Shop Management

76 SHOP MANAGEMENT without adopting and maintaining thorough shop standards. But the task idea can not be carried out without them. The differential rate piece work is rather simpler in its application than task work with bonus and is the more forceful of the two. It should be used wherever it is practicable, but in no case until after all the accompanying conditions have been perfected and completely standardized and a thorough time study has been made of all of the elements of the work. This system is particularly useful where the same kind of work is repeated day after day, and also whenever the maximum possible output is desired, which is almost always the case in the oper- ation of expensive machinery or of a plant occupy- ing valuable ground or a large building. It is more forceful than task work with a bonus because it not only pulls the man up from the top but pushes him equally hard from the bottom. Both of these sys- tems give the workman a large extra reward when he accomplishes his full task within the given time. With the differential rate, if for any reason he fails to do his full task, he not only loses the large extra premium which is paid for complete success, but in addition he suffers the direct loss of the piece price for each piece by which he falls short. Failure under the task with a bonus system involves a corresponding loss of the extra premium or bonus, but the workman, since he is paid a given price per hour, receives his ordinary day’s pay in case of failure and suffers no additional loss beyond that of the extra premium whether he may have