Shop Management

176 SHOP MANAGEMENT Whether the bonus is given only when the work is done in the quickest time or at some point between this and the average time, in all cases the instruction card should state the best time in which the work can be done by a first-class man. There will then be no suspicion on the part of the men when a longer “bonus time” is allowed that the time student does not really know the possibilities of the case. For example, the instruction card might read: Proper time____________________65 minutes Bonus given first time job is done. 108 minutes It is of the greatest importance that the man who has charge of assigning tasks should be perfectly straightforward in all of his dealings with the men. Neither in this nor in any other branch of the manage- ment should a man make any pretense of having more knowlege than he really possesses. He should impress the workmen with the fact that he is dead in earnest, and that he fully intends to know all about it some day; but he should make no claim to om- niscience, and should always be ready to acknowledge and correct an error if he makes one. This combi- nation of determination and frankness establishes a sound and healthy relation between the manage- ment and men. There is no class of work which cannot be profitably submitted to time study, by dividing it into its time elements, except such operations as take place in the head of the worker; and the writer has even seen a time study made of the speed of an average and first-class boy in solving problems in mathematics.