Shop Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor [most important books of all time .txt] 📗
- Author: Frederick Winslow Taylor
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qualities necessary to perform all of the duties demanded of those men
has been clearly summarized in the following list of the nine qualities
which go to make up a well rounded man:
Brains.
Education.
Special or technical knowledge; manual dexterity or strength.
Tact.
Energy.
Grit.
Honesty.
Judgment or common sense and
Good health.
Plenty of men who possess only three of the above qualities can be hired
at any time for laborers’ wages. Add four of these qualities together
and you get a higher priced man. The man combining five of these
qualities begins to be hard to find, and those with six, seven, and
eight are almost impossible to get. Having this fact in mind, let us go
over the duties which a gang boss in charge, say, of lathes or planers,
is called upon to perform, and note the knowledge and qualities which
they call for. First. He must be a good machinist—and this alone calls
for years of special training, and limits the choice to a comparatively
small class of men.
Second. He must be able to read drawings readily, and have sufficient
imagination to see the work in its finished state clearly before him.
This calls for at least a certain amount of brains and education.
Third. He must plan ahead and see that the right jigs, clamps, and
appliances, as well as proper cutting tools, are on hand, and are used
to set the work correctly in the machine and cut the metal at the right
speed and feed. This calls for the ability to concentrate the mind upon
a multitude of small details, and take pains with little, uninteresting
things.
Fourth. He must see that each man keeps his machine clean and in good
order. This calls for the example of a man who is naturally neat and
orderly himself.
Fifth. He must see that each man turns out work of the proper quality.
This calls for the conservative judgment and the honesty which are the
qualities of a good inspector.
Sixth. He must see that the men under him work steadily and fast. To
accomplish this he should himself be a hustler, a man of energy, ready
to pitch in and infuse life into his men by working faster than they do,
and this quality is rarely combined with the painstaking care, the
neatness and the conservative judgment demanded as the third, fourth,
and fifth requirements of a gang boss.
Seventh. He must constantly look ahead over the whole field of work and
see that the parts go to the machines in their proper sequence, and that
the right job gets to each machine.
Eighth. He must, at least in a general way, supervise the timekeeping
and fix piece work rates. Both the seventh and eighth duties call for a
certain amount of clerical work and ability, and this class of work is
almost always repugnant to the man suited to active executive work, and
difficult for him to do; and the rate-fixing alone requires the whole
time and careful study of a man especially suited to its minute detail.
Ninth. He must discipline the men under him, and readjust their wages;
and these duties call for judgment, tact, and judicial fairness.
It is evident, then, that the duties which the ordinary gang boss is
called upon to perform would demand of him a large proportion of the
nine attributes mentioned above; and if such a man could be found he
should be made manager or superintendent of a works instead of gang
boss. However, bearing in mind the fact that plenty of men can be had
who combine four or five of these attributes, it becomes evident that
the work of management should be so subdivided that the various
positions can be filled by men of this caliber, and a great part of the
art of management undoubtedly lies in planning the work in this way.
This can, in the judgment of the writer, be best accomplished by
abandoning the military type of organization and introducing two broad
and sweeping changes in the art of management:
(a) As far as possible the workmen, as well as the gang bosses and
foremen, should be entirely relieved of the work of planning, and of all
work which is more or less clerical in its nature. All possible brain
work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or
laying-out department, leaving for the foremen and gang bosses work
strictly executive in its nature. Their duties should be to see that the
operations planned and directed from the planning room are promptly
carried out in the shop. Their time should be spent with the men,
teaching them to think ahead, and leading and instructing them in their
work.
(b) Throughout the whole field of management the military type of
organization should be abandoned, and what may be called the’
“functional type” substituted in its place. “Functional management”
consists in so dividing the work of management that each man from the
assistant superintendent down shall have as few functions as possible to
perform. If practicable the work of each man in the management should be
confined to the performance of a single leading function. Under the
ordinary or military type, the workmen are divided into groups. The men
in each group receive their orders from one man only, the foreman or
gang boss of that group. This man is the single agent through which the
various functions of the management are brought into contact with the
men. Certainly the most marked outward characteristic of functional
management lies in the fact that each workman, instead of coming in
direct contact with the management at one point only, namely, through
his gang boss, receives his daily orders and help directly from eight
different bosses, each of whom performs his own particular function.
