Scientific management; a history and criticism

Front matter

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f^.I r

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Preface

This monograph has been written under the supervision of Professor Henry R. Seager, who suggested the field to be covered, and brightened the way by his encouragement. From his teaching and counsel arose the wish to treat the subject from the broadly-social point of view.

Most of the men whose work is described in the following pages have given me more or less of their time. But my debt on this score is mainly to Robert T. Kent, editor of Industrial Engineering, He has been my most useful guide as to the personalities and concrete events which constitute the real scientific management.

My friend, Mr. E. F. Simonds, gave indispensable assistance in the preparation of the first draft. I have recently profited by a number of suggestions offered by Dr. Carl E. Parry, of the Ohio State University, who read most of the manuscript.

Horace B. Drury.

Ohio State University, March 9, 1915. 281] 7 r y

'■ TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I Page

The Meaning of Scientific Management 15

1. The Origin of the Term 15

2. The Movement Briefly Described 22

3. The Boundaries of Scientific Management 27

CHAPTER II Early Attempts at a Solution of the Wages Problem 30

1. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers 31

2. The Wages Problem 32

3. Profit Sharing 36

4. Henry R. Towne's « Gain-Sharing " 38

5. Frederick A. Halsey's « Premium Plan " 41

6. The " Rowan Plan " . ^ 50

CHAPTER III The Genesis of the Principles of Scientific Management 53

1. The First Scientific Management 54

a. Elementary Time Study 56

b. The Difi"erential Rate 59

c. Conclusions , . 63

2. The Scope of Scientific Management Enlarged 65

a. The First Phase of Complete Scientific Management : Securing the

Initiative of the Workmen c . . . 66

10 TABLE OF CONTENTS [284

PAGB

b. The Second Phase of Complete Scientific Management : Improving

Methods of Work 69

(i) Standardization of Tools and Equipment 69

(2) Routing and Scheduling , 71

(3) Instruction Cards 73

(4) Motion Study 77

(5) Selection of Workmen . 79

(6) Supplies 80

(7) Conclusions , 81

c. The Third Phase of Complete Scientific Management : Organization 82 3. Conclusion : The Genesis of the Principles of Scientific Management . . 87

Chapter IV

Lives of the Leaders — Including certain Contributions to the Enrichment of Scientific Management , 88

1. Frederick Winslow Taylor 88

2. Henry L. Gantt 92

3. Carl G. Earth 96

4. Horace K. Hathaway 99

5. Morris L. Cooke loi

6. Sanford E. Thompson 106

7. Frank B. Gilbreth 108

8. Harrington Emerson 113

9. The Scientific-Management Men as a Body 117

Chapter V

A Survey of the Trades and Plants in Which Scientific Management HAS been Introduced 120

1. The Present Status of the Historic Illustrations of Scientific Managea. The Midvale Steel Company 120

b. The Bethlehem Steel Company 120

c. Bicycle-Ball-Bearing Inspection 124

d. Bricklaying 125

e. The Santa Fe 126

f. Conclusions as to the Past of Scientific Management 129

2. A Study of Several Installations of Contemporary Importance .... 130

a. The Tabor Manufacturing Company 130

b. The Link-Belt Company 134

c. The Watertown Arsenal 138

d. The Cotton Industry , 141

3. Extent of the Introduction of Scientific Management . 144

285] TABLE OF CONTENTS n

PART II A Critical Review Of Important Aspects of Scientific Management

PAGE

CHAPTER VI The PRODucTivrry of Scientific Management 153

1. The Value of the Initiative of Workmen 153

2. The Extent to which Planning may be Profitably Carried 157

3. The Place of Organization in Scientific Management 161

4. How Much can Scientific Management Increase the National Income? 163

CHAPTER Vll

Scientific Management as a Solution of the Labor Problem ... 169

1. The Views of the Organization Experts with Respect to Trade Unions . 170

2. A Sketch of the Relations between Scientific Management and Organ-

ized Labor 175

3. Is Scientific Management a Satisfactory Substitute for the Collective

Bargain ? 178

a. Scientific Management Removes from Labor Some Incentives towards Organization 179

