Fundamental sources of efficiency

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Preface

The present work is an attempt to analyze the various forms and sources of efficiency into a few elemental principles. It is felt that the study of such primal elements will not only aid in the mastery of efficiency in a given field, but will prevent this important idea from assuming a narrow meaning and thus leading to limited or even, in some respects, harmful results.

The above treatment of the subject also facilitates, on the one hand, the use of efficiency principles in all the various details of work and experience and, on the other, their application in the formation of a general philosophy of life.

While the book has been cast in a form adapted to general reading, groups of exercises have been inserted which, it is hoped, will add to its value if it is used as a textbook in any institution where the principles of efficiency are taught either generally or in any specific field.

It is also believed that such a presentation of the principles of efficiency may throw light on the problem of vocational and cultural studies, and perhaps suggest how the study of the principles of efficiency, as such, may be made a central study in educational systems, helping to give both vocational and cultural values to other more conventional studies.

The leading ideas contained in this book were suggested to the author when reading the philosophy of Herbert Spencer more than twenty years ago. The importance of investigating the elements which constitute fitness, that is, efficiency, becomes evident as soon as the principle of the survival of the fittest is recognized. While all the principal ideas in the book were thus arrived at before the present energetic movement toward efficiency in more or less concrete fields arose, new light and many important details have been obtained from a reading of the publications of the Efficiency Society, and the works of writers like F. W. Taylor, Harrington Emerson, and Hugo Miinsterburg.

The writer wishes to express his indebtedness to Ida Kruse McFarlane and Charles William Cuno of the Department of Efficiency, University of Denver, who have kindly read the manuscript and made important suggestions concerning the same.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. DEFINITIONS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES i

II. REUSE 15

Chapter I

PRELIMINARY SURVEY. DEFINITIONS

Recent Advances in Efficiency

In the year 1900 a competent authority estimated that the cost, of unskilled labor, such as digging dirt and carrying burdens, when done by man unaided, was one thousand times as great as the cost: of the same labor when done by the aid of the best steam engines. But even since that statement was made, there has been remarkableprogress. For instance the Diesel oil and tar engine, which is three, or under some circumstances four times as efficient as the steam engine, has been invented and come into use.

When he was a young man Harrington Emerson, on one occasion, had an opportunity to watch the work of digging the Suez Canal. He thus describes the crude way in which part of the digging was being done : "Many of the workers were girls digging up the sand with their hands, throwing it into the rush basket each had woven for herself, lifting the baskets to their heads, and carrying the load of 20 or 30 pounds a hundred feet up the bank and dumping it." He calls attention to the contrast of this method of excavating and removing earth with that used in digging the Panama Canal. At the latter place the digging has been done almost entirely by steam scoops, each lifting two or more cubic yards of dirt at a single stroke. The earth has, in some cases, been removed for twenty miles by trains of cars, and the tracks on which these cars ran, when a change in their position became necessary, were moved in large sections at a single operation. Yet in the highly efficient process of digging the Panama Canal, many improvements were made from time to time. It was estimated that in this work in the year 1912 a ton of dynamite was twice as effective as in the year 1908.

Nor has the advance in the efficiency of skilled labor been less noteworthy than that in such crude and fundamental work as digging dirt. For instance in the weaving of cotton fabrics, the use of power machinery has increased the efficiency of a workman at least eightfold.

Primitive methods of agriculture, as compared with hunting and fishing, increase the productivity of the land 200 times. Here again, the use of machinery and other improved methods have greatly increased the efficiency of man's labor. Thus "between the years 1830 and 1896 the time of human labor required for the production of a bushel of wheat was reduced from three hours to ten minutes, and the cost of the human labor to produce this bushel declined from 17% cents to 3^2 cents".

In the year 1866 the death rate of New York City was 34 per thousand; in the year 1912 this rate had been reduced to 14.1 per thousand. This means that twelve years have been added to the length of the average human life in that city. Similar illustrations might be given of increased efficiency in the various other departments of human activity.

Opportunities for Further Increases in Efficiency

In spite of the large advances which have been made, even a slight examination shows that opportunities exist for large extensions of the efficiencies which have been mentioned. Even in the Diesel engine nearly two thirds of the fuel energy is wasted. Owing to losses in mining coal, and in converting coal energy into electric light, only a little over one half of 1 per cent of the energy latent in coal as it lies in the ground is utilized by man in using coal as a source of light.

