Shop Management

66 SHOP MANAGEMENT expense, and the most natural question would be is whether the increased efficiency of the shop more than offsets this outlay? It must be borne in mind, however, that, with the exception of the study of unit times, there is hardly a single item of work done in the planning department which is not already being done in the shop. Establishing a planning department merely concentrates the planning and much other brainwork in a few men especially fitted for their task and trained in their especial lines, instead of having it done, as heretofore, in most cases by high priced mechanics, well fitted to work at their trades, but poorly trained for work more or less clerical in its nature. There is a close analogy between the methods of modem engineering and this type of management. Engineering now centers in the drafting room as modem management does in the planning depart- ment. The new style engineering has all the appear- ance of complication and extravagance, with its mul- titude of drawings; the amount of study and work which is put into each detail; and its corps of drafts- men, all of whom would be sneered at by the old engineer as “non-producers.” For the same reason, modern management, with its minute time study and a managing department in which each operation is carefully planned, with its many written orders and its apparent red tape, looks like a waste of money; while the ordinary management in which the plan- ning is mainly done by the workmen themselves, with the help of one or two foremen, seems simple and economical in the extreme.