b. Scientific Management, However, Does Not Adequately Perform the

Functions of the Collective Bargain 181

4. The Possibility of Coordinating Trade Unionism and Scientific Manage-

CHAPTER VIII The Human Side , . 188

1. The Charge that Employees are Overworked 189

2. The Charge that Men are made Automatons 195

3. Promotion — Skill — Wages 199

4. The Humanizing of Management 202

Chapter IX

1. Scientific Management But One Factor in Social Life 205

2. The Larger Significance of Scientific Management 207

3. The OriginaUty of Scientific Management 210

4. The Future 214

Index 217

:p

PART I A HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER I The Meaning of Scientific Management

i. the origin of the term

The significance which has come to be associated with the words scientific management may be traced to an event which occurred in the latter part of 1910. In the early summer of that year, the railroads of the United States north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers and east of the Mississippi had filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission new freight tariffs, so framed as to involve a general and considerable advance in rates. The Interstate Commerce Commission had, on July 13, instituted an inquiry into the reasonableness of the proposed advances, and there had then followed in September, October, and November a series of hearings. The vast sums of money involved, and the fact that the impending decision might become an important precedent, led to a contest of extraordinary intensity on the part of both the railroads and their opponents, the shippers.

It happened that Louis D. Brandeis had assumed the leading position among the fifteen or twenty attorneys lined up against the proposed advances. The railroads, upon whom the law had placed the burden of proof, had maintained that the advances were necessitated by an increase in operating costs, due mainly to a recent rise in wages. Wages, they pleaded, make up nearly one-half 289] 15 of the total cost of railroad operation; and wages had been advanced in the spring of 1910 by from five to eight per cent. Therefore the railroads must receive greater revenue; or they would not have funds enough to make desired improvements, or the credit requisite for the successful flotation of their securities. In the face of these arguments, Mr. Brandeis dramatically took the aggressive, and striking out on a novel and unexpected tack, he declared that there was a means by which the railroads could raise wages, and at the same time — instead of increasing costs — actually reduce them. This system, which meant high wages and low labor-cost, he called scientific management.

Where did Mr. Brandeis find scientific management ?

It may be stated that, prior to November, 1910, there was nothing which was generally known by that title. The actual principles of the industrial system which Brandeis had in mind had indeed been in process of formation for about thirty years ; but " scientific management, " the name, had not yet become an all-embracing slogan. Research shows some adoption of the parts of this phrase : the word "management '' had been very commonly used, as in the phrase " modern management ;" and " scientific " also was a favorite term. Even the combination, " scientific management,'' had occurred fortuitously in the writings of Frederick W. Taylor, the great leader in the movement, as early as 1903.' It is said, too, that the full expression was, at a later date, designedly used by Taylor in explaining his ideas to visitors at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. But these instances are cited merely by way of exception ; there were other real names for the system —

^**Shop Management," Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xxiv, p. 1366.

names more precise and much more common. " Scientific management " had a definite meaning for few persons, if any.

Nor was this general ignorance merely one of words. The idea back of the new movement was itself unfamiliar to most persons. The essentials of scientific management had indeed been presented to an inner circle in papers read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; while a considerably wider public had noted the results of its application on the Santa Fe railroad. But there was not, as later, a widespread popular movement, nor any general acquaintance with either principles or results.

Such was the situation when Mr. Brandeis happened to be retained by a manufacturer ^ whose plant was operating under the plan, today known by the name of scientific management, but then unchristened. Brandeis, after studying the plant's organization, had become convinced of its intrinsic merit. When therefore the railroads advanced the plea outlined above, he determined to propose, as an alternate solution of their dilemma, the adoption of the new principles : he made preparation to put on the witness stand some ten of the leading men connected with the movement.