In the fundamental industry of. agriculture, an efficiency expert like Harrington Emerson estimates the farms in the United States as about 30 per cent efficient. At the Conservation Congress in the year 191 1, the statement was made that one-third of the barnyard manure in the United States is wasted, and that this means an annual loss of $800,000,000. In the World's Work in the year 1906, it was stated that "all authorities are now agreed that we might double the yield of our principal crops". In his address to the Pennsylvania Pilgrims, May 1913, President Van Hise of the University of Wisconsin said : "We know enough about agriculture so that the agricultural production of the country could be doubled if the knowledge were applied. We know enough about disease so that if the knowledge were utilized infectious and contagious disease would be substantially destroyed in the United States — and that within a score of years. We know enough about eugenics so that if the knowledge were applied the defective classes would disap-

PRELIMINARY SURVEY 3

pear within a generation. Similarly in other fields our knowledge has expanded far beyond utilization."

Growing Need of Increased Efficiency

Not only do opportunities for increased efficiency thus exist, but there is also an increasing need for the development and application of such methods. On February 14, 1912, President Taft signed the bill for the admission of Arizona as the forty-eighth and last state in the Union. Henceforth the people .of the United States must look forward primarily, not to new territory, but to the best possible use of the resources now in their possession. The same principles apply essentially to the world as a whole. The leading nations have explored and taken possession of all the productive parts of the earth's surface. By the use of steel and electricity this process has recently been brought to a conclusion with great suddenness. Henceforth the law of the survival of the fittest will have a new and more crushing power.

Increasing Value of Efficiency

On the other hand improved methods of efficiency will now have an ever increasing value for those who know how to master and apply them. Of the 110,000 species of flowering plants known to exist in the world, less than 1 per cent have been studied in any adequate way and reduced to man's service. The non-flowering plants and the animal life of the world has been studied and utilized in an even smaller degree. Quite as great is the wealth which man can make by his own exertions. Thus in the field of chemistry, between the years 1883 and 1900 the number of carbon compounds increased from 16,000 to 67,000. As yet but few of these products have been fully studied and employed. Humus, because it improves the texture of the soil, conserves moisture, supplies food to the growing plant, and is the home of the nitrogen fixating bacteria, is one of the most important elements in agriculture. Yet notwithstanding the vast and manifold investigations of science, the Encyclopedia Brittanica says concerning humus, "little is known with regard to its chemical constitution". Hence man's knowledge of the most efficient way to use humus is correspondingly limited, and an important field here lies open by which to obtain new power.

Improved methods of travel and communication bring each of the world's inhabitants into ever closer touch with its artistic treasures, its literature, scenery, and history. Without proper methods for its mastery, the vast mass of culture wealth thus made accessible, may become a burden or even a danger. With adequately developed methods of assimilation, it becomes a near and instant wealth to every person.

Hence supreme need and supreme opportunity alike spur on mankind to a study of the science, art, and philosophy of achieving results. It is desirable to analyze the concept of efficiency until primal units of it are obtained which can be used in many ways each day by the individual person, can be taught in the schools, and developed into elaborate systems.

DEFINITIONS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES Definition of Efficiency

An efficient process is one in which the available results exceed the expenditure. Thus if a farmer expends $1000 in raising a crop and receives $1500 for the crop, his work may be said to be efficient.

Efficiency is the property of being efficient: that is, of producing results in excess of expenditures.

The degree of efficiency of a process is the ratio of the available result of the process to the expenditure. Thus in the above illustration the degree of efficiency is $1500 -^ $1000, or 3/2. Often "degree of efficiency" is shortened' to "efficiency", as when we say that the efficiency of a process is 2, or twofold.

In case the degree of efficiency is less than one or unity, the given process is one of loss or waste. Thus if a farmer spends $1000 in raising a crop of wheat and receives only $800 for the crop, the efficiency of the process is the fraction 4/5, serving to indicate the degree of loss involved.

Principal Kinds of Efficiency

Relative efficiency is the degree of efficiency in a process in comparison with the efficiency in a like process taken as standard. Thus if land which should produce 32 bushels of wheat per acre is being made to yield only 24 bushels per acre, the efficiency of the process of agriculture involved is 75 per cent. Or if one farmer raises 20 bushels of wheat per acre while another farmer raises 24 bushels per acre on the same kind of land the efficiency of the second farmer as compared with the first is 24 -r- 20, or 6/5.

In comparison with relative efficiency the first definition of efficiency given is a definition of absolute or independent efficiency.

A case of homogeneous efficiency is one in which the material expended and the results obtained are of the same kind. Illustrations are the expenditure of money to obtain more money; or the planting of grain to procure more grain of the same kind; or the sacrifice of present happiness to obtain more happiness in the future.

