Shop Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor [most important books of all time .txt] 📗

straight piece work, (c) task work with

a bonus, and (d) differential piece work, has its especial field of

usefulness, and that in every large establishment doing a variety of

work all four of these plans can and should be used at the same time.

Three of these systems were in use at the Bethlehem Steel Company when

the writer left there, and the fourth would have soon been started if he

had remained.

 

Before leaving this part of the book which has been devoted to pointing

out the value of. the daily task in management, it would seem desirable

to give an illustration of the value of the differential rate piece work

and also of the desirability of making each task as simple and short as

practicable.

 

The writer quotes as follows from a paper entitled “A Piece Rate

System,” read by him before The American Society of Mechanical Engineers

in 1895:

 

“The first case in which a differential rate was applied during the year

1884, furnishes a good illustration of what can be accomplished by it. A

standard steel forging, many thousands of which are used each year, had

for several years been turned at the rate of from four to five per day

under the ordinary system of piece work, 50 cents per piece being the

price paid for the work. After analyzing the job, and determining the

shortest time required to do each of the elementary operations of which

it was composed, and then summing up the total, the writer became

convinced that it was possible to turn ten pieces a day. To finish the

forgings at this rate, however, the machinists were obliged to work at

their maximum pace from morning to night, and the lathes were run as

fast as the tools would allow, and under a heavy feed. Ordinary tempered

tools 1 inch by 1 1/2 inch, made of carbon tool steel, were used for

this work.

 

“It will be appreciated that this was a big day’s work, both for men and

machines, when it is understood that it involved removing, with a single

16-inch lathe, having two saddles, an average of more than 800 lbs of

steel chips in ten hours. In place of the 50 cent rate, that they had

been paid before, the men were given 35 cents per piece when they turned

them at the speed of 10 per day; and when they produced less than ten

they received only 25 cents per piece.

 

“It took considerable trouble to induce the men to turn at this high

speed, since they did not at first fully appreciate that it was the

intention of the firm to allow them to earn permanently at the rate of

$3.50 per day. But from the day they first turned ten pieces to the

present time, a period of more than ten years, the men who understood

their work have scarcely failed a single day to turn at this rate.

Throughout that time until the beginning of the recent fall in the scale

of wages throughout the country, the rate was not cut.

 

“During this whole period, the competitors of the company never

succeeded in averaging over half of this production per lathe, although

they knew and even saw what was being done at Midvale. They, however,

did not allow their men to earn from over $2.00 to $2.50 per day, and so

never even approached the maximum output.

 

“The following table will show the economy of paying high wages under

the differential rate in doing the above job:

 

“COST OF PRODUCTION PER LATHE PER DAY

 

ORDINARY SYSTEM OF PIECE WORK—Man’s wages $2.50 Machine cost 3.37 Total

cost per day 5.87 5 pieces produced; Cost per piece $1.17

 

DIFFERENTIAL RATE SYSTEM—Man’s wages $3.50 Machine cost 3.37 Total cost

per day 6.87 10 pieces produced; Cost per piece $0.69

 

“The above result was mostly though not entirely due to the

differential rate. The superior system of managing all of the small

details of the shop counted for considerable.”

 

The exceedingly dull times that began in July, 1893, and were

accompanied by a great fall in prices, rendered it necessary to lower

the wages of machinists throughout the country. The wages of the men in

A. the Midvale Steel Works were reduced at this time, and the change was

accepted by them as fair and just.

 

Throughout the works, however, the principle of the differential rate

was maintained, and was, and is still, fully appreciated by both the

management and men. Through some error at the time of the general

reduction of wages in 1893, the differential rate on the particular job

above referred to was removed, and a straight piece work rate of 25

cents per piece was substituted for it. The result of abandoning the

differential proved to be the best possible demonstration of its value.

Under straight piece work, the output immediately fell to between six

and eight pieces per day, and remained at this figure for several years,

although under the differential rate it had held throughout a long term

of years steadily at ten per day.

