existence of the following
law: that a first-class laborer, suited to such work as handling pig iron,
could be under load only 42 per cent, of the day and must be free from
load 58 per cent, of the day.

Second. That a man in loading pig iron from piles placed on the ground
in an open field on to a car which stood on a track adjoining these piles,
ought to handle (and that they did handle regularly) 47J long tons
(2240 pounds per ton) per day.

That the price paid for loading this pig iron was 3tV cents per ton, and
that the men working at it averaged $1.85 per day, whereas, in the past,
they had been paid only $1.15 per day.

In addition to these facts, the following are given:

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 61

man has suggested that an output of over 18 to
25 tons could be attained by any of the ordinary
expedients. It will be remembered that the Bethle-
hem men were loading only 121 tons per man.

To go into the matter in more detail, however:
As to the scientific selection of the men, it is a fact
that in this gang of 75 pig-iron handlers only about
one man in eight was physically capable of handling
471 tons per day. With the very best of intentions,
the other seven out of eight men were physically
unable to work at this pace. Now the one man in
eight who was able to do this work was in no sense
superior to the other men who were working on the

47^ long tons equal 106,400 pounds of pig iron per day.

At 92 pounds per pig, equals 1156 pigs per day.

42 per cent, of a day under load equals 600 minutes; multiplied by
0.42 equals 252 minutes under load.

252 minutes divided by 1156 pigs equals 0.22 minutes per pig under
load.

A pig-iron handler walks on the level at the rate of one foot in 0.006
minutes. The average distance of the piles of pig iron from the car was
36 feet. It is a fact, however, that many of the pig-iron handlers ran
with their pig as soon as they reached the incUned plank. Many of them
also would run down the plank after loading the car. So that when the
actual loading went on, many of them moved at a faster rate than is indi-
cated by the above figures. Practically the men were made to take a rest,
generally by sitting down, after loading ten to twenty pigs. This rest was
in addition to the time which it took them to walk back from the car
to the pile. It is hkely that many of those who are skeptical about the
possibility of loading this amount of pig iron do not realize that while
these men were walking back they were entirely free from load, and that
therefore their muscles had, during that time, the opportunity for recupera-
tion. It will be noted that with an average distance of 36 feet of the pig
iron from the car, these men walked about eight miles under load each
day and eight miles free from load.

If any one who is interested in these figures will multiply them and
divide them, one into the other, in various ways, he will find that all of
the facts stated check up exactly.

62 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

gang. He merely happened to be a man of the type
of the ox, — no rare specimen of humanity, difficult
to find and therefore very highly prized. On the con-
trary, he was a man so stupid that he was unfitted
to do most kinds of laboring work, even. The
selection of the man, then, does not involve finding
some extraordinary individual, but merely picking
out from among very ordinary men the few who are
especially suited to this type of work. Although
in this particular gang only one man in eight was
suited to doing the work, we had not the slightest
difficulty in getting all the men who were needed —
some of them from inside of the works and others
from the neighboring country — who were exactly
suited to the job.

Under the management of '^ initiative and incen-
tive'' the attitude of the management is that of
'^putting the work up to the workmen.'' What
likelihood would there be, then, under the old type
of management, of these men properly selecting
themselves for pig-iron handling? Would they be
likely to get rid of seven men out of eight from their
own gang and retain only the eighth man? No!
And no expedient could be devised which would
make these men properly select themselves. Even
if they fully realized the necessity of doing so in order
to obtain high wages (and they are not sufficiently
intelligent properly to grasp this necessity), the fact
that their friends or their brothers who were working
right alongside of them would temporarily be thrown
out of a job because they were not suited to this

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 63

kind of work would entirely prevent them from
properly selecting themselves, that is, from removing
the seven out of eight men on the gang who were
unsuited to pig-iron handling.

As to the possibility, under the old type of manage-
ment, of inducing these pig-iron handlers (after
they had been properly selected) to work in accord-
ance with the science of doing heavy laboring, namely,
having proper scientifically determined periods of
rest in close sequence to periods of work. As has
been indicated before, the essential idea of the
ordinary types of management is that each workman
has become more skilled in his own trade than it
is possible for any one in the management to be, and
that, therefore, the details of how the work shall
best be done must be left to him. The idea, then,
of taking one man after another and training him
imder a competent teacher into new working habits
imtil he continually and habitually works in accord-
ance with scientific laws, which have been developed
by some one else, is directly antagonistic to the old
idea that each workman can best regulate his own
way of doing the work. And besides this, the man
suited to handling pig iron is too stupid properly to
train himself. Thus it will be seen that with the
ordinary types of management the development of
scientific knowledge to replace rule of thumb, the
scientific selection of the men, and inducing the men
to work in accordance with these scientific principles
are entirely out of the question. And this because
the philosophy of the old management puts the entire

M THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

responsibility upon the workmen, while the philoso-
phy of the new places a great part of it upon the
management.

With most readers great sympathy will be aroused
because seven out of eight of these pig-iron handlers
were thrown out of a job. This sympathy is entirely
wasted, because almost all of them were immedi-
ately given other jobs with the Bethlehem Steel
Company. And indeed it should be understood
that the removal of these men from pig-iron handling,
for which they were unfit, was really a kindness to
themselves, because it was the first step toward
finding them work for which they were peculiarly
fitted, and at which, after receiving proper training,
they could permanently and legitimately earn higher
wages.

Although the reader may be convinced that there
is a certain science back of the handling of pig iron,
still it is more than likely that he is still skeptical
as to the existence of a science for doing other
kinds of laboring. One of the important objects of
this paper is to convince its readers that every single
act of every workman can be reduced to a science.
With the hope of fully convincing the reader of this
fact, therefore, the writer proposes to give several
more simple illustrations from among the thousands
which are at hand.

For example, the average man would question
whether there is much of any science in the work
of shoveling. Yet there is but Httle doubt, if any
intelligent reader of this paper were deliberately to

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 65

set out to find what may be called the foundation
of the science of shoveling, that with perhaps 15
to 20 hours of thought and analysis he would be
almost sure to have arrived at the essence of this
science. On the other hand, so completely are the
rule-of-thumb ideas still dominant that the writer
has never met a single shovel contractor to whom
it had ever even occurred that there was such a thing
as the science of shoveling. This science is so
elementary as to be almost self-evident.

For a first-cla^s shoveler there is a given shovel
load at which he will do his biggest day's work.
What is this shovel load? Will a first-class man do
more work per day with a shovel load of 5 pounds,
10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20, 25, 30, or 40 pounds?
Now this is a question which can be answered only
through carefully made experiments. By first select-
ing two or three first-class shovelers, and paying
them extra wages for doing trustworthy work, and
then gradually varying the shovel load and having
all the conditions accompanying the work carefully
observed for several weeks by men who were used
to experimenting, it was found that a first-class man
would do his biggest day's work with a shovel load
of about 21 pounds. For instance, that this man
would shovel a larger tonnage per day with a 21-
pound load than with a 24-pound load or than with
an 18-pound load on his shovel. It is, of course,
evident that no shoveler can always take a load of
exactly 21 pounds on his shovel, but nevertheless,
although his load may vary 3 or 4 pounds one way

66 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

or the other, either below or above the 21 pounds,
he will do his biggest day's work when his average
for the day is about 21 pounds.

The writer does not wish it to be understood that
this is the whole of the art or science of shoveling.
There are many other elements, which together
go to make up this science. But he wishes to
indicate the important effect which this one piece
of scientific knowledge has upon the work of
shoveling.

At the works of the Bethlehem Steel Company,
for example, as a result of this law, instead of allow-
ing each shoveler to select and own his own shovel,
it became necessary to provide some 8 to 10 different
kinds of shovels, etc., each one appropriate to
handUng a given type of material; not only so as to
enable the men to handle an average load of 21
pounds, but also to adapt the shovel to several
other requirements which become perfectly evident
when this work is studied as a science. A large
shovel tool room was built, in which were stored
not only shovels but carefully designed and standard-
ized labor implements of all kinds, such as picks,
crowbars, etc. This made it possible to issue to
each workman a shovel which would hold a load
of 21 pounds of whatever class of material they were
to handle : a small shovel for ore, say, or a large one
for ashes. Iron ore is one of the heavy materials
which are handled in a works of this kind, and rice
coal, owing to the fact that it is so slippery on the
shovel, is one of the lightest materials. And it was_

i

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 67

found on studying the rule-of-thumb plan at the
Bethlehem Steel Company, where each shoveler
owned his own shovel, that he would frequently
go from shovehng ore, with a load of about 30 pounds
per shovel, to handling rice coal, with a load on
the same shovel of less than 4 pounds. In the one
case, he was so overloaded that it was impossible for
him to do a full day's work, and in the other case he
was so ridiculously underloaded that it was manifestly
impossible to even approximate a day's work.

Briefly to illustrate some of the other elements
which go to make up the science of shoveling,
thousands of stop-watch observations were made to
study just how quickly a laborer, provided in each
case with the proper type of shovel, can push his
shovel into the pile of materials and then draw it
out properly loaded. These observations were made
first when pushing the shovel into the body of the
pile. Next when shoveling on a dirt bottom, that
is, at the outside edge of the pile, and next with a
wooden bottom, and finally with an iron bottom.
Again a similar accurate time study was made of
the time required to swing the shovel backward and
then throw the load for a given horizontal distance,
accompanied by a given height. This time study
was made for various combinations of distance and
height. With data of this sort before him, coupled
with the law of endurance described in the case of
the pig-iron handlers, it is evident that the man who
is directing shovelers can first teach them the exact
methods which should be employed to use their

68 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

strength to the very best advantage, and can then
assign them daily tasks which are so just that
the workman can each day be sure of earning the
large bonus which is paid whenever he successfully
performs this task.

There were about 600 shovelers and laborers of
this general class in the yard of the Bethlehem Steel
Company at this time. These men were scattered
in their work over a yard which was, roughly, about
two miles long and half a mile wide. In order that
each workman should be given his proper implement
and his proper instructions for doing each new job,
it was necessary to establish a detailed system for
directing men in their work, in place of the old plan
of handling them in large groups, or gangs, under a
few yard foremen. As each workman came into
the works in the morning, he took out of his own
special pigeonhole, with his number on the outside,
two pieces of paper, one of which stated just what
implements he was to get from the tool room and
where he was to start to work, and the second of
which gave the history of his previous day^s work;
that is, a statement of the work which he had done,
how much he had earned the day before, etc. Many
of these men were foreigners and unable to read and
write, but they all knew at a glance the essence of
this report, because yellow paper showed the man
that he had failed to do his full task the day before,
and informed him that he had not earned as much
as $1.85 a day, and that none but high-priced men
would be allowed to stay permanently with this

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 69

gang. The hope was further expressed that he would
earn his full wages on the following day. So that
whenever the men received white slips they knew
that everything was all right, and whenever they
received yellow slips they realized that they must do
better or they would be shifted to some other class
of work.

Dealing with every workman as a separate indi-
vidual in this way involved the building of a labor
office for the superintendent and clerks who were
in charge of this section of the work. In this office
every laborer's work was planned out well in advance,
and the workmen were all moved from place to
place by the clerks with elaborate diagrams or maps
of the yard before them, very much as chessmen are
moved on a chess-board, a telephone and messenger
system having been installed for this purpose. In
this way a large amount of the time lost through hav-
ing too many men in one place and too few in an-
other, and through waiting between jobs, was entirely
eliminated. Under the old system the workmen were
kept day after day in comparatively large gangs,
each under a single foreman, and the gang was apt
to remain of pretty nearly the same size whether
there was much or little of the particular kind of
work on hand which this foreman had under his
charge, since each gang had to be kept large enough
to handle whatever work in its special line was likely
to come along.

When one ceases to deal with men in large gangs
or groups, and proceeds to study each workman as

70 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

an individual, if the workman fails to do his task,
some competent teacher should be sent to show him
exactly how his work can best be done, to guide,
help, and encourage him, and, at the same time, to
study his possibilities as a workman. So that, under
the plan which individualizes each workman, instead
of brutally discharging the man or lowering his
wages for failing to make good at once, he is given
the time and the help required to make him pro-
ficient at his present job, or he is shifted to another
class of work for which he is either mentally or
physically better suited.

