The Psychology of Management by Lillian Moller Gilbreth

These questions at least must be answered before it is possible to decide whether study shall be made or not, and to what degree it can be carried. COST THE DETERMINING FACTOR.--It is obvious that in all observation in the industrial world cost must be the principal determining feature. Once the cost can be estimated, and the amount of money that can be allowed for the investigation determined, it is possible at least to approximate satisfactory answers to the other questions. How closely the answers approximate depends largely on the skill and experience of the analyst. The greater number of times the work is to be repeated, the less the ultimate cost. The more elements contained similar to elements already determined, the less the additional cost, and the less the time necessary. The more elements contained that can be used again, even in different work, the less the ultimate cost. The better trained the analyst, the less the immediate or additional cost and time. Much depends on the amount of previous data at hand when the investigation is being made, and on the skill and speed of the analyst in using these data. PROCESS OF DIVISION UNENDING.--In practice, the process of division continues as long as it can show itself to be a method for cost reducing. Work may be divided into processes: each process into subdivisions; each subdivision into cycles; each cycle into elements; each element into time units; each time unit into motions,--and so on, indefinitely, toward the "indivisible minimum."[4] MEASURING MAY TAKE PLACE AT ANY STAGE.--At any of these stages of division the results may be taken as final for the purpose of the study,--and the operations, or final divisions of the work at that stage, may be measured. To obtain results with the least expenditure of time, the operations must be subjected to motion study before they are timed as well as after. This motion study can be accurate and of permanent value only in so far as the divisions are final. The resulting improved operations are then ready to be timed. ULTIMATE ANALYSIS THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY.--When the analyst has proceeded as far as he can in dividing the work into prime factors the problem continues in the field of psychology. Here the opportunities for securing further data become almost limitless. ULTIMATE ANALYSIS JUSTIFIABLE.--It is the justification for analysis to approach the ultimate as nearly as possible, that the smaller and more difficult of measurement the division is, the more often it will appear in various combinations of elements. The permanence and exactness of the result vary with the effort for obtaining it. QUALIFICATIONS OF AN ANALYST.--To be most successful, an analyst should have ingenuity, patience, and that love of dividing a process into its component parts and studying each separate part that characterizes the analytic mind. The analyst must be capable of doing accurate work, and orderly work. To get the most pleasure and profit from his work he should realize that his great, underlying purpose is to relieve the worker of unnecessary fatigue, to shorten his work period per day, and to increase the number of his days and years of higher earning power. With this realization will come an added interest in his subject. WORKER SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF ANALYSIS.--It is not enough that the worker should understand the methods of measurement. He can get most from the resultant standards and will most efficiently coöperate if he understands the division into elements to be studied. SCHOOLS SHOULD PROVIDE TRAINING.--Much of the training in analysis in the schools comes at such a late period of the course that the average industrial worker must miss a large part of it. This is a defect in school training that should be remedied. Even very young children soon are capable of, and greatly enjoy, dividing a process into elements. If the worker be taught, in his preparations, and in the work itself, to divide what he does into its elements, he will not only enjoy analysis of his work, but will be able to follow the analysis in his own mind, and to coöperate better in the processes of measurement. THE SYNTHESIST'S WORK IS SELECTION AND ADDITION.--The synthesist studies the individual results of the analyst's work, and their inter-relation, and determines which of these should be combined, and in what manner, for the most economic result. His duty is to construct that combination of the elements which will be most efficient. IMPORTANCE OF SELECTION MUST BE EMPHASIZED.--If synthesis in Scientific Management were nothing more than combining all the elements that result from analysis into a whole, it would be valuable. Any process studied analytically will be performed more intelligently, even if there is no change in the method. But the most important part of the synthesist's work is the actual elimination of elements which are useless, and the combination of the remaining elements in such a way, or sequence, or schedule, that a far better method than the one analyzed will result. We may take an example from Bricklaying.[5] In "Stringing Mortar Method, on the Filling Tiers before the Days of the Pack-on-the-Wall-Method"--the division, which was into operations only, showed eighteen operations and eighteen motions for every brick that was laid. Study and synthesis of these elements resulted in a method that required only 1 3/4 motions to lay a brick. Over half the original motions were found to be useless, hence entirely omitted. In several other cases it was found possible to make one motion do work for two or four brick, with the same, or less, fatigue to the worker. RESULT IS THE BASIS FOR THE TASK.--The result of synthesis is the basis for the task,--it becomes the standard that shows what has actually been done, and what can be expected to be repeated. It is important to note the relation between the task and synthesis. When it becomes generally understood that the "Task," under Scientific Management is neither an ideal which exists simply in the imagination, nor an impossibly high estimate of what can be expected,--but is actually the sum of observed and timed operations, plus a definite and sufficient percentage of allowance for overcoming the fatigue,--then much objection to it will cease. GENERAL LACK OF KNOWLEDGE THE CHIEF CAUSE OF OBJECTION TO THE TASK.--As is the case with most objections to Scientific Management, or its elements, ignorance is the chief obstacle to the introduction and success of the Task Idea. This ignorance seems to be more or less prevalent everywhere among managers as well as workers. Scientific Management can, and does, succeed even when the workers are ignorant of many of its fundamental principles, but it will never make the strides that it should until every man working under it, as well as all outside, understand _why_ it is doing as it does, as well as _what_ is done. This educational campaign could find no better starting point than the word "task," and the "task idea." THE NAME TASK IS UNFORTUNATE.[6]--The Century Dictionary defines "Task" as follows: