Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

INTRODUCTION 13 it, so that we have become rather weary of the sound of it. Indeed, our old friend Humpty Dumpty would say that they owed it extra wages; and they certainly owe “ scientific management ” extra wages too. Harrington Emerson, who has made it the key- word for his whole system of organization, has done us the service of defining it quantitatively, and making it measurable, as it is necessary to his system that it should be measurable. He says1 it is “ the relation of what is to what ought to be ” ; and gives an illustration. A train ought to perform a journey in 16 hours, and carry 125 passengers. It actually performs the journey in 18 hours and carries 100 passengers. Its time-efficiency is there- fore 90 per cent. ; its carrying efficiency 80 per cent. Perfect efficiency, then, is, or ought to be, 100 per cent. ; but Emerson’s men and machines seem often capable of exceeding that. On the other hand, he does not say below what percentage the achieve- ment becomes inefficiency. Professor Marshall, in “ Principles of Economics,’ uses the word in a context which is singularly in keeping with the new ideas, as we shall see later. He speaks of the possibility of workers’ earnings being “ measured, not as time-earnings with regard to time, nor as piece-work earnings with regard to output, but with reference to the ability and efficiency required of the worker ” (p. 547). The New York Times, commenting on Mr. L. D. Brandeis’ very brilliant advocacy of scientific 1 Artlcie in the Ivon Age, vol Ixxx., p.jii5°.