All of this requires the kindly cooperation of the
management, and involves a much more elaborate
organization and system than the old-fashioned
herding of men in large gangs. This organization
consisted, in this case, of one set of men, who were
engaged in the development of the science of laboring
through time study, such as has been described
above; another set of men, mostly skilled laborers
themselves, who were teachers, and who helped and
guided the men in their work; another set of tool-
room men who provided them with the proper
implements and kept them in perfect order, and
another set of clerks who planned the work well in
advance, moved the men with the least loss of time
from one place to another, and properly recorded
each man^s earnings, etc. And this furnishes an
elementary illustration of what has been referred
to as cooperation between the management and the
workmen.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 71

The question which naturally presents itself is
whether an elaborate organization of this sort can
be made to pay for itself; whether such an organiza-
tion is not top-heavy. This question will best be
answered by a statement of the results of the third
year of working under this plan.

Old Plan New Plan

Task Work
The number of yard laborers

was reduced from between 400 & 600 down to about 140

Average number of tons per

man per day 16 59

Average earnings per man

per day $1.15 $1.88

Average cost of handling a

ton of 2240 lbs $0,072 $0,033

And in computing the low cost of $0,033 per ton, the
office and tool-room expenses, and the wages of all
labor superintendents, foremen, clerks, time-study
men, etc., are included.

During this year the total saving of the new plan
over the old amounted to $36,417.69, and during
the six months following, when all of the work of
the yard was on task work, the saving was at the
rate of between $75,000 and $80,000 per year.

Perhaps the most important of all the results
attained was the effect on the workmen themselves.
A careful inquiry into the condition of these men
developed the fact that out of the 140 workmen only
two were said to be drinking men. This does not,
of course, imply that many of them did not take an
occasional drink. The fact is that a steady drinker

72 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

would find it almost impossible to keep up with the
pace which was set, so that they were practically
all sober. Many, if not most of them, were saving
money, and they all lived better than they had
before. These men constituted the finest body of
picked laborers that the writer has ever seen together,
and they looked upon the men who were over them,
their bosses and their teachers, as their very best
friends; not as nigger drivers, forcing them to work
extra hard for ordinary wages, but as friends who
were teaching them and helping them to earn much
higher wages than they had ever earned before.
It would have been absolutely impossible for any one
to have stirred up strife between these men and their
employers. And this presents a very simple though
effective illustration of what is meant by the words
'^ prosperity for the employe, coupled with prosperity
for the employer,'' the two principal objects of man-
agement. It is evident also that this result has
been brought about by the application of the four
fundamental principles of scientific management.

As another illustration of the value of a scientific
study of the motives which influence workmen in their
daily work, the loss of ambition and initiative will
be cited, which takes place in workmen when they
are herded into gangs instead of being treated as
separate individuals. A careful analysis had dem-
onstrated the fact that when workmen are herded
together in gangs, each man in the gang becomes
far less efficient than when his personal ambition
is stimulated; that when men work in gangs, their

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 73

individual efficiency falls almost invariably down to
or below the level of the worst man in the gangl-
and that they are all pulled down instead of being
elevated by being herded together. For this reason
a general order had been issued in the Bethlehem
Steel Works that not more than four men were to
be allowed to work in a labor gang without a special
permit, signed by the General Superintendent of the
works, this special permit to extend for one week
only. It was arranged that as far as possible each
laborer should be given a separate individual task.
As there were about 5000 men at work in the estab-
lishment, the General Superintendent had so much
to do that there was but little time left for signing
these special permits.

After gang work had been by this means broken
up, an unusually fine set of ore shovelers had been
developed, through careful selection and individual,
scientific training. Each of these men was given a
separate car to unload each day, and his wages
depended upon his own personal work. The man
who unloaded the largest amount of ore was paid
the highest wages, and an unusual opportunity came
for demonstrating the importance of individualizing
each workman. Much of this ore came from the
Lake Superior region, and the same ore was delivered
both in Pittsburg and in Bethlehem in exactly similar
cars. There was a shortage of ore handlers in
Pittsburg, and hearing of the fine gang of laborers
that had been developed at Bethlehem, one of the
Pittsburg steel works sent an agent to hire the

74 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

Bethlehem men. The Pittsburg men offered 4A
cents a ton for unloading exactly the same ore, with
the same shovels, from the same cars, that were
unloaded in Bethlehem for 3A cents a ton. After
carefully considering this situation, it was decided
that it would be unwise to pay more than 3A cents
per ton for unloading the Bethlehem cars, because,
at this rate, the Bethlehem laborers were earning a
little over $1.85 per man per day, and this price
was 60 per cent, more than the ruling rate of wages
around Bethlehem.

A long series of experiments, coupled with close
observation, had demonstrated the fact that when
workmen of this caliber are given a carefully measured
task, which calls for a big day's work on their part,
and that when in return for this extra effort they are
paid wages up to 60 per cent, beyond the wages
usually paid, that this increase in wages tends to
make them not only more thrifty but better men in
every way; that they live rather better, begin to
save money, become more sober, and work more
steadily. When, on the ether hand, they receive
much more than a 60 per cent, increase in wages,
many of them will work irregularly and tend to
become more or less shiftless, extravagant, and dissi-
pated. Our experiments showed, in other words,
that it does not do for most men to get rich too fast.

After deciding, for this reason, not to raise the
wages of our ore handlers, these men were brought
into the office one at a time, and talked to somewhat
as follows:

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 73

''Now, Patrick, you have proved to us that you
are a high-priced man. You have been earning every
day a httle more than $1.85, and you are just the
sort of man that we want to have in our ore-shovel-
ing gang. A man has come here from Pittsburg,
who is offering 4^ cents per ton for handhng ore
while we can pay only SA cents per ton. I think,
therefore, that you had better apply to this man for
a job. Of course, you know we are very sorry to
have you leave us, but you have proved yourself
a high-priced man, and we are very glad to see
you get this chance of earning more money. Just
remember, however, that at any time in the future,
when you get out of a job, you can always come right
back to us. There will always be a job for a high-
priced man like you in our gang here.^'

Almost all of the ore handlers took this advice,
and went to Pittsburg, but in about six weeks most
of them were again back in Bethlehem unloading
ore at the old rate of 3A cents a ton. The writer
had the following talk with one of these men after
he had returned:

''Patrick, what are you doing back here? I
thought we had gotten rid of you.^'

"Well, sir. 111 tell you how it was. When we
got out there Jimmy and I were put on to a car
with eight other men. We started to shovel the
ore out just the same as we do here. After about
half an hour I saw a little devil alongside of me
doing pretty near nothing, so I said to him, 'Why
don't you go to work? Unless we get the ore out

76 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

of this car we won^t get any money on pay-day/

He turned to me and said, ^Who in are you?'

'Well/ I said, Hhat's none of your business'; and
the little devil stood up to me and said, 'You'll
be minding your own business, or I'll throw you off
this car!' 'Well, I could have spit on him and
drowned him, but the rest of the men put down their
shovels and looked as if they were going to back
him up; so I went round to Jimmy and said (so
that the whole gang could hear it), 'Now, Jimmy,
you and I will throw a shovelful whenever this little
devil throws one, and not another shovelful.' So
we watched him, and only shoveled when he shoveled.
— When pay-day came around, though, we had less
money than we got here at Bethlehem. After that
Jimmy and I went in to the boss, and asked him
for a car to ourselves, the same as we got at Bethle-
hem, but he told us to mind our own business. And
when another pay-day came around we had less
money than we got here at Bethlehem, so Jimmy
and I got the gang together and brought them all
back here to work again."

When working each man for himself, these men
were able to earn higher wages at Syir cents a ton
than they could earn when they were paid 4^ cents
a ton on gang work; and this again shows the great
gain which results from working according to even
the most elementary of scientific principles. But
it also shows that in the application of the most
elementary principles it is necessary for the manage-
ment to do their share of the work in cooperating

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 77

with the workmen. The Pittsburg managers knew
just how the results had been attained at Bethlehem,
but they were unwilling to go to the small trouble
and expense required to plan ahead and assign a
separate ear to each shoveler, and then keep an
individual record of each man's work, and pay him
just what he had earned.

Bricklaying is one of the oldest of our trades.
For hundreds of years there has been little or no
improvement made in the implements and materials
used in this trade, nor in fact in the method of
laying bricks. In spite of the millions of men who
have practised this trade, no great improvement has
been evolved for many generations. Here, then,
at least, one would expect to find but little gain
possible through scientific analysis and study. Mr.
Frank B. Gilbreth, a member of our Society, who had
himself studied bricklaying in his youth, became
interested in the principles of scientific management,
and decided to apply them to the art of bricklay-
ing. He made an intensely interesting analysis and
study of each movement of the bricklayer, and one
after another eliminated all unnecessary movements
and substituted fast for slow motions. He experi-
mented with every minute element which in any
way affects the speed and the tiring of the brick-
layer.

He developed the exact position which each of
the feet of the bricklayer should occupy with rela-
tion to the wall, the mortar box, and the pile of
bricks, and so made it unnecessary for him to take

78 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

a step or two toward the pile of bricks and back
again each time a brick is laid.

He studied the best height for the mortar box
and brick pile, and then designed a scaffold, with a
table on it, upon which all of the materials are placed,
so as to keep the bricks, the mortar, the man, and
the wall in their proper relative positions. These
scaffolds are adjusted, as the wall grows in height,
for all of the bricklayers by a laborer especially
detailed for this purpose, and by this means the
bricklayer is saved the exertion of stooping down to
the level of his feet for each brick and each trowel-
ful of mortar and then straightening up again.
Think of the waste of effort that has gone on through
all these years, with each bricklayer lowering his
body, weighing, say, 150 pounds, down two feet
and raising it up again every time a brick (weigh-
ing about 5 pounds) is laid in the wall! And this
each bricklayer did about one thousand times a day.

As a result of further study, after the bricks are
unloaded from the cars, and before bringing them to
the bricklayer, they are carefully sorted by a laborer,
and placed with their best edge up on a simple
wooden frame, constructed so as to enable him
to take hold of each brick in the quickest time
and in the most advantageous position. In this
way the bricklayer avoids either having to turn
the brick over or end for end to examine it before
laying it, and he saves, also, the time taken in decid-
ing which is the best edge and end to place on the
outside of the wall. In most cases, also, he saves

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 79

the time taken in disentangling the brick from a
disorderly pile on the scaffold. This ^^pack'^ of
bricks (as Mr. Gilbreth calls his loaded wooden
frames) is placed by the helper in its proper position
on the adjustable scaffold close to the mortar box.

We have all been used to seeing bricklayers tap
each brick after it is placed on its bed of mortar sev-
eral times with the end of the handle of the trowel
so as to secure the right thickness for the joint.
Mr. Gilbreth found that by tempering the mor-
tar just right, the bricks could be readily bedded
to the proper depth by a downward pressure of the
hand with which they are laid. He insisted that
his mortar mixers should give special attention to
tempering the mortar, and so save the time con-
sumed in tapping the brick.

Through all of this minute study of the motions
to be made by the bricklayer in laying bricks under
standard conditions, Mr. Gilbreth has reduced his
movements from eighteen motions per brick to five,
and even in one case to as low as two motions
per brick. He has given all of the details of this
analysis to the profession in the chapter headed
^'Motion Study,'' of his book entitled ''Bricklaying
System,'' pubHshed by Myron C. Clerk Pubhshing
Company, New York and Chicago; E. F. N. Spon,
of London.

An analysis of the expedients used by Mr. Gilbreth
in reducing the motions of his bricklayers from
eighteen to five shows that this improvement has been
made in three different ways:

80 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

First. He has entirely dispensed with certain move-
ments which the bricklayers in the past believed were
necessary^, but which a careful study and trial on
his part have shown to be useless.

Second, He has introduced simple apparatus, such
as his adjustable scaffold and his packets for hold-
ing the bricks, by means of which, with a very
small amount of cooperation from a cheap laborer,
he entirely eliminates a lot of tiresome and time-
consuming motions which are necessary for the brick-
layer who lacks the scaffold and the packet.

Third. He teaches his bricklayers to make simple
motions with both hands at the same time, where
before they completed a motion with the right hand
and followed it later with one from the left hand.

For example, Mr. Gilbreth teaches his brick-
layer to pick up a brick in the left hand at the same
instant that he takes a trowelful of mortar with
the right hand. This work with two hands at the
same time is, of course, made possible by substitut-
ing a deep mortar box for the old mortar board
(on which the mortar spread out so thin that a
step or two had to be taken to reach it) and then
placing the mortar box and the brick pile close
together, and at the proper height on his new
scaffold.