A case of heterogeneous efficiency is one in which the output obtained is different in kind from the material expended. Particular instances are the burning of coal to produce light, or the taking of strychnine in small doses to improve one's health.

It is important to note that the degree of a case of heterogeneous efficiency cannot be expressed or measured directly. For the quantities compared in any ratio must be of the same kind. Thus bushels cannot be divided by dollars, nor light by coal, nor health by arsenic. Two ways, however, exist by one or both of which the degree of a case of heterogeneous efficiency may usually be expressed. The first of these methods consists in transforming the given case into one of homogeneous efficiency and then treating the result directly. Thus if money is expended to produce wheat which is consumed on the farm and thereby results in health and happiness the process is heterogeneous ; but if the wheat crop, instead of being consumed on the farm, is converted into money, the process becomes homogeneous and its efficiency can be expressed as the ratio of the sum of money received to that expended. Similarly if the money received from the sale of light be compared with that expended in producing the light, the efficiency involved is determined numerically.

The second method of measuring heterogeneous efficiency is that of expressing the efficiency in the relative form ; that is, comparing the output in a given case with that in another case where the expenditure is the same, the latter case being taken as a standard. Thus if the burning of a ton of coal will produce a given number of units of light in one case, but will produce twice as many units in another case, in the latter case the fuel efficiency is twice what it is in the former. Or, to look at the matter from a somewhat different point of view, if a given current of electricity on passing through tungsten filaments will produce 2^ times as much light as when passing through carbon filaments, the efficiency of the tungsten filament is said to be 2 J /> times that of the carbon. Similarly if a given area of land will support two persons who live by hunting and fishing, but when used agriculturally will support 300 persons, the efficiency of the agricultural use of the land as compared with its use for hunting is 150.

Qualitative Efficiency

In some cases the results of a process are so abstract or complex that it is not possible to reduce them to a numerical basis. Instances are the expenditure of money to procure health or to save life. This abstractness or complexity may characterize either the expenditure or the results or both of these. As illustrations we have the sacrifice of home associations in order to make money in a foreign land, or of health in order to obtain an education and power of social service. Hence we may say in general that qualitative (or mass) efficiency is efficiency whose existence is evident but which cannot be expressed in an exact numerical form on account of the abstractness or complexity of some of the elements involved.

Efficiency Relative to an Ideal

Certain important cases of relative efficiency call for special mention.

The first is efficiency relative to an ideal or perfect standard. Thus a perfect steam engine would be one which converts all the energy latent in the coal consumed by it, into mechanical power. No steam engine, however, can convert more than 18 per cent of its fuel into power. Hence the fuel efficiency of a steam engine cannot exceed 18 per cent. That of a small steam engine is frequently as low as i per cent. There are indications that the amount of sugar in a sugar beet cannot be made to exceed about 17.5 per cent. A further increase seems to cause the vegetative processes of the beet to degenerate and the whole organism to decay. If this view of the matter is correct, with respect to the ideal beet the degree of efficiency in a beet containing 10.5 per cent of sugar is 10.5 -r- 17.5, or 60 per cent. Similarly if a pupil solves 8 problems out of 10 on an examination paper, his efficiency is .80 with respect to the ideal which consists of solving all of the problems.

Bogey and Competitive Efficiency

The second form of relative efficiency is that with respect to some degree of efficiency taken as normal, or "bogey", under given conditions. Thus if the thoroughly trained and equipped but average workman is able to lay 2800 bricks per day, a workman who lays 2240 bricks has an efficiency of 80 per cent; while one who lays 3220 bricks has an efficiency of 115 per cent. This kind of efficiency may be termed bogey efficiency.

In the third place we have what may be termed competitive efficiency. By this is meant the degree of one's efficiency in comparison with that of one's immediate competitors. Thus if with a given outlay of time and money one farmer produces only 1000 quarts of milk while his neighbors, with the same outlay, produce 1500, the competitive efficiency of the first farmer is 66}i per cent. It is to be noted that the competitors involved in a given case may fall below, equal, or exceed bogey efficiency. The importance of the matter lies in the fact that, when a man's competitive efficiency is small, he may be undersold, driven from business, or ruined commercially. Efficiency of this kind which does not reach a certain standard, is therefore often called inefficiency or absolute failure. Competitive efficiency is recognized in such statements as "He has made good", or "This is worth while".

