Under Scientific Management Accurate Calendars Possible. — Under Scientific Management programmes are based on accurate records scientifically made and standardized, and a calendar may be made that can be conformed to with exactness.
Programmes a Matter of Routing. — The problems of a programme under Scientific Management are two, both problems of routing: —
- to route materials to the work place.
- to route the worker to the placed materials.
At first glance it might seem simpler to consider the worker as static and the materials as in motion. The "routing" of the worker is really often not a question of motion at all, as the worker, if he were operating a machine, for example, would not change his position between various pieces of work — except to rest from fatigue — enough to be considered. The word "routing" is used figuratively as regards the worker. He is considered as transported by the management through the day's work.
But, whether the work move, or the worker, or both, programmes must so plan out the progress of each, in detail, for as many days ahead as possible, that the most efficient outcome will ensue.
Routing of Work. — The work is routed through schedules of materials to buy, schedules of material to handle, and schedules of labor to be performed. The skilled worker finds all the materials for his work ready and waiting for him when he arrives at the task, this being provided for by programmes made out many tasks ahead.
Routing of Workers. — The workers themselves are routed by means of the route sheet, route chart, pin plan and bulletin board.
The devices for laying out the work of the workers appeal to the imagination as well as the reason. The route chart is a graphical representation of a large river, starting with the small stream, — the first operation, gathering to itself as the tributaries, the various other operations, — till it reaches its full growth, the completed work.
The pin plan, with each pin or flag representing a worker, or work place, and following his progress on a plan of the work, presents a bird's-eye view in miniature of the entire working force; and the bulletin board, with its cards that represent work ahead, not only eliminates actual delay of shifting from one task to another, but permits studying out one task while doing another, and also destroys all fear of delay between jobs.
Impossibility of Describing Routing Devices Accurately.
— These routing devices might all be described at length, but no description could do them justice. A visit to a shop, or factory, or other industrial organization operating under Scientific Management is necessary, in order to appreciate not only Page 195 their utility, but the interest that they arouse. These programmes are no dead, static things. They are alive, pulsing, moving, progressing with the progress of the work.
Prophecy Becomes Possible Under Scientific Management.
— The calendar, or chronological chart, becomes a true prophecy of what will take place. This is based on the standardized elementary units, and the variations from it will be so slight as to allow of being disregarded.