These three kinds of improvements are typical
of the ways in which needless motions can be entirely
eliminated and quicker types of movements substi-
tuted for slow movements when scientific motion
study, as Mr. Gilbreth calls his analysis, time study,

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 81

as the writer has called similar work, are applied in
any trade.

Most practical men would (knowing the opposi-
tion of almost all tradesmen to making any change in
their methods and habits), however, be skeptical as
to the possibility of actually achieving any large
results from a study of this sort. Mr. Gilbreth
reports that a few months ago, in a large brick build-
ing which he~^rect€^Tie^~dSnons'trated on a com-
mercial"^care ffie_great ..gainj?^^^^ from

practlcalTy applying his scientific study. With union
bricklayers, in laying a factory wall, twelve inches
thick, with two kinds of brick, faced and ruled joints
on both sides of the wall, he averaged, after his
selected workmen had become skilful in his new
methods, 350 bricks per man per hour; whereas the
average speed of doing this work with the old
methods was, in that section of the country, 120
bricks per man per hour. His bricklayers were
taught his new method of bricklaying by their fore-
man. Those who failed to profit by jtheir teaching
were dropped,_and each man^ as he^J^acame profi-
cient under JJia-Jiew-jnethad,. Jficfiivfid.^^ubstantial
fnot^ smfl,1])_jn£irgfl,se in his wages. With a view to
individualizing his workmen and stimulating each
man to do his best, Mr. Gilbreth also developed an
ingenious method for measuring and recording the
number of bricks laid by each man, and for telling
each workman at frequent intervals how many bricks
he had succeeded in laying.

It is only when this work is compared with the

82 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

conditions which prevail under the tyranny of some
of our misguided bricklayers' unions that the great
waste of human effort which is going on will be
realized. In one foreign city the bricklayers' union
have restricted their men to 275 bricks per day
on work of this character when working for the
city, and 375 per day when working for private
owners. The members of this union are probably
sincere in. their belief that tMs restriction of output

is a benefit to their trade, It should be plain to

all men, however, that this deliberate loafing is
almost criminal, in that it inevitably results in
making every workman's family pay higher rent
for their housing, and also in the end drives work
and trade away from their city, instead of bringing
it to it.

Why is it, in a trade which has been continually
practised since before the Christian era, and with
implements practically the same as they now are,
that this simplification of the bricklayer's move-
ments, this great gain, has not been made before?

It is highly likely that many times during all of
these years individual bricklayers have recognized
the possibility of eliminating each of these unneces-
sary motions. But even if, in the past, he did invent
each one of Mr. Gilbreth's improvements, no brick-
layer could alone increase his speed through their
adoption because it wiU be remembered that in all
cases several bricklayers work together in a row and
that the walls all around a building must grow at the
same rate of speed. No one bricklayer, then, can

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 83

work much faster than the one next to him. Nor
has any one workman the authority to make other
men cooperate with him to do faster work. It is
only through enforced standardization of methods,
enforced adoption of the best implements and work-
ing conditions, and enforced cooperation that this
faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforc-
ing the adoption of standards and of enforcing this
cooperation rests with the management alone. The
management must supply continually one or more
teachers to show each. new. man the_ne w, and simpler
motions^ jLnd_the_sb^

watched and helped until they have risen to their
proper speed. All of those who, after p'ropSteircli-
ing, eiTher will not or cannot work in accordance
with the new methods and at the higher speed must
be discharged by the management. The management
must also recognize the broad fact that workmen
will not submit to this more rigid standardization
and will not work extra hard, unless they receive
extra pay for doing it.

All of this involves an individual study of and
treatment for each man, while in the past they have
been handled in large groups.

The management must also see that those who
prepare the bricks and the mortar and adjust the
scaffold, etc., for the bricklayers, cooperate with
them by doing their work just right and always on
time; and they must also inform each bricklayer at
frequent intervals as to the progress he is making,
so that he may not unintentionally fall off in his

84 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

pace. Thus it will be seen that it is the assump-
tion by the management of new duties and new
kinds of work never done by employers in the past
that makes this great improvement possible, and
that, without this new help from the management,
the workman even with full knowledge of the new
methods and with the best of intentions could not
attain these startling results.

Mr. Gilbreth^s method of bricklaying furnishes a
simple illustration of true and effective cooperation.
Not the type of cooperation in which a mass of
workmen on one side together cooperate with the
management; but that in which several men in the
management (each one in his own particular way)
help each workman individually, on the one hand,
by studying his needs and his shortcomings and
teaching him better and quicker methods, and, on
the other hand, by seeing that all other workmen
with whom he comes in contact help and cooperate
with him by doing their part of the work right and
fast.

The writer has gone thus fully into Mr. Gilbreth's
method in order that it may be perfectly clear that
this increase in output and that this harmony could
not have been attained undor the management of
'^initiative andr-~incentii:a.'Z_(±hat_is, by putting the
problem up to the workman and leaving him to
solve it alone) which has been the philosophy of the
past. And that his success hasJb^en..dua-to the use
of the four elements which constitute the essence of
scientific manRgemenL

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 85

First. The development (by the management, not
the workman) of the3cienge"~of bricklaying, with
rigid rules for each motion of every man, and the
perfection and standardization of all implements and
working conditions.

Second. The careful selection and subsequent
training of the bricklayers" into Iirst-ciassrrien,'~and
the eliminati6n~'of"™al]r~nien'"w^ to or are

unable to adopt the best methods.

Third. Bringing the first-class bricklayer and the
science of bricklaying together, through the con-
stant^elp_Ian,d_wjt^^ of {he""management,

and through paying each man aTIarge daily bonus
for working fast and doing what he is told to do.

Fourth. An plTnost pgual division of the work and
responsibility between the workman and the manage-
ment. _A11 daylong the rQSLagement~~work almost
side by side with the men, helping, encouraging,
and smoothing the way for them, while in the past
they stood one side, gave the men but little help,
and threw on to them almost the entire responsi-
bility as to methods, implements, speed, and har-
monious cooperation.

Of these four elements, the first (the development
of the science of bricklaying) is the most interesting
and spectacular. Each of the three others is, how-
ever, quite as necessary for success.

It must not be forgotten that back of all this,
and directing it, there must be the optimistic,
determined, and hard-working leader who can wait
patiently as well as work.

86 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

In most cases (particularly when the work to be
done is intricate in its nature) the '^development
of the science" is the most important of the four
great elements of the new management. There are
instances, however, in which the '^ scientific selection
of the workman '^ counts for more than anything else.

A case of this type is well illustrated in the very
simple though unusual work of inspecting bicycle
balls.

When the bicycle craze was at its height some
years ago several million small balls made of hardened
steel were used annually in bicycle bearings. And
among the twenty or more operations used in mak-
ing steel balls, perhaps the most important was that
of inspecting them after final polishing so as to
remove all fire-cracked or otherwise imperfect balls
before boxing.

The writer was given the task of systematizing
the largest bicycle ball factory in this country.
This company had been running for from eight to
ten years on ordinary day work before he undertook
its reorganization, so that the one hundred and
twent}^ or more girls who were inspecting the balls
were ''old hands" and skilled at their jobs.

It is impossible even in the most elementary work
to change rapidly from the old independence of
individual day work to scientific cooperation.

In most cases, however, there exist certain imper-
fections in working conditions which can at once be
improved with benefit to all concerned.

In this instance it was found that the inspectors

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 87

(girls) were working ten and one-half hours per day
(v/ith a Saturday half hoUday.)

Their work consisted briefly in placing a row of
small poUshed steel balls on the back of the left
hand, in the crease between two of the fingers pressed
together, and while they were rolled over and over,
they were minutely examined in a strong light, and
with the aid of a magnet held in the right hand, the
defective balls were picked out and thrown into
especial boxes. Four kinds of defects were looked
for — dented, soft, scratched, and fire-cracked —
and they were mostly so minute as to be invisible to
an eye not especially trained to this work. It
required the closest attention and concentration,
so that the nervous tension of the inspectors was
considerable, in spite of the fact that they were
comfortably seated and were not physically tired.

A most casual study made it evident that a very
considerable part of the ten and one-half hours
during which the girls were supposed to work was
really spent in idleness because the working period
was too long.

It is a matter of ordinary common sense to plan
working hours so that the workers can really ^^work
while they work^' and ^^play while they play/' and
not mix the two.

Before the arrival of Mr. Sanford E. Thompson,
who undertook a scientific study of the whole pro-
cess, we decided, therefore, to shorten the working
hours.

The old foreman who had been over the inspecting

88 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

room for years was instructed to interview one after
another of the better inspectors and the more in-
fluential girls and persuade them that they could
do just as much work in ten hours each day as they
had been doing in ten and one-half hours. Each girl
was told that the proposition was to shorten the day's
work to ten hours and pay them the same day's pay
they were receiving for the ten and one-half hours.

In about two weeks the foreman reported that all
of the girls he had talked to agreed that they could
do their present work just as well in ten hours as
in ten and one-half and that they approved of the
change.

The writer had not been especially noted for his
tact so he decided that it would be wise for him to
display a little more of this quality by having the
girls vote on the new proposition. This decision
was hardly justified, however, for when the vote was
taken the girls were unanimous that lOi hours was
good enough for them and they wanted no innova-
tion of any kind.

This settled the matter for the time being. A
few months later tact was thrown to the winds and
the working hours were arbitrarily shortened in suc-
cessive steps to 10 hours, 9i, 9, and 84- (the pay per
day remaining the same); and with each shortening
of the working day the output increased instead of
diminishing.

The change from the old to the scientific method
in this department was made under the direction
of Mr. Sanford E. Thompson, perhaps the most

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 89

experienced man in motion and time study in this
country, under the general superintendence of Mr.
H. L. Gautt.

In the Physiological departments of our univer-
sities experiments are regularly conducted to deter-
mine what is known as the ^^ personal coefficient^'
of the man tested. This is done by suddenly bring-
ing some object, the letter A or B for instance, within
the range of vision of the subject, who, the instant
he recognizes the letter has to do some definite
thing, such as to press a particular electric button.
The time which elapses from the instant the letter
comes in view until the subject presses the button
is accurately recorded by a delicate scientific instru-
ment.

This test shawS-J3onchisi\elyL.that there is a great
differenceJn_.the_iipersanaLiiQafficient'' of different
men. Some individiials__are born with unusually
quick pow^m_J)£-perception ac^ompa^^ by quick
responsive action. With some the message is almost
instantly transmitted from the eye to the brain, and
the brain equally quickly responds by sending the
proper message to the hand.

Men of this type are said to have a low ^^ personal
coefficient,'' while those of slow perception and slow
action have a high ^^ personal coefficient."

Mr. Tjiompson__soon recognized that the quality
most needed ~fiarH!ricy^le-4)alLJn§pec was a low
'^ personal eeefiicient.^-~~Of course the ordinary quali-
ties of endurance and industry were also called for.

For the ultimate good of the girls as well as the

90 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

company, however, it became necessary to exclude
all girls who lacked a low ^'personal coefficient."
And unfortmiately this involved laying off many of
the most intelligent, hardest working, and most
trustworthy girls merely because they did not
possess the quality of quick perception followed by
quick action.

While the gradual selection of girls was going on
other changes were also being made.

One of the dangers to be guarded against, when the
pay ofJEe^majT oT~woina^^ m any way to

depend on the j[uantlty of the wo^ done, is that in
the effoii.JiQjncrease~the~q^ is apt

tojdeteriorate. ^^~

It is necessary in almost all cases, therefore, to
take definite steps to insure against any falling off
in quality before moving in any way towards an
increase in quantity.

In the work of these particular girls quahty was
the very essence. They were engaged in picking
out all defective balls.

The first step, therefore, was to make it impossible
for tliem to jlight their work wi^tEouFbHngToiind out.
This was~^compIisIied througlTwhat is known as
over-inspection. Each one of four of the most trust-
worthy girls was given each day a lot of balls to
inspect which had been examined the day before by
one of the regular inspectors; the number identify-
ing the lot to be over-inspected having been changed
by the foreman so that none of the over-inspectors
knew whose work they were examining. In addition

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 91

to this one of the lots inspected by the four over-
inspectors was examined on the following day by
the chief inspector, selected on account of her
especial accuracy and integrity.

