Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

THE SCHEDULE TIME OR STANDARD TASK IO9 experience was with workmen for whom a high standard of physique was absolutely necessary, and therefore he exercised more vigorous selection to secure his first-class man than would be needed in ordinary operations. He was therefore led to make pronouncements which have often been quoted against him; e.g., that when an establishment is very well organized, “ in many cases [italics ours] the task should be made so difficult that it can only be accomplished by a first-class man,” 1 and that finally, in the Bethlehem Works, the task was “ so severe that not more than one out of five labourers . . . could keep up.” 2 Such cases are certainly the exception much more than the rule. In Mr. Gantt’s training of factory girls he has been able to make the large majority of each set into “ first-class workers,” chiefly by the exercise of patience and tact.3 Mrs. Gilbreth in her “ Psychology of Manage- ment ” does her best to get a clear definition of a task, and of a first-class worker, but seems to cause some fresh confusion by speaking of a “ standard man,” who does not perform the standard task, but actually makes the best time—makes the record, as we should say. Her definitions dovetail into each other thus:— “ The standard man ... is the fastest worker working under the direction of the man best informed in the particular trade as to the motions of 1 " Shop Management,” p. 64. 2 Ibid., p. 54. 3 See “ Work, Wages, and Profits,” especially the charts.