Clerk work can well be submitted to time study, and a daily task assigned in work of this class which at first appears to be very miscellaneous in its character.
One of the needs of modern management is that of literature on the subject of time study. The writer quotes as follows from his paper on "A Piece Rate System," written in 1895:
"Practically the greatest need felt in an establishment wishing to start a rate-fixing department is the lack of data as to the proper rate of speed at which work should be done. There are hundreds of operations which are common to most large establishments, yet each concern studies the speed problem for itself, and days of labor are wasted in what should be settled once for all, and recorded in a form which is available to all manufacturers.
"What is needed is a hand-book on the speed with which work can be done, similar to the elementary engineering handbooks. And the writer ventures to predict that such a book will before long be forthcoming. Such a book should describe the best method of making, recording, tabulating, and indexing time observations, since much time and effort are wasted by the adoption of inferior methods."
Unfortunately this prediction has not yet been realized. The writer's chief object in inducing Mr. Thompson to undertake a scientific time study of the various building trades and to join him in a publication of this work was to demonstrate on a large scale not only the desirability of accurate time study, but the efficiency and superiority of the method of studying elementary units as outlined above. He trusts that his object may be realized and that the publication of this book may be followed by similar works on other trades and more particularly on the details of machine shop practice, in which he is especially interested.
As a machine shop has been chosen to illustrate the application of such details of scientific management as time study, the planning department, functional foremanship, instruction cards, etc., the description would be far from complete without at least a brief reference to the methods employed in solving the time problem for machine tools.
The study of this subject involved the solution of four important problems:
First. The power required to cut different kinds of metals with tools of various shapes when using different depths of cut and coarseness of feed, and also the power required to feed the tool under varying conditions.
Second. An investigation of the laws governing the cutting of metals with tools, chiefly with the object of determining the effect upon the best cutting speed of each of the following variables:
(a) The quality of tool steel and treatment of tools (i.e., in heating, forging, and tempering them).