An effective expedient was adopted for checking
the honesty and accuracy of the over-inspection.
Every two or three days a lot of balls was especially
prepared by the foreman, who counted out a definite
number of perfect balls, and added a recorded num-
ber of defective balls of each kind. Neither the
inspectors nor the over-inspectors had any means
of distinguishing this prepared lot from the regular
commercial lots. And in this way all temptation
to slight their work or make false returns was re-
moved.

After insuring in this way against deterioration
in quality, effective means were at once adopted to
increase the output. Improved day work was sub-
stituted for the old slipshod method. An accurate
daily record was kept both as to the quantity and
quality of the work done in order to guard against
any personal prejudice on the part of the foreman
and to insure absolute impartiality and justice for
each inspector. In a comparatively short time this
record enabled the foreman to stir the ambition of
all the inspectors by increasing the wages of those
who turned out a large quantity and good quality,
while at the same time lowering the pay of those
who did indifferent work and discharging others who
proved to be incorrigibly slow or careless. A careful
examination was then made of the way in which each

92 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

girl spent her time and an accurate time study was
undertaken, through the use of a stop-watch and
record blanks, to determine how fast each kind of
inspection should be done, and to establish the
exact conditions under which each girl could do her
quickest and best work, while at the same time
guarding against giving her a task so severe that there
was danger from over fatigue or exhaustion. This
investigation showed that the girls spent a con-
siderable part of their time either in partial idle-
ness, talking and half working, or in actually doing
nothing.

Even when the hours of labor had been shortened
from lOi to 8i hours, a close observation of the girls
showed that after about an hour and one-half of con-
secutive work they began to get nervous. They evi-
dently needed a rest. It is wise to stop short of the
point at which overstrain begins, so we arranged for
them to have a ten minutes period for recreation at
the end of each hour and one quarter. During these
recess periods (two of ten minutes each in the morning
and two in the afternoon) they were obliged to stop
work and were encouraged to leave their seats and
get a complete change of occupation by walking
around and talking, etc.

In one respect no doubt some people will say that
these girls were brutally treated. They were seated
so far apart that they could not conveniently talk
while at work.

Shortening their hours of labor, however, and
providing so far as we knew the most favorable

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 93

working conditions made it possible for them to
really work steadily instead of pretending to do so.

And it is only after this stage in the reorganization
is reached, when the girls have been properly selected
and on the one hand such precautions have been
taken as to guard against the possibility of over-
driving them, while, on the other hand, the tempta-
tion to slight their work has been removed and the
most favorable working conditions have been estab-
lished, that the final step should be taken which
insures them what they most want, namely, high
wages, and the employers what they most want,
namely, the maximum output and best quality of
work, — which means a low labor cost.

This step is to give each girl each day a carefully
measured task which demands a full day's work from
a competent operative, and also to give her a large pre-
mium or bonus whenever she accomplishes this task.

This was_done„iijLlhis__.case -through establishing
what IsT kn Qwn,_as^ jiiff erential rate piece work.^
Under this system the payl)f eacTLgirlwasin
in proportion J^o-the. quantity of her output and also
still more in proportion to the accuracy of her work.

As will be shown later, the differential rate (the
lots inspected by the over-inspectors forming the
basis for the differential) resulted in a large gain in
the quantity of work done and at the same time in
a marked improvement in the quality.

Before they finall}'- worked to the best advantage

* See paper read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,
by Fred. W. Taylor, Vol. XVI, p. 856, entitled " Piece Rate System."

94 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

it was found to be necessary to measure the output
of each girl as often as once every hour, and to send
a teacher to each individual who was found to be
falling behind to find what was wrong, to straighten
her out, and to encourage and help her to catch up.

There is a general principle back of this which
should be appreciated by all of those who are espe-
cially interested in the management of men.

A reward, if it is to be effective Jn stimulating
men tQ,do_their_fe£t-JKQrky. musLxome soon after
thejarork_has.b-een„dQne. _But few men are able to
look forward for more than a week or perhaps at
most a month, and work hard for a reward which
they are to receive at the end of this time.

The ayer_age_wOTkman m^ able to measure

what^heha^jagcomplished and clear^^^ee his reward
at the end of each day if he is to_ do his best. And
more elementary characters, such as the young girls
inspecting bicycle balls, or children, for instance,
should have proper encouragement either in the
shape of personal attention from those over them
or an actual reward in sight as often as once an hour.

This is one of the principal reasons why coopera-
tion or ^^profit-sharing'' either through selling stock
to the employes or through dividends on wages
received at the end of the year, etc., have been at
the best only mildly effective in stimulating men to
work hard. The nice time which they are sure to
have to-day if they take things easily and go slowly
proves more attractive than steady hard work with
a possible reward to be shared with others six months

I

I

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 95

later. A second reason for the inefficiency of profit-
sharing schemes had been that no form of coopera-
tion has yet been devised in which each individual
is allowed free scope for his personal ambition.
Personal ambition always has been and will remain
a more powerful incentive to exertion than a desire
for the general welfare. The few misplaced drones,
who do the loafing and share equally in the profits,
with the rest, under cooperation are sure to drag
the better men down toward their level.

Other and formidable difficulties in the path of
cooperative schemes are, the equitable division of
the profits, and the„_facl-thatj jwhile^ workmen , are
always ready_jbQ share the profits^ jthey-are neither
able nor willing to share_theJ.osses^ Further than
this, in many cases, it is neither right nor just that
they should share either the profits or the losses,
since these may be due in great part to causes
entirely beyond their influence or control, and to
which they do not contribute.

To come back to the girls inspecting bicycle balls,
however, the final outcome of all the changes was
that thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by
one hundred and twenty. And that the accuracy of
the work at the higher speed was two-thirds greater than
at the former slow speed.

The good that came to the girls was,

First. That they_ayeraged from 80 to 100 per cent,
higher wages thanjbhey jormerly received.

Second. Their hours-of- labor were ^ort^ned: from
lOi to 8i per day, with a Saturday half holiday. And

96 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

they were given four recreation periods properly
distributed through the day, which made overwork-
ing impossible for a healthy girl.

Third, Each girl was made to feel that she was
the ob]ecFoT~espeHar^ai^^ part

of tTie" ma^gement^ went wrong

with her she could always have a helper and teacher
in the management to lean upon. d|

Fourth. All young women should be given two
congecutiw days of j; each month, to

be taken whenever they may choose. It is my
impression that these girls were given this privilege,
although I am not quite certain on this point. ^

The benefits which came to the company from
these changes were :

First A substantial improvement in the quality
of the product.

Second, A material reductiogL.Jji the cost of
inspection, in spite of the extra expense involved
in clerk work, teachers, time study, over-inspectors,
and in paying higher wages.

Third, That the most friendly relations existed
between the management andTEe employes, which
rendered labor troubles of any kind or a strike
impossible.

These good results were brought about by many
changes which substituted favorable for unfavor-
able working conditions. It should be appreciated,
however, that the one element which did more than
all of the others was, the careful selection of girls
with quick perception to replace those whose per-

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 97

ceptions were slow — (the substitution of girls with
a low personal coefficient for those whose personal
coefficient was high) — the scientific selection of the
workers.

The illustrations have thus far been purposely
confined to the more elementary types of work, so
that a very strong doubt must still remain as to
whether this kind of cooperation is desirable in the
case of more intelligent mechanics, that is, in the
case of men who are more capable of generalization,
and who would therefore be more likely, of their
own voUtion, to choose the more scientific and better
methods. The following illustrations will be given
for the purpose of demonstrating the fact that in
the higher classes of work the scientific laws which
are developed are so intricate that the high-priced
mechanic needs (even more than the cheap laborer)
the cooperation of men better educated than him-
self in finding the laws, and then in selecting, develop-
ing, and training him to work in accordance with
these laws. These illustrations should make per-
fectly clear our original proposition that in practi-
cally all of the mechanic arts the science which
underlies each workman^s act is so great and amounts
to so much that the workman who is best suited
to actually doing the work is incapable, either through
lack of education or through insufficient mental
capacity, of understanding this science.

A doubt, for instance, will remain in the minds
perhaps of most readers (in the case of an establish-
ment which manufactures the same machine, year

98 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

in and year out, in large quantities, and in which,
therefore, each mechanic repeats the same hmited
series of operations over and over again), whether
the ingenuity of each workman and the help which
he from time to time receives from his foreman
will not develop such superior methods and such a
personal dexterity that no scientific study which
could be made would result in a material increase
in efficiency.

A number of years ago a company employing about
three hundred men, which had been manufacturing
the same machine for ten to fifteen years, sent for
us to report as to whether any gain could be made
through the introduction of scientific management.
Their shops had been run for many years under a
good superintendent and with excellent foremen
and workmen, on piece work. The whole establish-
ment was, without doubt, in better physical condi-
tion than the average machine-shop in this country.
The superintendent was distinctly displeased when
told that through the adoption of task management
the output, with the same number of men and
machines, couIdnSe W6re"than^ He^ said

that he believed that_any such statement was mere
boasting, absolutely false, and instead of inspiring
him_witib_confidence, he was disgusted^that^ajny one
should make such an impudent claim. He, how-
everp~readily"assente(i~ to"tEe proposition that he
should select any one of the machines whose output
he considered as representing the average of the
shop, and that we should then demonstrate on this

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 99

machine that through scientific methods its ouptut
could be more than doubled.

The machine selected by him fairly represented
the work of the shop. It had been run for ten or
twelve years past by a first-class mechanic who was
more than equal in his abihty to the average work-
men in the estabhshment. In a shop of this sort,
in which similar machines are made over and over
again, the work is necessarily greatly subdivided,
so that no one man works upon more than a com-
paratively small number of parts during the year.
A careful record was therefore made, in the presence
of both parties, of the time actually taken in finish-
ing each of the parts which this man worked upon.
The total time required by him to finish each piece,
as well as the exact speeds and feeds which he took,
were noted, and a record was kept of the time which
he took in setting the work in the machine and remov-
ing it. After obtaining in this way a statement of
what represented a fair average of the work done in
the shop, we applied to this one machine the principles
of scientific management.

By means of four quite elaborate shde-rules, which
have been especially made for the purpose of deter-
mining the all-round capacity of metal-cutting ma-
chines, a careful analysis was made of every element
of this machine in its relation to the work in hand.
Its pulling power at its various speeds, its feeding
capacity, and its proper speeds were determined by
means of the slide-rules, and changes were then
made in the countershaft and driving pulleys so as

100 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

to run it at its proper speed. Tools, made of high-
speed steel, and of the proper shapes, were properly
dressed, treated, and ground. (It should be under-
stood, however, that in this case the high-speed
steel which had heretofore been in general use in the
shop was also used in our demonstration.) A large
special slide-rule was then made, by means of which
the exact speeds and feeds were indicated at which
each kind of work could be done in the shortest
possible time in this particular lathe. After pre-
paring in this way so that the workman should
work according to the new method, one after another,
pieces of work were finished in the lathe, correspond-
ing to the work which had been done in our pre-
liminary trials, and the gainJiL time.inade^jtlw
running the machine accoiding to scientific principles
ranged from two and one-half times the speed in the
slowest insjhmice_tn pine times the speed in the

highest;______ —

^The change from rule-of-thumb management to
scientific management involves, however, not only
a study of what is the proper speed for doing the
work and a remodeling of the tools and the imple-
ments in the shop, but also a complete change in
the mental attitude of all the men in the shop
toward their work and toward their employers.
The physical improvements in the machines neces-
sary to insure large gains, and the motion study
followed by minute study with a stop-watch of the
time in which each workman should do his work,
can be made comparatively quickly. But the

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 101

change in the mental attitude and_ in the habits
of the ' thfee^Jiundi^^^ be

brought about only slowly and through a long
series ^or"object-lessons, which finally~3emonstrales
to each malTThe great advantage whicITTre^ will
gaih^^ lieartIiyi30Dperatirtgrin~ Ms^ery-daT^work
with the men in the management. Within three
years "however, in thIs~shop7 the output had been
more than doubled per man and per machine.
The rhenTiad been carefully s"eIecte3~aEd~iir"almost
all cases promoted from a lower to a higher order
of work, and so instructed by their teachers (the
functional foremen) that they were able to earn
higher wages than ever before. The average increase
in the daily earnings of each man was about 35
pefgCTt.^ while ^ ^^_^^ samg;timi^iiie""sumjho of
the wages paid for doing a given amount of work
was lower than before^-^ This increase in the speed
of doing the work, of course, involved a substitution
of the quickest hand methods for the old independent
rule-of-thumb methods, and an elaborate analysis
of the hand work done by each man. (By hand
work is meant such work as depends upon the
manual dexterity and speed of a workman, and
which is independent of the work done by the
machine.) The time saved by scientific hand work
was in many cases greater even than that saved in
machine-work.