As a preliminary step along this line, Mr. Brandeis called together several of his prospective witnesses for the purpose of working out a plan of presentation. He desired that they should reach an agreement whereby the same things should always be called by the same names, and that — most important of all — a single term might be found which would apply to the system as a whole. This word or phrase should properly describe the system,

'The late W. H. McElwain, shoe manufacturer.

and at the same time appeal to the imagination. The conference, held in the month of October, 1910, included five or six persons. After those present had considered the merits of about half a dozen different phrases, all agreed that, for the purpose of the hearings, the term *' scientific management" should officially designate the system.^

The witnesses were introduced on the afternoon of November 21, and the hearing of their testimony, together with cross-examination, took up almost all of two days and a half. The witnesses testified that in their experience the application of scientific management — whether to the handling of pig iron, the shoveling of coal, bricklaying, or machinery manufacture — had increased the output per workman to at least two or three times its former volume. Especially startling was the statement of Harrington Emerson that the railroads of the United States might save $1,000,000 a day by paying greater attention to efficiency of operation. Early in January following Mr. Brandeis submitted a long brief, about half of which was devoted to the subject of scientific management. A few days later his final oral argument on this topic was delivered before the commission.

The effect of the insertion of the scientific-management argument into the rate-hearings contest was felt almost instantaneously by the whole country. Only a few days after the introduction of the evidence, the early December reviews^ of current events gave great space to the

^This meeting, held at the apartments of H. L. Gantt, was, according to R. T. Kent, attended by Louis D. Brandeis, Henry L. Gantt, Frank B. Gilbreth, Henry V. Sheel, and Robert T. Kent. We are told by Mr. Brandeis that among the names suggested were "Taylor System," " Functional Management," " Shop Management," and " Efficiency."

^See Outlook and Survey for Dec. 3, 1910.

293] MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT jg

dramatic testimony of some of the witnesses. By January, one of the leading railroad journals ' had begun a series of articles in which the railroads were defended against the implication that they were inefficiently managed. And through January, February, March, and every month of 191 1, the periodical press, popular as well as technical, was filled with explanation after explanation as to what scientific management is, why it is good, or why it is worthless. By the fall of 191 1, Dartmouth College had arranged for a conference to spread information as to the merits of scientific management ; ^ while on the other hand, owing to the demands of organized labor, a special House committee was inquiring as to whether Congress should forbid the system in the government service. ^ In March, 1912, an efficiency society '^ was organized in New York City for the specific purpose of applying the principles of efficiency in every department of life. And by the time of writing this treatise many of the leading universities have established courses on scientific management. ^ The vision of the

^Railway Age Gazette, Jan. -July, 191 1.

^ See Addresses and Discussions at the Conference on Scientific Management held Oct. 12, 13, 14, 1911. First Tuck School Conference, Dartmouth College Conferences. Published by the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, Dartmouth College, 1912.

^This committee was composed of Wm. B. Wilson, chairman, Wm. C. Redfield, and JohnQ. Tilson. See House of Representatives' Report no. 403, 62d Congress, 2d Session, for the committee's guarded approval of some and condemnation of other of the features of scientific management. Also see Hearings before Special Committee of the ly House of Representatives to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Managemeut , published in three volumes by the Government Printing Office in 1912.

* Later incorporated as The Efficiency Society, Incorporated.

^To mention a few, Harvard, Columbia, New York University, Syracuse, and Pennsylvania State are known to have introduced special movement is suggested by the statement of a Harvard instructor' to the effect that scientific management seems " to be the most important problem from the practical and theoretical point of view now before the industrial world." Significant also is the exhaustive treatment of scientific management in a series of addresses delivered before the Western Economic Association, and published in the Journal of Political Economy in May, June, and July, 191 3.

In order to place before the eye further and final proof that it was the rate-hearings episode which introduced scientific management to the public, a statistical analysis has been made :

The yearly output of accessible periodical contributions whose titles have contained the term ^^ scientific management'' ^ has been counted, and found to be —

Prior to the rate-advance hearings None

During December, iqio . . . . 2

During 191 1 26

During 1912 14

These figures, which tell the story of the discovery of scientific management, are based upon a comprehensive bibHography of the " efficiency " literature appearing between 1898 and 1913.^

series of lectures or regular courses along the general lines of scientific management ; while portions of the literature and some of the principles of scientific management are introduced into courses in economics or engineering very generally.

