Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT 29 may be said that the only absolutely essential function of the department is to “ keep things moving ”—to assign the work of every machine and every man each day, and follow things up to see that the work is done. Thus the department is responsible for the initial decisions as to when and where work is done, and for records of these par- ticulars, and of the progress of the whole. Taylor included the detailed written instructions of the methods of performing the operations, as soon as these had been properly worked out, in the activities of the department; and in this he has been followed by other organizers. As the scientific investigation of methods precedes instructions of the kind, time-study and all that it entails should then also become part of the department that issues instruc- tions. Further, the clerks in charge of costing have to make use of the documents issued by and collected by the planning department; and the latter must be at the same time in close connection with the clerks in charge of the supply and storage of material. Therefore cost clerks and stores clerks are often found in the same room as the planning clerks. A practical reason for making the department rather complex is that in a small works the super- vision of a single activity, such as planning, instruct- ing, costing, or store-checking may not be enough to occupy the time of one superintendent, and therefore two or more activities are accommodated in a single office under the same supervision. At the other extreme we may find a large concern in which the