Plant Management
The basis of modern industry Fundamental industrial principles Characteristics of modern industry Methods of organization and administration Coordinative influences Purchasing Storing material Planning and production departments Insuring results—securing industrial data Standards The control of quality—inspection Rewarding labor—older methods Rewarding labor—new methods Comparison of wage systems—profit sharing Statistical records and reports Location of industrial plants Arrangement of industrial plants Practical limitations in applying industrial principles Problems of employment Employes' service Science and management
Modern management of industrial plants is characterized by planning and system. Old processes and old methods no longer command respect because they are old. They have been subjected to searching analysis in the hope of finding better ways of doing things. We look today not for the history, but for the reasons of every phase of plant management.
This is our aspect of the general industrial changes which have transformed modern industry and made it a high-powered productive instrument. It is not an isolated thing, but just as significant a part of modern business methods as are improved transportation, increased credit and present-day banking.
In this part of the Course, the relation of plant management to the characteristic development of modern life is first traced, and then the changes displayed which scientific methods have made in the conduct of manufacturing processes. These affect the structural organization of business, the relations of the directing and managing organs to one another. They also affect the operations of these managing units, the purchase and storage of materials, the routing and sequence of work, the best utilization of machinery and the like.
The keynote of the volume is efficiency in productive effort and the principles which underlie it.