It seems important to fully explain the reason
why, with the aid of a slide-rule, and after having
studied the art of cutting metals, it was possible

102 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

for the scientifically equipped man, who had never
before seen these particular jobs, and who had never
worked on this machine, to do work from two and
one-half to nine times as fast as it had been done
before by a good mechanic who had spent his whole
time for some ten to twelve years in doing this
very work upon this particular machine. In a word,
this was possible because the art of cutting metals
involves a true science of no small magnitude, a
science, in fact, so intricate that it is impossible for
any machinist who is suited to running a lathe year
in and year out either to understand it or to work
according to its laws without the help of men who
have made this their specialty. Men who are un-
familiar with machine-shop work are prone to look
upon the manufacture of each piece as a special
problem, independent of any other kind of machine-
work. They are apt to think, for instance, that the
problems connected with making the parts of an
engine require the especial study, one may say almost
the life study, of a set of engine-making mechanics,
and that these problems are entirely different from
those which would be met with in machining lathe
or planer parts. In fact, however, a study of those
elements which are peculiar either to engine parts
or to lathe parts is trifling, compared with the great
study of the art, or science, of cutting metals, upon
a knowledge of which rests the ability to do really
fast machine-work of all kinds.

The real problem is how to remove chips fast from
a casting or a forging, and how to make the piece

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 103

smooth and true in the shortest time, and it matters
but little whether the piece being worked upon is
part, say, of a marine engine, a printing-press, or an
automobile. For this reason, the man with the slide-
rule, familiar with the science of cutting metals, who
had never before seen this particular work, was able
completely to distance the skilled mechanic who had
made the parts of this machine his specialty for years.
It is true that whenever intelligent and educated
men find that the responsibility for making progress
in any of the mechanic arts rests with them, instead
of upon the workmen who are actually laboring at
the trade, that they almost invariably start on the
road which leads to the development of a science
where, in the past, has existed mere traditional or
rule-of-thumb knowledge. When men, whose educa-
tion has given them the habit of generalizing and
everywhere looking for laws, find themselves con-
fronted with a multitude of problems, such as exist
in every trade and which have a general similarity
one to another, it is inevitable that they should
try to gather these problems into certain logical
groups, and then search for some general laws or
rules to guide them in their solution. As has been
pointed out, however, the underlying principles of
the management of ^^ initiative and incentive,'^ that
is, the underlying philosophy of this management,
necessarily leaves the solution of all of these problems
in the hands of each individual workman, while
the philosophy of scientific management places their
solution in the hands of the management. The

104 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

workman's whole time is each day taken in actually
doing the work with his hands, so that, even if he
had the necessary education and habits of generaliz-
ing in his thought, he lacks the time and the oppor-
tunity for developing these laws, because the study
of even a simple law involving say time study re-
quires the cooperation of two men, the one doing the
work while the other times him with a stop-watch.
And even if the workman were to develop laws
where before existed only rule-of-thumb knowledge,
his personal interest would lead him almost inevita-
bly to keep his discoveries secret, so that he could, by
means of this special knowledge, personally do more
work than other men and so obtain higher wages.

Under scientific management, on the other hand,
it becomes^ the"^uty and also~the~pleasure of those
\ who are engaged in the management not only to
develop laws to replace rule of thum]57~btti also to
teaclTTmpartially alToTTEe^^rkmen who~are under
thenL3Ee quickest ways of working;. The useful
results obtained from these laws are always so great
that any company can well afford to pay for the
time and the experiments needed to develop them.
Thus under scientific management exact scientific
knowledge and methods are everywhere, sooner or
later, sure to replace rule of thumb, whereas under
the old type of management working in accordance
with scientific laws is an impossibility.

The development of the art or science of cutting
metals is an apt illustration of this fact. In the fall
of 1880, about the time that the writer started to

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 105

make the experiments above referred to, to determine
what constitutes a proper day's work for a laborer,
he also obtained the permission of Mr. William
Sellers, the President of the Midvale Steel Com-
pany, to make a series of experiments to determine
what angles and shapes of tools were the best for
cutting steel, and also to try to determine the proper
cutting speed for steel. At the time that these
experiments were started it was his belief that they
would not last longer than six months, and, in fact,
if it had been known that a longer period than this
would be required, the permission to spend a con-
siderable sum of money in making them would not
have been forthcoming.

A 66-inch diameter vertical boring-mill was the
first machine used in making these experiments,
and large locomotive tires, made out of hard
steel of uniform quality, were day after day cut
up into chips in gradually learning how to make,
shape, and use the cutting tools so that they would
do faster work. At the end of six months sufficient
practical information had been obtained to far more
than repay the cost of materials and wages which
had been expended in experimenting. And yet the
comparatively small number of experiments which
had been made served principally to make it clear
that the actual knowledge attained was but a small
fraction of that which still remained to be developed,
and which was badly needed by us, in our daily at-
tempt to direct and help the machinists in their tasks.

Experiments in this field were carried on, with

106 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

occasional interruption, through a period of about
26 years, in the course of which ten different experi-
mental machines were especially fitted up to do
this work. Between 30,000 and 50,000 experi-
ments were carefully recorded, and many other
experiments were made, of which no record was
kept. In studying these laws more than 800,000
pounds of steel and iron was cut up into chips with
the experimental tools, and it is estimated that from
$150,000 to $200,000 was spent in the investigation.

Work of this character is intensely interesting to
any one who has any love for scientific research.
For the purpose of this paper, however, it should be
fully appreciated that the motive power which kept
these experiments going through many years, and
which supplied the money and the opportunity for
their accomplishment, was not an abstract search
after scientific knowledge, but was the very practical
fact that we lacked the exact information which was
needed every day, in order to help our machinists to do
their work in the best way and in the quickest time.

All of these experiments were made to enable us
to answer correctly the two questions which face
every machinist each time that he does a piece of
work in a metal-cutting machine, such as a lathe,
planer, drill press, or milling machine. These two
questions are:

In order to do the work in the quickest time.

At what cutting speed shall I run my machine? and

What feed shall I use?

They sound so simple that they would appear

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 107

to call for merely the trained judgment of any good
mechanic. In fact, however, after working 26 years,
it has been found that the answer in every case
involves the solution of an intricate mathematical
problem, in which the effect of twelve independent
variables must be determined.

Each of the twelve following variables has an
important effect upon the answer. The jBgures
which are given with each of the variables represent
the effect of this element upon the cutting speed.
For example, after the first variable (A) we quote,
'^The proportion is as 1 in the case of semi-hardened
steel or chilled iron to 100 in the case of. a very soft,
low-carbon steel. ^^ The meaning of this quotation
is that soft steel can be cut 100 times as fast as the
hard steel or chilled iron. The ratios which are
given, then, after each of these elements, indicate
the wide range of judgment which practically every
machinist has been called upon to exercise in the
past in determining the best speed at which to run
the machine and the best feed to use.

(A) The quality of the metal which is to be cut;
i.e. J its hardness or other qualities which affect the
cutting speed. The proportion is as 1 in the case
of semi-hardened steel or chilled iron to 100 in the
case of very soft, low-carbon steel.

(B) The chemical composition of the steel from
which the tool is made, and the heat treatment of
the tool. The proportion is as 1 in tools made from
tempered carbon steel to 7 in the best high-speed tools.

108 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

(C) The thickness of the shaving, or, the thick-
ness of the spiral strip or band of metal which is to
be removed by the tool. The proportion is as 1 with
thickness of shaving A of an inch to 3i with thick-
ness of shaving Vt of an inch.

(D) The shape or contour of the cutting edge of
the tool. The proportion is as 1 in a thread tool
to 6 in a broad-nosed cutting tool.

(E) Whether a copious stream of water or other
cooling medium is used on the tool. The proportion
is as 1 for tool running dry to 1.41 for tool cooled
by a copious stream of water.

(F) The depth of the cut. The proportion is as
1 with i-inch depth of cut to 1.36 with |-inch depth
of cut.

(G) The duration of the cut, i.e.j the time which
a tool must last under pressure of the shaving without
being reground. The proportion is as 1 when tool
is to be ground every H hours to 1.20 when tool
is to be ground every 20 minutes.

(H) The lip and clearance angles of the tool.
The proportion is as 1 with lip angle of 68 degrees
to 1.023 with lip angle of 61 degrees.

(J) The elasticity of the work and of the tool on
account of producing chatter. The proportion is
as 1 with tool chattering to 1.15 with tool running
smoothly.

(K) The diameter of the casting or forging which
is being cut.

(L) The pressure of the chip or shaving upon the
cutting surface of the tool.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 109

(M) The pulling power and the speed and feed
changes of the machine.

It may seem preposterous to many people that
it should have required a period of 26 years to
investigate the effect of these twelve variables upon
the cutting speed of metals. To those, however,
who have had personal experience as experimenters,
it will be appreciated that the great difficulty of
the problem lies in the fact that it contains so many
variable elements. And in fact the great length of
time consumed in making each single experiment
was caused by the difficulty of holding eleven
variables constant and uniform throughout the
experiment, while the effect of the twelfth variable
was being investigated. Holding the eleven variables
constant was far more difficult than the investiga-
tion of the twelfth element.

As, one after another, the effect upon the cutting
speed of each of these variables was investigated, in
order that practical use could be made of this knowl-
edge, it was necessary to find a mathematical formula
which expressed in concise form the laws which had
been obtained. As examples of the twelve formulae
which were developed, the three following are given:

P = 45,000 D'^m

r _ ii-Q

if")

no THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

After these laws had been investigated and the
various formulae which mathematically expressed
them had been determined, there still remained the
difficult task of how to solve one of these compli-
cated mathematical problems quickly enough to
make this knowledge available for every-day use.
If a good mathematician who had these formulae
before him were to attempt to get the proper answer
{i.e., to get the correct cutting speed and feed by
working in the ordinary way) it would take him
from two to six hours, say, to solve a single prob-
lem; far longer to solve the mathematical problem
than would be taken in most cases by the workmen
in doing the whole job in his machine. Thus a task
of considerable magnitude which faced us was that
of finding a quick solution of this problem, and as we
made progress in its solution, the whole problem was
from time to time presented by the writer to one after
another of the noted mathematicians in this country.
They were offered any reasonable fee for a rapid,
practical method to be used in its solution. Some
of these men merely glanced at it; others, for the
sake of being courteous, kept it before them for
some two or three weeks. They all gave us practi-
cally the same answer: that in many cases it was
possible to solve mathematical problems which con-
tained four variables, and in some cases problems
with five or six variables, but that it was manifestly
impossible to solve a problem containing twelve vari-
ables in any other way than by the slow process of
'Hrial and error.''

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 111

A quick solution was, however, so much of a
necessity in our every-day work of running machine-
shops, that in spite of the small encouragement
received from the mathematicians, we continued at
irregular periods, through a term of fifteen years,
to give a large amount of time searching for a simple
solution. Four or five men at various periods gave
practically their whole time to this work, and finally,
while we were at the Bethlehem Steel Company,
the slide-rule was developed which is illustrated on
Folder No. 11 of the paper ''On the Art of Cutting
Metals,'^ and is described in detail in the paper
presented by Mr. Carl G. Barth to the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers, entitled ''Slide-
rules for the Machine-shop, as a part of the Taylor
System of Managements^ (Vol. XXV of The Transac-
tions of the American Society of Mechanical Engi-
neers). By means of this slide-rule, one of these
intricate problems can be solved in less than a half
minute by any good mechanic, whether he under-
stands anything about mathematics or not, thus
making available for every-day, practical use the
years of experimenting on the art of cutting metals.

This is a good illustration of the fact that some
way can always be found of making practical, every-
day use of complicated scientific data, which appears
to be beyond the experience and the range of the
technical training of ordinary practical men. These
slide-rules have been for years in constant daily
use by machinists having no knowledge of mathe-
matics.

112 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

A glance at the intricate mathematical formulae
(see page 109) which represent the laws of cutting
metals should clearly show the reason why it is
impossible for any machinist, without the aid of
these laws, and who depends upon his personal ex-
perience, correctly to guess at the answer to the two
questions.

What speed shall I use?

What feed shall I use?
even though he may repeat the same piece of work
many times.

To return to the case of the machinist who had
been working for ten to twelve years in machining
the same pieces over and over again, there was
but a remote chance in any of the various kinds of
work which this man did that he should hit upon
the one best method of doing each piece of work out
of the hundreds of possible methods which lay before
him. In considering this typical case, it must also
be remembered that the metal-cutting machines
throughout our machine-shops have practically all
been speeded by their makers by guesswork, and
without the knowledge obtained through a study of
the art of cutting metals. In the machine-shops sys-
tematized by us we have found that there is not one
machine in a hundred which is speeded by its makers
at anywhere near the correct cutting speed. So that,
in order to compete with the science of cutting metals,
the machinist, before he could use proper speeds,
would first have to put new pulleys on the counter-
shaft of his machine, and also make in most cases

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 113

changes in the shapes and treatment of his tools,
etc. Many of these changes are matters entirely
beyond his control, even if he knows what ought to
be done.

If the reason is clear to the reader why the rule-
of-thumb knowledge obtained by the machinist who
is engaged on repeat work cannot possibly compete
with the true science of cutting metals, it should
be even more apparent why the high-class mechanic,
who is called upon to do a great variety of work
from day to day, is even less able to compete with
this science. The high-class mechanic who does a
different kind of work each day, in order to do each
job in the quickest time, would need, in addition to
a thorough knowledge of the art of cutting metals,
a vast knowledge and experience in the quickest way
of doing each kind of hand work. And the reader,
by calling to mind the gain which was made by
Mr. Gilbreth through his motion and time study
in laying bricks, will appreciate the great possi-
bilities for quicker methods of doing all kinds of
hand work which lie before every tradesman after
he has the help which comes from a scientific motion
and time study of his work.

For nearly thirty years past, time-study men
connected with the management of machine-shops
have been devoting their whole time to a scientific
motion study, followed by accurate time study, with
a stop-watch, of all of the elements connected with
the machinist's work. When, therefore, the teachers,
who form one section of the management, and who

114 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

are cooperating with the working men, are in pos-
session both of the science of cutting metals and of
the equally elaborate motion-study and time-study
science connected with this work, it is not difficult
to appreciate why even the highest class mechanic
is unable to do his best work without constant daily
assistance from his teachers. And if this fact has
been made clear to the reader, one of the important
objects in writing this paper will have been realized.

It is hoped that the illustrations which have been
given make it apparent why scientific management
must inevitably in all cases produce overwhelmingly
greater results, both for the company and its
employes, than can be obtained with the manage-
ment of '^initiative and incentive.'' And it should
also be clear that these results have been attained,
not through a marked superiority in the mechanism
of one type of management over the mechanism
of another, but rather through the substitution of
one set of underlying principles for a totally different
set of principles, — by the substitution of one
philosophy for another philosophy in industrial
management.

To repeat then throughout all of these illustrations,
it will be seen that the useful results have hinged
mainly upon (1) the substitution of a science for the
individual judgment of the workman; (2) the scien-
tific selection and development of the workman, after
each man has been studied, taught, and trained, and
one may say experimented with, instead of allowing
the workmen to select themselves and develop in a

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 115

haphazard way; and (3) the intimate cooperation
of the management with the workmen, so that they
together do the work in accordance with the scientific
laws which have been developed, instead of leaving
the solution of each problem in the hands of the
individual workman. In applying these new prin-
ciples, in place of the old individual effort of each
workman, both sides share almost equally in the
daily performance of each task, the management
doing that part of the work for which they are best
fitted, and the workmen the balance.

It is for the illustration of this philosophy that
this paper has been written, but some of the ele-
ments involved in its general principles should be
further discussed.

The development of a science sounds like a
formidable undertaking, and in fact anything like
a thorough study of a science such as that of cutting
metals necessarily involves many years of work.
The science of cutting metals, however, represents
in its complication, and in the time required to
develop it, almost an extreme case in the mechanic
arts. Yet even in this very intricate science, within
a few months after starting, enough knowledge had
been obtained to much more than pay for the work
of experimenting. This holds true in the case of
practically all scientific development in the mechanic
arts. The first laws developed for cutting metals
were crude, and contained only a partial knowledge
of the truth, yet this imperfect knowledge was vastly

116 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

better than the utter lack of exact information or the
very imperfect rule of thumb which existed before,
and it enabled the workmen, with the help of the
management, to do far quicker and better work.

For example, a very short time was needed to
discover one or two types of tools which, though
imperfect as compared with the shapes developed
years afterward, were superior to all other shapes
and kinds in common use. These tools were adopted
as standard and made possible an immediate increase
in the speed of every machinist who used them.
These types were superseded in a comparatively
short time by still other tools which remained
standard until they in their turn made way for later
improvements.^

The science which exists in most of the mechanic
arts is, however, far simpler than the science of
cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the
laws or rules which are developed are so simple that
the average man would hardly dignify them with

* Time and again the experimenter in the mechanic arts will find him-
self face to face with the problem as to whether he had better make imme-
diate practical use of the knowledge which he has attained, or wait until
some positive finality in his conclusions has been reached. He recognizes
clearly the fact that he has already made some definite progress, but sees
the possibihty (even the probabihty) of still further improvement. Each
particular case must of course be independently considered, but the general
conclusion we have reached is that in most instances it is wise to put one's
conclusions as soon as possible to the rigid test of practical use. The one
indispensable condition for such a test, however, is that the experimenter
shall have full opportunity, coupled with sufficient authority, to insure a
thorough and impartial trial. And this, owing to the almost universal
prejudice in favor of the old, and to the suspicion of the new, is difficult
to get.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 117

the name of a science. In most trades, the science
is developed through a comparatively simple analysis
and time study of the movements required by the
workmen to do some small part of his work, and this
study is usually made by a man equipped merely
with a stop-watch and a properly ruled notebook.
Hundreds of these "time-study men'' are now
engaged in developing elementary scientific knowl-
edge where before existed only rule of thumb. Even
the motion study of Mr. Gilbreth in bricklaying
(described on pages 77 to 84) involves a much
more elaborate investigation than that which oc-
curs in most cases. The general steps to be taken
in developing a simple law of this class are as
follows :

First, Find, say, 10 or 15 different men (preferably
in as many separat^^estaHisHhients and different
parts of the country) who are^especfally skilful in
doing the particular work to be analyzed.

Second. Study the exact series of elementary
operations or motions which each of these men
uses in doing the work which is being investigated,
as well as the implements each man uses.

Third. SlTijh^;;jgnjJ^ stop-wat(^h thp-4^^m^ required
to make each of these elementary movements and
then select the quickest way of doing each element
of the work.

Fourth. Elmnnate^al^^ slow move-

ments, and useless movements.

Fifth. Aft^r_dQirLg__^away with all unnecessary
movements, collect into one series the quickest

118 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

and best movements as well as the best imple-
ments.

This one new method, involving that series of
motions which can be made quickest and best, is
then substituted in place of the ten or fifteen infe-
rior series which were formerly in use. This best
method becomes standard, and remains standard,
to be taught first to the teachers (or functional
foremen) and by them to every workman in the
establishment until it is superseded by a quicker
and better series of movements. In this simple
way one element after another of the science is
developed.

In the same way each type of implement used in
a trade is studied. Under the philosophy of the
management of ^^ initiative and incentive'' each work-
man is called upon to use his own best judgment,
so as to do the work in the quickest time, and from
this results in all cases a large variety in the shapes
and types of implements which are used for any
specific purpose. Scientific management requires,
first, a careful investigation of each of the many
modifications of the same implement, developed
under rule of thumb; and second, after a time study
has been made of the speed attainable with each
of these implements, that the good points of several
of them shall be united in a single standard imple-
ment, which will enable the workman to work faster
and with greater ease than he could before. This
one implement, then, is adopted as standard in
place of the many different kinds before in use,

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 119

and it remains standard for all workmen to use
until superseded by an implement which has been
shown, through motion and time study, to be still
better.

With this explanation it will be seen that the
development of a science to replace rule of thumb
is in most cases by no means a formidable under-
taking, and that it can be accomplished by ordinary,
every-day men without any elaboracte scientific train-
ing; but that, on the other hand, the successful use
of even the simplest improvement of this kind calls
for records, system, and cooperation where in the
past existed only individual effort.

There is another type of scientific investigation
which has been referred to several times in this
paper, and which should receive special attention,
namely, the accurate study of the motives which
influence men. At first it may appear that this is
a matter for individual observation and judgment,
and is not a proper subject for exact scientific experi-
ments. It is true that the laws which result from
experiments of this class, owing to the fact that the
very complex organism — the human being — is being
experimented with, are subject to a larger number
of exceptions than is the case with laws relating
to material things. And yet laws of this kind,
which apply to a large majority of men, unquestion-
ably exist, and when clearly defined are of great
value as a guide in dealing with men. In develop-
ing these laws, accurate, carefully planned and
executed experiments, extending through a term of

120 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

years, have been made, similar in a general way to
the experiments upon various other elements which
have been referred to in this paper.

Perhaps the most important law belonging to
this class, in its relation to scientific management,
is the effect which the task idea has upon the
efficiency of the workman. This, in fact, has
become such an important element of the mechanism
of scientific management, that by a great number of
people scientific management has come to be known
as ^Hask management/'

There is absolutely nothing new in the task idea.
Each one of us will remember that in his own case
this idea was applied with good results in his school-
boy days. No efficient teacher would think of giving
a class of students an indefinite lesson to learn. Each
day a definite, clear-cut task is set by the teacher
before each scholar, stating that he must learn just
so much of the subject; and it is only by this means
that proper, systematic progress can be made by
the students. The average boy would go very
slowly if, instead of being given a task, he were told
to do as much as he could. All of us are grown-up
children, and it is equally true that the average
workman will work with the greatest satisfaction,
both to himself and to his employer, when he is
given each day a definite task which he is to perform
in a given time, and which constitutes a proper
day's work for a good workman. This furnishes
the workman with a clear-cut standard, by which he
can throughout the day measure his own progress,

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 121

and the accomplishment of which affords him the
greatest satisfaction.

The writer has described in other papers a series
of experiments made upon workmen, which have
resulted in demonstrating the fact that it is impos-
sible, through any long period of time, to get work-
men to work much harder than the average men
around them, unless they are assured a large and
a permanent increase in their pay. This series of
experiments, however, also proved that plenty of
workmen can be found who are willing to work
at their best speed, provided they are given this
liberal increase in wages. The workman must,
however, be fully assured that this increase beyond
the average is to be permanent. Our experiments
have shown that the exact percentage of increase
required to make a workman work at his highest
speed depends upon the kind of work which the
man is doing.

It is absolutely necessary, then, when workmen
are daily given a task which calls for a high rate
of speed on their part, that they should also be
insured the necessary high rate of pay whenever
they are successful. This involves not only fixing
for each man his daily task, but also paying him a
large bonus, or premium, each time that he succeeds
in doing his task in the given time. It is difficult
to appreciate in full measure the help which the
proper use of these two elements is to the workman
in elevating him to the highest standard of efficiency
and speed in his trade, and then keeping him there.

122 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

unless one has seen first the old plan and afterward
the new tried upon the same man. And in fact
until one has seen similar accurate experiments
made upon various grades of workmen engaged in
doing widely different types of work. The remark-
able and almost uniformly good results from the cor-
reel application of the task and the bonus must be
seen to be appreciated.

These two elements, the task and the bonus
(which, as has been pointed out in previous papers,
can be applied in several ways), constitute two of
the most important elements of the mechanism of
scientific management. They are especially impor-
tant from the fact that they are, as it were, a climax,
demanding before they can be used almost all of
the other elements of the mechanism; such as a
planning department, accurate time study, standard-
ization of methods and implements, a routing system,
the training of functional foremen or teachers, and
in many cases instruction cards, slide-rules, etc.
(Referred to later in rather more detail on page 129.)

The necessity for systematically teaching work-
men how to work to the best advantage has been
several times referred to. It seems desirable, there-
fore, to explain in rather more detail how this teach-
ing is done. In the case of a machine-shop which
is managed under the modern system, detailed
written instructions as to the best way of doing
each piece of work are prepared in advance, by men
in the planning department. These instructions
represent the combined work of several men in

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 123

the planning room, each of whom has his own
specialty, or function. One of them, for instance, is
a speciaHst on the proper speeds and cutting tools
to be used. He uses the slide-rules which have been
above described as an aid, to guide him in obtaining
proper speeds, etc. Another man analyzes the best
and quickest motions to be made by the workman in
setting the work up in the machine and removing it,
etc. Still a third, through the time-study records
which have been accumulated, makes out a time-
table giving the proper speed for doing each element
of the work. The directions of all of these men,
however, are written on a single instruction card, or
sheet.