Economy

Cases of efficiency may be relative in other ways as with respect to the emphasis laid on expenditure or on output. For instance, in a given case, it may be desirable to strive for that form of efficiency which consists of diminishing the cost instead of that which is characterized by an increase in the output. This form of efficiency is usually termed economy. Or, in general,

Economy is a form of efficiency in which the output compared with that in a standard case is unchanged but the expenditure is diminished. Thus if a farmer who has been raising 1000 bushels of wheat at a cost of $470 is enabled in a later year to produce this same amount of wheat at a cost of $360, the process is primarily one of economy. Hence, in general, efficiency means primarily an increase in results ; economy, a diminution in expenses. Economy is thus the inverse of efficiency. The proverb "A dollar saved is a dollar made" illustrates the fact that economy and efficiency are two aspects of the same thing.

It is frequently convenient to treat cases of relative efficiency as cases of relative economy; that is, to estimate degrees of efficiency by a comparison of costs instead of outputs. This is illustrated by comparing the cost of raising a bushel of wheat on one farm with that on another. For example if one farmer raises a bushel of wheat at a cost of 48 cents and his neighbor at a cost of 40 cents, the efficiency of the first as compared with the second is !$> or i > or 83 Ms per cent. It is to be carefully noted that in forming •this ratio, the two costs are compared in the inverse order from that used in determining the degree of efficiency by a comparison of two outputs.

Infinite Efficiency

Important cases of efficiency are those in which the degree of efficiency is immeasurably large (or infinite). As examples we have all those cases where what is valueless when treated in one way becomes useful when treated in some other way. For instance some forms of lignite when burned directly are valueless for power generating purposes, but become valuable when converted into gas and used in a gas engine. Other and still more important cases are those of the conversion of loss, waste, or defeat into results having a positive value. An instance is that of saving life in a case where death has hitherto resulted uniformly, as in certain kinds of surgical operations. Another instance of infinite efficiency is that of using two points to represent a straight line, or of the drawings called a plan and elevation to represent a building.

Terms related to Efficiency

Usefulness means efficiency regarded as a broad qualitative fact and with but slight emphasis on the quantitative elements involved.

Utility is the same as usefulness except that in utility results are usually more concrete, or more definitely realized.

Efficacy (or effectiveness) is a form of efficiency in which emphasis is laid on the complete attainment of a specified end, comparatively small attention being paid to the cost involved.

It is convenient at times to denote cases of waste or loss by the term negative efficiency.

Knowledge of Equivalence an Aid to Efficiency

Before concluding the discussion of cases of relative efficiency, a word should be said as to the relation of efficiency processes to the equivalence or invariant processes with which they are associated. In certain respects the results of a process must be equivalent to the data involved. Thus by the laws of the conservation of energy and of matter, the amount of force and of matter in the entire results of a process cannot differ from those in the data. Nevertheless in a given case the amount of those results, which are usable or available for a given purpose, may differ from the amount available in the data. Thus when a given amount of food is fed to one kind of cow, more milk is often obtained than when the same amount of food is fed to another variety of cow. In the present investigation we take this principle of profitable non-equivalence between datum and result in certain processes as a fact or axiom and try to take the utmost advantage of it. In the course of our investigation we shall find that equivalence laws and facts are useful in obtaining efficiency results. An illustration is the fact that when coal is burned under the boiler of a steam engine only 15 per cent of the power latent in the coal is converted into mechanical energy, the rest being lost as friction in parts of the engine, or as heat which passes up the chimney, or radiates from the parts of the engine. If, however, the coal is first converted into gas and then used in a gas engine, the amount of useful energy obtained is often increased threefold. A knowledge of the equivalences concerned has been an important aid in obtaining this more efficient result.

COMPLEX CASES OF EFFICIENCY

Efficiency Factors Acting in Succession

An efficiency process may often be separated into a number of parts acting in succession, each part acting upon the results of a preceding part. The resultant efficiency of all the parts is then obtained by taking the product of the respective efficiencies of the different parts. By way of illustration we may consider a metal cutting machine which has been run for 5 hours per day at a speed of 10 revolutions per minute and which does its cutting by means of a fine diamond point. If the machine is afterwards run 8 hours per day with a speed of 45 revolutions per minute and a round nose tool with a cutting end 10 times as wide as the diamond point is used for the cutting, the efficiency elements of time, speed, and width of cut are increased 8/5, 9/2, and tenfold respectively. Hence the efficiency of the new process, as compared with that of the old, is f X f X 10, or 72. When elements of efficiency are combined in this way, they may be regarded as acting tandem and the resultant obtained called tandem or multiplicative efficiency.

Parallel Efficiency Factors

In other cases of resultant efficiency the elements concerned act parallel to each other, and the degree of efficiency in the process as a whole is equal to the average degree of efficiency of the components. Thus if a farmer is raising four crops at the same time, all of equal importance, and their respective efficiencies are .80, .90, .86, .92, his efficiency for the year is the average of these rates, or .87. In the same way the efficiency of a student is sometimes determined

I0 SOURCES OF EFFICIENCY

by his average grade in all the subjects pursued by him. If however the elements involved in a given case are of unequal importance, to obtain the resultant efficiency it is necessary to multiply each elemental efficiency by a number which indicates its weight or importance, to take the sum of all the products and divide the sum obtained by the sum of all the weights. Thus if the respective efficiencies of four crops raised by a farmer are .60, .90, .80, .71, and the second and third crops are each twice, and the last three times as important as the first, his resultant efficiency is jg±^><^g|g±3X7g Qr ??m

Tandem and Parallel Efficiencies Combined

In is evident that mixed cases of efficiency also occur, in the sense that some of the elements involved act in tandem or multiplicative fashion in whole or part, and others are parallel or additive in relation. For instance while the chief crops of a farmer during a given year may be developed in parallel fashion, the operations involved in raising one or more of the crops may act in multiplicative succession. Thus the manner of preparing the seed bed affects the development of the seed, care and efficiency in selecting the seed influence all later processes, and so on. Also if the crops are rotated from year to year the efficiency of any one crop influences the efficiency of the crops which follow in succeeding years. This may also result in certain multiplicative cross relations during any one year. Thus large hay and corn crops will supply feed for many cattle which in turn will supply a larger amount of fertilizer for several later crops.

Another Method of Analyzing Efficiency Processes

Emphasis should be laid in this connection on what is for our purpose a still more important method of analyzing an efficiency process into constituent elements. To illustrate this method we take the case of a particular crop raised by a farmer, as a crop of wheat. The agriculturist obtains efficiency in preparing the seed bed of the crop by several distinct means one of which, for instance, is the group principle in the form of the gang plow and also of the extra wide harrow. The group as a source of efficiency is also found in the drill used in sowing the seed, and in the reaper used in harvesting the grain. In some form, often in several forms, it is an aid in the efficient marketing of the crop. Other general primal efficiency principles are at work in the various concrete divisions of

DEFINITIONS II

the process which have been enumerated. Even the division of the process into such parts as fertilizing the ground, preparing the seed bed, planting the seed, etc., for separate study, is an application of one of these primary principles, viz. : that of the use of units, or of diversity. Owing to their fundamental and inclusive nature, a thorough grasp of these primal efficiency agencies will mean increased efficiency in the various departments of life. These primary efficiency principles will be taken up one by one in chapters which follow and each investigated as closely as possible. Afterward they will be considered to some extent in combination.

Determine the degree of efficiency in each of the folloAving cases:

1. A farmer expended $2000 in raising a crop of corn and received $2800 for the crop.

2. A farmer spends $1200 in raising a crop of wheat and receives but $1000 for the crop.

3. Land which should yield 80 bushels of corn per acre is producing but 56 bushels per acre.

4. By an expenditure of $800, 2,200 bushels of potatoes which sold for 80 cents a bushel were produced.

5. A machine capable of 400 revolutions per minute is making 250 revolutions per minute.

6. It has been estimated that ten square miles of land used for hunting and fishing will support 2 persons, while the same land when used agriculturally will support 1000 persons.

7. In a certain town the light given by a 16 candle power carbon bulb costs Ya cents per hour, while that given by a 32 candle power tungsten bulb costs V 2 cent per hour.

8. On one field an expenditure of $800 produced a yield of 2000 bushels of potatoes, and on another field $1200 produced 4200 bushels.

9. A field which, by following the best available methods, could have been planted in 8 days, was aotually planted in 10 days.

10. It costs $4000 per annum to run a certain poultry establishment, and the annual receipts average $4800.

11. A man who should work 8 hours per day, on account of ill health works on the average 2 hours and 15 minutes per day.

12. A gold mine which cost $400,000 at first paid 8 per cent dividends, but later when operated by improved methods paid dividends of 20 per cent.

13. Between the years 1840 and 1900 the per cent of sugar in the sugar beet was increased from sVz to 13.

14. When coke is burned directly, 45 per cent of its energy is utilized. If it is converted into water gas before it is consumed, 82 per cent of its energy is utilized.