Shop Management

126 SHOP MANAGEMENT tions to manufacture of those tightened according to the usual methods. The loss now going on through- out the country from failure to adopt and maintain standards for all small details is simply enormous. It is, however, a good sign for the future that a firm such as Messrs. Dodge & Day of Philadelphia, who are making a specialty of standardizing machine shop details, find their time fully occupied. What may be called the “exception principle” in management is coming more and more into use, although, like many of the other elements of this art, it is used in isolated cases, and in most instances without recognizing it as a principle which should extend throughout the entire field. It is not an uncommon sight, though a sad one, to see the manager of a large business fairly swamped at his desk with an ocean of letters and reports, on each of which he thinks that he should put his initial or stamp. He feels that by having this mass of detail pass over his desk he is keeping in close touch with the entire business. The exception principle is directly the reverse of this. Under it the manager should receive only condensed, summarized, and invariably com- parative reports, covering, however, all of the ele- ments entering into the management, and even these summaries should all be carefully gone over by an assistant before they reach the manager, and have all of the exceptions to the past averages or to the standards pointed out, both the especially good and especially bad exceptions, thus giving him in a few minutes a full view of progress which is being made, or the reverse, and leaving him free to consider the