Shop Management

SHOP MANAGEMENT 61 taken in their proper sequence, there is great danger from deterioration in the quality of the output and from serious troubles with the workmen, often result- ing in strikes. As to the type of management to be ultimately aimed at, before any changes whatever are made, it is necessary, or at least highly desirable, that the most careful consideration should be given to the type to be chosen; and once a scheme is decided upon it should be carried forward step by step without wavering or retrograding. Workmen will tolerate and even come to have great respect for one change after another made in logical sequence and according to a consistent plan. It is most demoralizing, how- ever, to have to recall a step once taken, whatever may be the cause, and it makes any further changes doubly difficult. The choice must be made between some of the types of management in common use, which the writer feels are properly designated by the word “ drifting,” and the more modern and scientific man- agement based on an accurate knowledge of how long it should take to do the work. If, as is fre- quently the case, the managers of an enterprise find themselves so overwhelmed with other departments of the business that they can give but little thought to the management of the shop, then some one of the various 11 drifting” schemes should be adopted; and of these the writer believes the Towne-Halsey plan to be the best, since it drifts safely and peace- fully though slowly in the right direction; yet under it the best results can never be reached. The fact,