^ C. Bertrand Thompson.

'' Or ''science of management .' '

^" Select list of references on scientific management and efficiency," compiled under the direction of H. H. B. Meyer, chief bibliographer, Library of Congress, and published in the " Efficiency Number " (May, 1913) of Special Libraries.

That not only the name '' scientific management, " but the idea as well, became public property because of the rate-hearings contest, is statistically demonstrated by the enormous growth in the total literature on " efficiency, " which occurred immediately after and because of the hearings :

All Periodical Articles on Efficiency Subjects}

1907 8 1910 (6 of these in December^ 15

1909 7 1912 38

Since many articles are about scientific management, but do not contain the term in the title, as a means of measuring the strength of the scientific-management movement this last table is more serviceable than the first.

The rate-advance hearings have now been treated at sufficient length to give the important result for the purpose of obtaining which the topic was introduced. The subject was taken up because it was deemed advantageous to determine at the outset just what is meant by scientific management. The foregoing paragraphs have made it clear, it is hoped, that if we wish to know what the term embraces, we must approach the subject from the point of view of Mr. Brandeis and the group who testified before the Interstate Commerce Commission. These were the men who first gave currency to the words " scientific management ;" it was their account of it which led to the recent wave of public interest, — their interpretation which determined the public's conception as to the meaning of the expression.''

^ Meyer, op cit.

^The scientific-management movement may therefore be regarded as pretty well defined by the thirteen names which, in one connection or

2. THE MOVEMENT BRIEFLY DESCRIBED

The roots of scientific management are to be found in the Hfe and thought of the late Frederick W. Taylor/ Mr. Taylor, who had been a machinist and then a gang-boss in the employ of the Midvale Steel Company of Philadel-

another, creep into Mr. Brandeis' brief as those of persons identified with the system. Frederick W. Taylor is named as the discoverer of the earlier principles. From correspondence with Mr. Brandeis we learn that he shares the common view that " Mr. Taylor's contribution was of course greater than any other." As early associates of Taylor, Brandeis mentions H. L. Gantt and C. G. Barth. As experts who en- ; tered the field slightly later, he called as witnesses H. K. Hathaway, "^ F. B. Gilbreth, and Harrington Emerson. As supervisors of plants where scientific management has been a notable success, may be classified H. V. Sheel and H. P. Kendall; as officers of corporations where scientific management has been installed, H. R. Towne and J. M. Dodge; as editors who have written about scientific management, R. T. Kent and J. B. Going. The name of J. H. Williams, who had introduced certain features of scientific management in a unionized printing establishment, completes the list. This ample list gives us our bearings. The remainder of this treatise will be a study, based upon a variety of sources, of the system which, in view of these names, we understand to be scientific management.

In spite of the brilliancy of Mr. Brandeis' campaign, that part of his argument which dealt with scientific management seems to have had little effect upon the Interstate Commerce Commission. In a report covering 64 pages the commission dismissed the subject of scientific management in two short paragraphs with the remark that the system was everywhere in an experimental stage, and that it had not been shown that these methods could be introduced into railroad operation to any considerable extent. The commission indeed decided against permitting an advance. But the main reason given was this: that the net earnings of the roads had been so liberal in the past that they could allow the men higher wages and still pay adequate dividends. The general question of efficiency of operation seems to have come in as an alternate consideration of rather secondary importance. The commission warned the railroads that, even if they should find in the future that their revenues were indeed inadequate, it would then devolve upon them to explain away the commission's impression that they had not been giving sufficient attention to economy of operation, nor adopted the superior \ methods used in competitive (non-monopolistic) industry. ^Died March 21, 1915.

phia, was promoted in 1882 to the position of machine-shop foreman. During his experience as a workman, Taylor had been constantly impressed by the failure of his neighbors to produce more than about one-third of a good day's work. Wages in the Midvale shop were on a piece-work basis, and the men were afraid to let the management guess how large a product they could really turn out because it might mean a cut. This tendency on the part of the workmen had resulted in a war between Taylor, the gang-boss, who was trying to induce the men to work faster, and the workmen under him, who were determined that by fair means or foul they would avoid working faster. As a result of this struggle, life to Taylor had bec(5me* hardly worth living. Accordingly, shortly after he was given the greater authority of foreman, he determined to work out some system of management by which the interests of the workmen and of the management would be made the same.

The burning thought that possessed the mind of Mr. Taylor in those days was this — that the difficulty at the root of the whole matter was lack of knowledge as to what actually constituted a day's work. How could the men be held accountable for their full duty when the management had no idea of a man's capacity? Accordingly, the first thing which Taylor tried to do was to remove all obscurity on this point by making a scientific study of the time which it necessarily takes to do work. The thoroughness and persistence with which he applied himself to the accomplishment of this task is eloquently vouched for by the fact that in the one field of cutting metals he carried on research for twenty-six years and at a cost of $150,000 or $200,000.

But all this study in itself did nothing more than clear the way. The task having been determined, the next important thing was to make sure that it was performed. High pay for success, loss in case of failure — these were the two sides of the system by which Mr. Taylor proposed to push the workman from beneath and allure him from above, until it would be at once his necessity and his joy to make production leap forward and upward to the maximum. So there came from the earliest days to be associated with the name ''scientific management," the principle of„ the differential rate, a scheme which remained a favorite with scientific-management votaries until the invention of the bonus and other devices, which accomplish the same purpose in a somewhat different way.

This effort to arouse the initiative of the workman and provide a means by which it becomes to his advantage to do his best constitutes, historically speaking, the first phase of scientific management. A second side began to be practiced simultaneously with the first, but received no great recognition in and for itself until the late nineties. This second aspect of scientific management is the effort to control, not the quantity of effo7^t on the part of the workman, but the manner in which the work is done. Standardization of tools and equipment, routing and scheduling, the issuance of instruction cards to the men, the training of the employee in the most improved and scientific ways of performing his work, the selection of men for jobs for which their physical and mental make-up peculiarly fits them, more satisfactory systems for the management of stores — all these are features which originated incidentally in the course of pursuing the first aim of scientific management ; but the incidental advantage resulting from their application has become so great that to-day these activities assume much prominence for their own sake.

As the third and last phase of scientific management, we shall regard modifications of organization. Changes in organization were necessitated by the enlargement of the functions undertaken by the management. As a matter of fact a novel type of management has been evolved which has become quite distinctive.^

Mr. Taylor early began to gather about himself a group of disciples. These disciples, though inspired in large measure by the vision and courage of their leader, were yet more than mere imitators. Taylor, in spite of his warm championship of practice as over against theory, was himself a man of great ideas — ideas which were considerably in advance of what had yet been fully worked out. It was largly as aids in putting these ideas into practice that his followers have made their impress upon scientific management. Not only in the practical administration

^ Worth noting, but rather unclassifiable, is another aspect of scientific management much emphasized in recent years. It is held that scientific management produces a complete revalution in the mental attitude of workingmen and management, the one towards the other. Instead of spending strength fighting for the biggest share of the surplus earnings, as under other systems, the two groups enter into friendly cooperation and mutual help, and thus turn all their attention to the task of making the surplus so enormously great that there is enough for all.

The greater part of this " mental revolution" we would classify as a by-product growing out of the first phase of scientific management wherein the system aims to so adjust wages that it will be to the interest of all to enlarge the output. However, in this Mr. Taylor and his associates would perhaps not concur. They seem to regard the new spirit (especially on the management's side) as an original cause, as well as a result of their smoothly-working system. The mental change, they declare, is the essence, while the mechanical features are but useful adjuncts. They frequently minimize the importance of devices such as time study, wage-payment schemes, instruction cards, and improved organization.