 

When work is to be repeated many times, the time study should be minute

and exact. Each job should be carefully subdivided into its elementary

operations, and each of these unit times should receive the most

thorough time study. In fixing the times for the tasks, and the piece

work rates on jobs of this class, the job should be subdivided into a

number of divisions, and a separate time and price assigned to each

division rather than to assign a single time and price for the whole

job. This should be done for several reasons, the most important of

which is that the average workman, in order to maintain a rapid pace,

should be given the opportunity of measuring his performance against the

task set him at frequent intervals. Many men are incapable of looking

very far ahead, but if they see a definite opportunity of earning so

many cents by working hard for so many minutes, they will avail

themselves of it.

 

As an illustration, the steel tires used on car wheels and locomotives

were originally turned in the Midvale Steel Works on piece work, a

single piecework rate being paid for all of the work which could be

done on a tire at a single setting. A fixed price was paid for this

work, whether there was much or little metal to be removed, and on the

average this price was fair to the men. The apparent advantage of fixing

a fair average rate was, that it made rate-fixing exceedingly simple,

and saved clerk work in the time, cost and record keeping.

 

A careful time study, however, convinced the writer that for the reasons

given above most of the men failed to do their best. In place of the

single rate and time for all of the work done at a setting, the writer

subdivided tire-turning into a number of short operations, and fixed a

proper time and price, varying for each small job, according to the

amount of metal to be removed, and the hardness and diameter of the

tire. The effect of this subdivision was to increase the output, with

the same men, methods, and machines, at least thirty-three per cent.

 

As an illustration of the minuteness of this subdivision, an instruction

card similar to the one used is reproduced in Figure 1 on the next page.

(This card was about 7 inches long by 4 inches wide.)

 

[Transcriber’s note — Figure 1 not shown]

 

The cost of the additional clerk work involved in this change was so

insignificant that it practically did not affect the problem. This

principle of short tasks in tire turning was introduced by the writer in

the Midvale Steel Works in 1883 and is still in full use there, having

survived the test of over twenty years’ trial with a change of

management.

 

In another establishment a differential rate was applied to tire

turning, with operations subdivided in this way, by adding fifteen per

cent to the pay of each tire turner whenever his daily or weekly piece

work earnings passed a given figure.

 

Another illustration of the application of this principle of measuring a

man’s performance against a given task at frequent intervals to an

entirely different line of work may be of interest. For this purpose the

writer chooses the manufacture of bicycle balls in the works of the

Symonds Rolling Machine Company, in Fitchburg, Mass. All of the work

done in this factory was subjected to an accurate time study, and then

was changed from day to piece work, through the assistance of functional

foreman ship, etc. The particular operation to be described however, is

that of inspecting bicycle balls before they were finally boxed for

shipment. Many millions of these balls were inspected annually. When the

writer undertook to systematize this work, the factory had been running

for eight or ten years on ordinary day work, so that the various

employees were “old hands,” and skilled at their jobs. The work of

inspection was done entirely by girls—about one hundred and twenty

being employed at it—all on day work.

 

This work consisted briefly in placing a row of small polished 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, with

the aid of a magnet held in the right hand, they were minutely examined

in a strong light, and the defective balls picked out and thrown into

especial boxes. Four kinds of defects were looked for—dented, soft,

scratched, and fire cracked—and they were mostly 50 minute as to be

invisible to an eye not especially trained to this work. It required the

closest attention and concentration. The girls had worked on day work

for years, ten and one-half hours per day, with a Saturday half-holiday.

 

The first move before in any way stimulating them toward a larger output

was to insure against a falling off in quality. This was accomplished

through over-inspection. Four of the most trustworthy girls were given

each a lot of balls which had been examined the day before by one of the

regular inspectors. The number identifying the lot having been changed

by the foreman so that none of the over-inspectors knew whose work they

were examining. In addition, 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 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 number of defective balls of each

kind. The inspectors had no means of distinguishing this lot from the

regular commercial lots. And in this way all temptation to slight their

work or make false returns was removed.

 

After insuring in this way against deterioration in quality, effective

means were at once adopted to increase the output. Improved day work was

substituted for the old slipshod method. An accurate daily record, both

as to quantity and quality, was kept for each inspector. In a

comparatively short time this 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, at the same time lowering the pay of

those who fell short, and discharging others who proved to be

incorrigibly slow or careless. An accurate time study was made through

the use of a stop watch and record blanks, to determine how fast each

kind of inspection should be done. This showed that