The Principles of Scientific Management

112 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT A glance at the intricate mathematical formulae (see page 109) which represent the laws of cutting metals should clearly show the reason why it is impossible for any machinist, without the aid of these laws, and who depends upon his personal ex- perience, correctly to guess at the answer to the two questions, What speed shall I use? What feed shall I use? even though he may repeat the same piece of work many times. To return to the case of the machinist who had been working for ten to twelve years in machining the same pieces over and over again, there was but a remote chance in any of the various kinds of work which this man did that he should hit upon the one best method of doing each piece of work out of the hundreds of possible methods which lay before him. In considering this typical case, it must also be remembered that the metal-cutting machines throughout our machine-shops have practically all been speeded by their makers by guesswork, and without the knowledge obtained through a study of the art of cutting metals. In the machine-shops sys- tematized by us we have found that there is not one machine in a hundred which is speeded by its makers at anywhere near the correct cutting speed. So that, in order to compete with the science of cutting metals, the machinist, before he could use proper speeds, would first have to put new pulleys on the counter- shaft of his machine, and also make in most cases