Valuable though "harmony" may be, it seems to us too intangible and too general an idea for any one group to regard it as the basis of its industrial system. Only when an ideal has become a plan, do we have a system.

I of plants, but also in developing the more subtle mathematical laws governing the operation of machines, and in applying new principles to wage systems and management in general, have these associates molded the outer form of, and given 'fuller content to the Taylor science of management, i The first colleague of Taylor was Henry L. Gantt, inj ventor of the bonus system, and today generally known I as the surest result-getter of the men who are introducing scientific management. A dozen years later, but still among the earlier men, came Carl G. Barth, mathematician, and inventor of the slide rule. With these names may be associated H. K. Hathaway, famous for his skill in perfecting scientific management for the Tabor Manufacturing Company, and the eminent and versatile Morris L, Cooke, director of public works for the city of Philadelphia. Sanford E. Thompson performed pioneer work in extending the principles of scientific management from the machine shop into the building trades ; while, a few years ago, Frank B. Gilbreth won great admiration by his display of genius in the reorganization of bricklaying. Finally may be mentioned Harrington Emerson who, in addition to his commercial activities, has had much to do with making ''ef^ciency" an every-day word.

To go into details as to the extent to which these men have applied scientific management would be to draw out unduly this preliminary sketch, and steal from the chapters which are to follow their proper material. However, it may give definiteness to our conception of scientific management to mention a few of the more notable examples of its introduction. After the early innovations at Midvale, the next important scene of advance was at the plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company, where from 1898 to 1901, as a result of the combined efforts of the leading scientific-management practitioners of the day, epoch-making progress was made. It was here that the interesting studies of pig-iron handling and shoveling w^ere made. It was during this period that the Taylor-White high-speed steel was developed, and that the Barth slide rule was invented. It w^as at the Bethlehem shops that the Gantt bonus system was evolved. The most important development of scientific management in the last ten years has been in the plants of the Tabor Manufacturing Company and the Link-Belt Company, both of Philadelphia. Scientific management has now, however, grown too large for the limits of any one plant or trade. Besides its introduction into machine shops and the building trades, scientific management has been applied in the textile industry, the printing industry, and so many others that the list grows monotonous. Of special interest to the public has been the introduction by Harrington Emerson of certain of the principles of scientific management in the shops of the Santa Fe railway, and its installation by the United States government at the Watertown Arsenal.

3. THE BOUNDARIES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

The description of the preceding sections may now be followed by some conclusions as to the boundaries of scientific m.anagement. In the first place, the system may be set down as confined to that one side of human life wherein men cooperate to attain industrial ends. The goal is usually material wealth; the actors must include a leader and a team of followers; the typical habitat of the system is, in short, the shop, the office, or the gang of laborers.'

^ It is not meant to imply here that many suggestions cannot be drawn

Secondly, the horizon of scientific management may be further limited to that one phase of shop or industrial life which has to do with the control of men. Ruled out entirely are all considerations as to commercial policy — that is, programs for buying and selling, or decisions as to what goods shall be manufactured. Excluded from scientific management, also, is the financial aspect of business — that is, that which has to do with the relations of a company with its stockholders, the borrowing of funds, and the keeping of accounts. To one side, moreover, lie problems connected with the technique of production ; that is, scientific management does not primarily concern itself with those aspects of chemistry, physics, and mechanical engineering, which determine the processes of manufacture.'

Finally, may we venture once again to narrow the scope of our subject, and conclude that scientific management's position is that of but one of the many movements which aim to improve the relations of management and men. Scientific management we regard as an histor-

from scientific management for application by the individual— for instance in medical work or in housekeeping. Our topic, however, is historical scientific management. And in the past the origin and important development of scientific management has been in the industrial field. For the promise of important influence in other fields, see Christine Frederick, The New Housekeeping, and Morris L. Cooke's report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on Academic and Industrial Efficiency (bulletin number five) . Such movements, however, are essentially an extension of scientific management, and beyond the special scope of this monograph. Cooke's report is discussed, infra, ch. iv, sec. 5.