These men of necessity spend most of their time in
the planning department, because they must be close
to the records and data which they continually use
in their work, and because this work requires the
use of a desk and freedom from interruption. Human
nature is such, however, that many of the workmen,
if left to themselves, would pay but little attention
to their written instructions. It is necessary, there-
fore, to provide teachers (called functional fore-
men) to see that the workmen both understand
and carry out these written instructions.

Under functional management, the old-fashioned
single foreman is superseded by eight different men,
each one of whom has his own special duties, and
these men, acting as the agents for the planning
department (see paragraph 234 to 245 of the paper en-
titled ^'Shop Management '0; are the expert teachers,

124 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

who are at all times in the shop, helping and
directing the workmen. Being each one chosen for
his knowledge and personal skill in his specialty,
they are able not only to tell the workman what he
should do, but in case of necessity they do the work
themselves in the presence of the workman, so as
to show him not only the best but also the quickest
methods.

One of these teachers (called the inspector) sees
to it that he understands the drawings and instruc-
tions for doing the work. He teaches him how to
do work of the right quality; how to make it fine
and exact where it should be fine, and rough and
quick where accuracy is not required, — the one
being just as important for success as the other.
The second teacher (the gang boss) shows him how
to set up the job in his machine, and teaches him to
make all of his personal motions in the quickest and
best way. The third (the speed boss) sees that the
machine is run at the best speed and that the proper
tool is used in the particular way which will enable
the machine to finish its product in the shortest
possible time. In addition to the assistance given
by these teachers, the workman receives orders and
help from four other men; from the ''repair boss'*
as to the adjustment, cleanliness, and general
care of his machine, belting, etc.; from the ''time
clerk, 'V as to everything relating to his pay and to
proper written reports and returns; from the "route
clerk, ^' as to the order in which he does his work and
as to the movement of the work from one part of

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 125

the shop to another; and, in case a workman gets
into any trouble with any of his various bosses, the
^MiscipHnarian'^ interviews him.

It must be understood, of course, that all work-
men engaged on the sapie kind of work do not require
the same amount of individual teaching and atten-
tion from the functional foremen. The men who are
new at a given operation naturally require far more
teaching and watching than those who have been a
long time at the same kind of jobs.

Now, when through all of this teaching and this
minute instruction the work is apparently made so
smooth and easy for the workman, the first impres-
sion is that this all tends to make him a mere autom-
aton, a wooden man. As the workmen frequently
say when they first come under this s^^stem, ^^Why,
I am not allowed to think or move without some
one interfering or doing it for me!'^ The same criti-
cism and objection, however, can be raised against
all other modem subdivision of labor. It does not
follow, for example, that the modern surgeon is any
more narrow or wooden a man than the early settler
of this country. The frontiersman, however, had to
be not only a surgeon, but also an architect, house-
builder, lumberman, farmer, soldier, and doctor, and
he had to settle his law cases with a gun. You would
hardly say that the life of the modern surgeon is
any more narrowing, or that he is more of a wooden
man than the frontiersman. The many problems
to be met and solved by the surgeon are just
as intricate and difficult and as developing and

126 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

broadening in their way as were those of the fron-
tiersman.

And it should be remembered that the training
of the surgeon has been almost identical in type
with the teaching and training which is given to
the workman under scientific management. The
surgeon, all through his early years, is under the
closest supervision of more experienced men, who
show him in the minutest way how each element
of his work is best done. They provide him with
the finest implements, each one of which has been
the subject of special study and development, and
then insist upon his using each of these implements
in the very best way. All of this teaching, however,
in no way narrows him. On the contrary he is
quickly given the very best knowledge of his pre-
decessors; and, provided (as he is, right from the
start) with standard implements and methods which
represent the best knowledge of the world up to
date, he is able to use his own originality and inge-
nuity to make real additions to the world^s knowl-
edge, instead of reinventing things which are old.
In a similar way the workman who is cooperating
with his many teachers under scientific management
has an opportunity to develop which is at least as
good as and generally better than that which he had
when the whole problem was ^^up to him'' and he
did his work entirely unaided.

If it were true that the workman would develop
into a larger and finer man without all of this teach-
ing, and without the help of the laws which have

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 127

been formulated for doing his particular job, then
it would follow that the young man who now comes
to college to have the help of a teacher in mathe-
matics, physics, chemistry, Latin, Greek, etc., would
do better to study these things unaided and by
himself. The only difference in the two cases is
that students come to their teachers, while from the
nature of the work done by the mechanic under
scientific management, the teachers must go to him.
What really happens is that, with the aid of the
science which is invariably developed, and through
the instructions from his teachers, each workman
of a given intellectual capacity is enabled to do a
much higher, more interesting, and finally more
developing and more profitable kind of work than
he was before able to do. The laborer who before
was unable to do anything beyond, perhapS; shoveling
and wheeling dirt from place to place, or. carrying
the work from one part of the shop to another, is
in many cases taught to do the more elementary
machinist's work, accompanied by the agreeable sur-
roundings and the interesting variety and higher
wages which go with the machinist's trade. The
cheap machinist or helper, who before was able to
run perhaps merely a drill press, is taught to do the
more intricate and higher priced lathe and planer
work, while the highly skilled and more intelligent
machinists become functional foremen and teachers.
And so on, right up the line.

It may_^eem^-4hat--"with— Bcrerrtific'^lnaS
there is not the same incentive for the workman to

128 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

use his. ingenuity in devising new and better methods
of doing the workj _as well as in improving his imple-
ments, that there is with the old type of manage-
ment. It^Ts~ true that with scientific management
the worlanan i^_not^ aUowed^to use whatever imple-
ments andjnelhods^Jie -sefiSjEit in the daily practise

of hisJKQik.- Every encouragenimt JaQweYer, should

be given him to suggest improvements, both in
methods and in implements^ T^nd whenever a work-
man proposes an improvement, it should be the
policy of the management to make a careful analysis
of the new method, and if necessary conduct a series
of experiments to determine accurately the relative
merit of the new suggestion and of the old standard.
And whenever the new method is found to be
markedly superior to the old, it should be adopted
as the standard for the whole establishment. The
workman should be given the full credit for the
improvement, and should be paid a cash premium
as a reward for his ingenuity. In this way the true
initiative of the workmen is better attained under
scientific management than under the old individual
plan.

The history of the development of scientific
management up to date, however, calls for a word
of warning. The mechanism of management must
not be mistaken for its eiSsence. or~underlving
philosopEyT Precisely the same mechanism will in
one case produce disastrous results and in another
the most beneficent. The same mechanism which
will produce the finest results~when_made to serve

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 129

the underlying principles_of_scientific, management,
will lead_to.iailiirfi_and_d^ by

th^ wrong spirit inMbhose who^are using it. Hun-
dreds of people have already mistaken the mechan-
ism of this system for its essence. Messrs. Gantt,
Barth, and the writer have presented papers to the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers on the
subject of scientific management. In these papers
the mechanism which is used has been described at
some length. As plprnpntsj^f this Tnerihanism may
be cited:

Time study^^i^fch_ the implements and methods
for properly joaaking it.

Functional or divided foremanship and its
superiority to the old-fashioned single foreman.

The standardization of all tools and implements
used in the trades7~and also of the acts or move-
ments of workmen for each class of work.

The desirability ofajlanning room or depart-
ment.

The '' exception principle'^ in^ianagement.

The use of slid^e-rules and similar time-saving
implements.

Instruction cards for the workman.

The task idea in manageroent, accompanied by
a large bonus for the successful performance of the
task.

The '^ differential rate.''

Mnemonic systems for classifying manufactured
products as well as implements used in manu-
facturing.

130 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

A routing system.

Modern cost system, etc., etc.

These are, however, merely the elements or details
of the mechanism of management. Scientific man-
agemenjMii^its essence, consistsjof a certain philoso-
phy, which results, as before stated, in aTcombmation
of the~Tour^eanin3erlying principles oflnanage-
ment : ^

^WTien, however, the elements of this mechanism,
such as time study, functional foremanship, etc.,
are used without being accompanied by the true
philosophy of management, the results are in many
cases disastrous. And, unfortunately, even when
men who are thoroughly in sympathy~~mth"~"the
principles of scientific' 'maiiagemeiiL undertake to
change too ^apidly^ from the old~lype to the new,
without heeding^the warnings of those who have
had vears of experience in making this change,
they frequently meet with serious troubles, and
sometimes with strikes, followed by failure.

The writer, in his paper on ''Shop Management,^'
has called especial attention to the risks which
managers run in attempting to change rapidly from
the old to the new management. In many cases,
however, this warning has not been heeded. The
physical changes which are needed, the actual
time study which has to be made, the standardiza-
tion of all implements connected with the work,

* First. The development of a true science. Second. The scientific
selection of the workman. Third. His scientific education and develop-
ment. Fourth. Intimate friendly cooperation between the management
and the men.

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 131

the necessity for individually studying each machine
and placing it in perfect order, all take time, but
the faster these elements of the work are studied
and improved, the better for the undertaking. On
the other hand, the really great problem involved
in a change from the_management of '^inifiRtivft
and incentive^^ to scientifi.c.ma,na,gement-_cpnsists in
a complete^evolution in the mental attitude and
the habits of aIl_Qrytosajeiiga^e44n-the management,
as well of the workmen. And this change can be
brought abouT only gradually and through the presen-
tation of many object-lessons to the workman, which,
together with the teaching which "Tie receives,
thoroughly convince him of the superiority of the
new over the old way of doing the work. This
change in the mental attitude of the workman
imperatively demands time. It is impossible to
hurry it beyond a certain speed. The writer has
over and over again warned those who contemplated
making this change that it was a matter, even in a
simple establishment, of from two to three years,
and that in some cases it requires from four to five
years.

The first few changes which affect the workmen
should be made exceedingly slowly, and only one
workman at a time should be dealt with at the
start. Until this single man has been thoroughly
convinced that a great gain has come to him from
the new method, no further change should be made.
Then one man after another should be tactfully
changed over. After passing the point at which

132 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

from one-fourth to one-third of the men in the employ
of the company have been changed from the old to
the new, very rapid progress can be made, because
at about this time there is, generally, a complete
revolution in the pubhc opinion of the whole estab-
lishment and practically all of the workmen who
are working under the old system become desir-
ous to share in the benefits which they see have
been received by those working under the new
plan.

Inasmuch as the writer has personally retired from
the business of introducing this system of manage-
ment (that is, from all work done in return for any
money compensation), he does not hesitate again to
emphasize the fact that those companies are indeed
fortunate who can secure the services of experts
who have had the necessary practical experience in
introducing scientific management, and who have
made a special study of its principles. It is not
enough that a man should have been a manager
in an establishment which is run under the new
principles. The man who undertakes to direct the
steps to be taken in changing from the old to the
new (particularly in any establishment doing elab-
orate work) must have had personal experience in
overcoming the especial difficulties which are always
met with, and which are peculiar to this period of
transition. It is for this reason that the writer
expects to devote the rest of his life chiefly to try-
ing to help those who wish to take up this work as
their profession, and to advising the managers and

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 133

owners of companies in general as to the steps which
they should take in making this change.

As a warning to those who contemplate adopting
scientific management, the following instance is
given. Several men who lacked the extended experi-
ence which is required to change without danger
of strikes, or without interference with the success
of the business, from the management of ^^initia-
tive and incentive'^ to scientific management, at-
tempted rapidly to increase the output in quite an
elaborate establishment, employing between three
thousand and four thousand men. Those who un-
dertook to make this change were men of unusual
ability, and were at the same time enthusiasts and
I think had the interests of the workmen truly at
heart. They were, however, warned by the writer,
before starting, that they must go exceedingly slowly,
and that the work of making the change in this estab-
lishment could not be done in less than from three to
five years. This warning they entirely disregarded.
They evidently believed that by using much of the
mechanism of scientific management, in combination
with the principles of the management of ^'initiative
and incentive,'' instead of with the principles of
scientific management, that they could do, in a
year or two, what had been proved in the past to
require at least double this time. The knowledge
obtained from accurate time study, for example, is
a powerful implement, and can be used, in one case
to promote harmony between the workmen and the
management, by gradually educating, training, and

134 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

leading the workmen into new and better methods
of doing the work, or, in the other case, it may be
used more or less as a club to drive the workmen
into doing a larger day^s work for approximately
the same pay that they received in the past. Unfor-
tunately the men who had charge of this work did
not take the time and the trouble required to train
functional foremen, or teachers, who were fitted
gradually to lead and educate the workmen. They
attempted, through the old-style foreman, armed with
his new weapon (accurate time study), to drive the
workmen, against their wishes, and without much
increase in pay, to work much harder, instead of
gradually teaching and leading them toward new
methods, and convincing them through object-
lessons that task management means for them some-
what harder work, but also far greater prosperity.
The result of all this disregard of fundamental prin-
ciples was a series of strikes, followed by the down-
fall of the men who attempted to make the change,
and by a return to conditions throughout the estab-
lishment far worse than those which existed before
the effort was made.

