Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

138 EFFICIENCY METHODS ment of a man making just 10 with a man making 9|. The change in rate is absolutely abrupt, with- out gradation. Also, there is no minimum wage, as in other efficiency methods. If a man’s output is much below 10, his earnings will be very small. The average piece-work wage, before changes in the method were made, was $2-50 a day, so that a man making only 9 pieces a day would fall below the previous average wage, though not necessarily below his own previous wage. The previous piece-work rate was, however, 50c. per piece, and a man got average wages by completing 5 pieces. After Taylor had made improvements in method, and calculated the due time on the improved method, he concluded that 10 pieces could be made in a day, but he did not propose to pay 50c. each for them ; he said that as soon as the workers were used to the change they would find they could make $3-50 a day without extra exertion. On p. 82 of “ Shöp Management ” it is stated that competing firms in the neighbour- hood were offering piece-work wages by which the men made $2 00 to $2-50 a day. The above statements will serve as a rather crude example of the way in which the method works. Besides the abrupt jump in scale, the condition that makes this method difficult to introduce is that the penalization of the slow worker would be very discouraging to those attempting the new method. A man who achieved only 7 pieces would make only $175 a day. This might, of course, be tempered in practice while the method was still new. Gantt’s