Shop Management

44 SHOP MANAGEMENT one of the parties has the entire direction, the en- terprise will progress consistently and probably harmoniously, even although the wrong one of the two parties may be in control. Broadly speaking, in the field of management there are two parties — the superintendents, etc., on one side and the men on the other, and the main ques- tions at issue are the speed and accuracy with which the work shall be done. Up to the time that task management was introduced in the Midvale Steel Works, it can be fairly said that under the old sys- tems of management the men and the management had about equal weight in deciding how fast the work should be done. Shop records showing the quickest time in which each job had been done and more or less shrewd guessing being the means on which the management depended for bargaining with and coercing the men; and deliberate soldiering for the purpose of misinforming the management being the weapon used by the men in self-defense. Under the old system the incentive was entirely lacking which is needed to induce men to cooperate heartily with the management in increasing the speed with which work is turned out. It is chiefly due, under the old systems, to this divided control of the speed with which the work shall be done that such an amount of bickering, quarreling, and often hard feeling exists between the two sides. The essence of task management lies in the fact that the control of the speed problem rests entirely with the management; and, on the other hand, the true strength of the Towne-Halsey system rests