This instance is cited as an object-lesson of the
futility of using the mechanism of the new manage-
ment while leaving out its essence, and also of trying
to shorten a necessarily long operation in entire
disregard of past experience. It should be empha-
sized that the men who undertook this work were
both able and earnest, and that failure was not due
to lack of ability on their part, but to their under-

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 135

taking to do the impossible. These particular men
will not again make a similar mistake, and it is
hoped that their experience may act as a warning
to others.

In this connection, however, it is proper to again
state that during the thirty years that we have been
engaged in introducing scientific management there
has not been a single strike from those who were
working in accordance with its principles, even
during the critical period when the change was
being made from the old to the new. If proper
methods are used by men who have had experience
in this work, there is absolutely no danger from
strikes or other troubles.

The writer would again insist that in no case
should the managers of an establishment, the work
of which is elaborate, undertake to change from the
old to the new type unless the directors of the com-
pany fully understand and believe in the funda-
mental principles of scientific management and unless
they appreciate all that is involved in making this
change, particularly the time required, and unless
they want scientific management greatly.

Doubtless some of those who are especially in-
terested in working men will complain because under
scientific management the workman, when he is
shown how to do twice as much work as he formerly
did, is not paid twice his former wages, while others
who are more interested in the dividends than the
workmen will complain that under this system the
men receive much higher wages than they did before.

136 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

It does seem grossly unjust when the bare state-
ment is made that the competent pig-iron handler,
for instance, who has been so trained that he piles
SiV times as much iron as the incompetent man
formerly did, should receive an increase of only
60 per cent, in wages.

It is not fair, however, to form any final judgment
until all of the elements in the case have been con-
sidered. At the first glance we see only two parties
to the transaction, the workmen and their employers.
We overlook the third great party, the whole people,
— the consumers, who buy the product of the first
two and who ultimately pay both the wages of the
workmen and the profits of the employers.

The rights of the people are therefore greater than
those of either employer or employe. And this
third great party should be given its proper share of
any gain. In fact, a glance at industrial history
shows that in the end the whole people receive the
greater part of the benefit coming from industrial
improvements. In the past hundred years, for
example, the greatest factor tending toward increas-
ing the output, and thereby the prosperity of the
civilized world, has been the introduction of machin-
ery to replace hand labor. And without doubt the
greatest gain through this change has come to the
whole people — the consumer.

Through short periods, especially in the case of
patented apparatus, the dividends of those who have
introduced new machinery have been greatly in-
creased, and in many cases, though unfortunately

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 137

not universally, the employes have obtained materi-
ally higher wages, shorter hours, and better working
conditions. But in the end the major part of the
gain has gone to the whole people.

And this result will follow the introduction of
scientific management just as surely as it has the
introduction of machinery.

To return to the case of the pig-iron handler. We
must assume, then, that the larger part of the gain
which has come from his great increase in output
will in the end go to the people in the form of cheaper
pig-iron. And before deciding upon how the balance
is to be divided between the workmen and the
employer, as to what is just and fair compensation
for the man who does the piling and what should be
left for the company as profit, we must look at the
matter from all sides.

First. As_jy-e-.h a. ve_-hef ore stated, the pig-iron
handler is not an extraordinary man difficult to find,
he is merely a man more or less of the type of the ox,
heavy both mentally and physically.

Second. The work which this man does tires him
no more than ajJy^EealSEylaQrmal- laborer is tired
by a"'"^roper day^s work^ XK this man is overtired
by his work, then the task has been wrongly set and
this is as far as possible from the object of scientific
management.)

Third. It was not due to this,. manls„lmiJ.aliye
or originality tlmtJie_dMJiiaJii^^
the knowledge of the science of pig-iron_Jiandling
developed and taught him by some one else.

138 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

Fourth, It is just and fair that men of the same
general grade (when their all-round capacities are
considered) should be paid_ab.out_jthe same wages
when they axe-^lIj^KQrkingJbo^the^ of their abilities.
(It would be grossly unjust to other laborers, for
instance, to pay this man SA as high wages as other
men of his general grade receive for an honest full
day's work.)

Fifth. As is explained (page 74), the 60 per cent,
increasejn^pay which JiejiecelYedj^as not the~Tesiilt
of an arbitrary judgment of a foreman or superin-
tendent, it was the result of a long series of careful
experiments impartially made to determine what
compensation is really for the man's true and best
interest when all things are considered.

Thus we see that the pig-iron handler with his
60 per cent, increase in wages is not an object for
pity but rather a subject for congratulation.

After all, however, facts are in many cases more
convincing than opinions or theories, and it is a
significant fact that those workmen who have come
under this system during the past thirty years have
invariably been satisfied with the increase in pay
which they have received, while their employers have
been equally pleased with their increase in dividends.

The writer is one of those who believes that more
and more will the third party (the whole people), as
it becomes acquainted with the true facts, insist
that justice shall be done to all three parties. It
will demand the largest efficiency from both em-
ployers and employes. It will no longer tolerate

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 139

the type of employer who has his eye on dividends
alone, who refuses to do his full share of the work
and who merely cracks his whip over the heads of
his workmen and attempts to drive them into harder
work for low pay. No more will it tolerate tyranny
on the part of labor which demands one increase
after another in pay and shorter hours while at the
same time it becomes less instead of more efficient.

And the means which the writer_^firinly believes
will be adopted to bring about, first, efficiency both
in eihployer~aiid'"'^mptg3^ and then an equiUbte
division of the profits of their joint efforts will be
scientitic management, wKich has for its sole aim
the attainment of justice for all three parties through"
impartial scientitic investigation of all the elements
of the problem^ FoiTaTTime both sides wTEPfebel
against this advance. The workers will resent any
interference with their old rule-of-thumb methods,
and the management will resent being asked to take
on new duties and burdens; but in the end the people
through enlightened public opinion will force the
new order of things upon both employer and em-
ploye.

It will doubtless be claimed that in all that has
been said no new fact has been brought to light
that was not known to some one in the past. Very
likely this is true. Scientific management does not
necessarily involve any great invention, nor the
discovery of new or startling facts. It does, how-
ever, involve a certain combination of elements
which have not existed in the past, namely, old

140 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

knowledge so collected, analyzed, grouped, and classi-
fied into laws and rules that it constitutes a science;
accompanied by a complete change in the mental
attitude of the working men as well as of those on
the side of the management, toward each other,
and toward their respective duties and responsi-
bilities. Also, a new division of the duties between
the two sides and intimate, friendly cooperation
to an extent that is impossible under the philosophy
of the old management. And even all of this in
many cases could not exist without the help of
mechanisms which have been gradually developed.
/ It is no single element, but rather this whole
combiriation7~Ehat constitutes scientific manage-
ment, which may be summarized as:

Science, not rule of thumb.

HalmonyT^LoFdiscbrd.

Cooperation, not individualism.

Maximum output, in place of restricted output.

The development __Qf_ each man to his greatest
efficj^icyLaTid prosperity.

The writer wishes to again state that: ^^The time
is fast going by for the great personal or individual
achievement of any one man standing alone and with-
out the help of those around him. And the time is
coming when all great things will be done by that
type of cooperation in which each man performs the
function for which he is best suited, each man pre-
serves his own individuality and is supreme in his
particular function, and each man at the same time
loses none of his originality and proper personal

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 141

initiative, and yet is controlled by and must work
harmoniously with many other men/^

The examples given above of the increase in out-
put realized under the new management fairly
represent the gain which is possible. They do not
represent extraordinary or exceptional cases, and
have been selected from among thousands of similar
illustrations which might have been given.

Let us now examine the good which would follow
the general adoption of these principles.

The larger profit would come to the whole world
in general. " '

The greatest material gain which those of the pres-
ent generation have over past generations has come
from the fact that thea^verage man in this generation,
with a given expenditure of effort, is prr ucing two
times, three times, even four times as ir ^h of those
things that are of use to man as it wr possible for
the average man in the past to produce. This
increase in the productivity of human effort is, of
course, due to many causes, besides the increase in
the personal dexterity of the man. It is due to
the discovery of steam and electricity, to the intro-
duction of machinery, to inventions, great and small,
and to the progress in science and education. But
from whatever cause this increase in productivity
has come, it is to the greater productivity of each
individual that the whole country owes its greater
prosperity.

Those who are afraid that a large increase in the
productivity of each workman will throw other men

142 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

out of work, should realize that the one element more
than any other which differentiates civilized from
uncivilized countries — prosperous from poverty-
stricken peoples — is that the average man in the
one is five or six times as productive as the other.
It is also a fact that the chief cause for the large per-
centage of the unemployed in England (perhaps the
most virile nation in the world), is that the workmen
of England, more than in any other civilized country,
are deliberately restrictingjheir output because they
are possessed by the fallacy that it is against their
best interesFfof e'acFnTaETtojTO

The general adoption of scientific management
would readily in the future double the productivity
of the average man engaged in industrial work.
Think of what this means to the whole country.
Think of the increase, both in the necessities and
luxuries of life, which becomes available for the whole
country, of the possibility of shortening the hours
of labor when this is desirable, and of the increased
opportunities for education, culture, and recreation
which this implies. But while the whole world
would profit by this increase in production, the
manufacturer and the workman will be far more
interested in the especial local gain that comes
to them and to the people immediately around them.
Scientific management will mean, for the employers
and the workmen who adopt it — and particularly
for those who adopt it first — the elimination of
almost all causes for dispute and disagreement
between them. What constitutes a fair day's work

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 143

will be a question for scientific investigation, instead
of a subject to be bargained and haggled over^
Soldiering will cease because the object for soldier-
ing will no longer exist. The great increase in wages
which accompanies this type of management will
largely eliminate the wage question as a source of
dispute. But more than all other causes, the close,
intimate cooperation, the constant personal con-
tact between the two sides, will tend to diminish
friction and discontent. It is difficult for two
people whose interests are the same, and who work
side by side in accomplishing the same object, all
day long, to keep up a quarrel.

The low cost of production which accompanies a
doubling of the output will enable the companies
who adopt this management, particularly those
who adopt it first, to compete far better than they
were able to before, and this will so enlarge their
markets that their men will have almost constant
work even in dull times, and that they will earn
larger profits at all times.

This means increase in prosperity and diminution
in poverty, not only for their men but for the whole
community immediately around them.

As one of the elements incident to this great gain
in output, each workman has been systematically
trained to his highest state of eflSciency, and has
been taught to do a higher class of work than he
was able to do under the old types of management;
and at the same time he has acquired a friendly
mental attitude toward his employers and his whole

144 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

working conditions, whereas before a considerable
part of his time was spent in criticism, suspicious
watchfulness, and sometimes in open warfare. This
direct gain to all of those working under the system
is without doubt the most important single element
in the whole problem.

Is not the realization of results such as these of
far more importance than the solution of most of
the problems which are now agitating both the
English and American peoples? And is it not the
duty of those who are acquainted with these facts,
to exert themselves to make the whole community
realize this importance?

The author is constantly in receipt of letters asking for a list
of the companies who are working under scientific management. It
would be highly improper to furnish any one with a list of this kind. Many
of those companies who have introduced scientific management would seri-
ously object to answering the letters which would be showered upon them
if such a list were given out. On the other hand, there are certain com-
panies who are willing to take the trouble to answer such letters.

To all of those who are sufficiently interested in scientific manage-
ment, the writer would most heartily extend an invitation to come to his
house when they are in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. He will be
glad to show them the details of scientific management as it is practised
in several establishments in Philadelphia. Inasmuch as the greater part
of the writer's time is given up to forwarding the cause of scientific manage-
ment, he regards visits of this sort as a privilege, rather than as an intrusion.

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