Shop Management

SHOP MANAGEMENT 109 to be more or less friction between the two. If two of these bosses meet with a difficulty which they cannot settle, they send for their respective over- foremen, who are usually able to straighten it out. In case the latter are unable to agree on the remedy, the case is referred by them to the assistant superin- tendent, whose duties, for a certain time at least, may consist largely in arbitrating such difficulties and thus establishing the unwritten code of laws by which the shop is governed. This serves as one ex- ample of what is called the “exception principle” in management, which is referred to later. Before leaving this portion of the subject the writer wishes to call attention to the analogy which func- tional foremanship bears to the management of a large, up-to-date school. In such a school the chil- dren are each day successively taken in hand by one teacher after another who is trained in his particular specialty, and they are in many cases disciplined by a man particularly trained in this function. The old style, one teacher to a class plan is entirely out of date. The writer has found that better results are attained by placing the planning department in one office, situated, of course, as close to the center of the shop or shops as practicable, rather than by locating its members in different places according to their duties. This department performs more or less the functions of a clearing house. In doing their various duties, its members must exchange information frequently, and since they send their orders to and receive their returns from the men in the shop, principally in