Four of these bosses are in the planning room and of these three send
their orders to and receive their returns from the men, usually in
writing. Four others are in the shop and personally help the men in
their work, each boss helping in his own particular `line or function
only. Some of these bosses come in contact with each man only once or
twice a day and then for a few minutes perhaps, while others are with
the men all the time, and help each man frequently. The functions of one
or two of these bosses require them to come in contact with each workman
for so short a time each day that they can perform their particular
duties perhaps for all of the men in the shop, and in their line they
manage the entire shop. Other bosses are called upon to help their men
so much and so often that each boss can perform his function for but a
few men, and in this particular line a number of bosses are required,
all performing the same function but each having his particular group of
men to help. Thus the grouping of the men in the shop is entirely
changed, each workman belonging to eight different groups according to
the particular functional boss whom he happens to be working under at
the moment.
The following is a brief description of the duties of the four types of
executive functional bosses which the writer has found it profitable to
use in the active work of the shop: (1) gang bosses, (2) speed bosses,
(3) inspectors, and (4) repair bosses.
The gang boss has charge of the preparation of all work up to the time
that the piece is set in the machine. It is his duty to see that every
man under him has at all times at least one piece of work ahead at his
machine, with all the jigs, templates, drawings, driving mechanism,
sling chains, etc., ready to go into his machine as soon as the piece he
is actually working on is done. The gang boss must show his men how to
set their work in their machines in the quickest time, and see that they
do it. He is responsible for the work being accurately and quickly set,
and should be not only able but willing to pitch in himself and show the
men how to set the work in record time.
The speed boss must see that the proper cutting tools are used for each
piece of work, that the work is properly driven, that the cuts are
started in the right part of the piece, and that the best speeds and
feeds and depth of cut are used. His work begins only after the piece is
in the lathe or planer, and ends when the actual machining ends. The
speed boss must not only advise his men how best to do this work, but he
must see that they do it in the quickest time, and that they use the
speeds and feeds and depth of cut as directed on the instruction card In
many cases he is called upon to demonstrate that the work can be done in
the specified time by doing it himself in the presence of his men.
The inspector is responsible for the quality of the work, and both the
workmen and speed bosses must see that the work is all finished to suit
him. This man can, of course, do his work best if he is a master of the
art of finishing work both well and quickly.
The repair boss sees that each workman keeps his machine clean, free
from rust and scratches, and that he oils and treats it properly, and
that all of the standards established for the care and maintenance of
the machines and their accessories are rigidly maintained, such as care
of belts and shifters, cleanliness of floor around machines, and orderly
piling and disposition of work.
The following is an outline of the duties of the four functional bosses
who are located in the planning room, and who in their various functions
represent the department in its connection with the men. The first three
of these send their directions to and receive their returns from the
men, mainly in writing. These four representatives of the planning
department are, the (1) order of work and route clerk, (2) instruction
card clerk, (3) time and cost clerk, and (4) shop disciplinarian.
Order of Work and Route Clerk. After the route clerk in the planning
department has laid out the exact route which each piece of work is to
travel through the shop from machine to machine in order that it may be
finished at the time it is needed for assembling, and the work done in
the most economical way, the order of work clerk daily writes lists
instructing the workmen and also all of the executive shop bosses as to
the exact order in which the work is to be done by each class of
machines or men, and these lists constitute the chief means for
directing the workmen in this particular function.
Instruction Card Clerks. The “instruction card,” as its name indicates,
is the chief means employed by the planning department for instructing
both the executive bosses and the men in all of the details of their
work. It tells them briefly the general and detail drawing to refer to,
the piece number and the cost order number to charge the work to, the
special jigs, fixtures, or tools to use, where to start each cut, the
exact depth of each cut, and how many cuts to take, the speed and feed
to be used for each cut, and the time within which each operation must
be finished. It also informs them as to the piece rate, the differential
rate, or the premium to be paid for completing the task within
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