Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

THE COSTING DEPARTMENT 47 working of the department, but his claim that he can determine the cost of labour and the cost of product to a degree of accuracy which has never before been reached. Taylor and Thompson1 have put forward this claim very emphatically. They contend that when a workman is treated in the ordinary way it is always difficult to tell how long he has taken over a given job, the records being casual and careless, and often taking no account of delays or interruptions. Nor is it possible to say that another man would take the same time another day, while no part of the conditions, materials, tools, methods, have been standardized or perhaps even specified. Estimates of time for labour are often made just by rough guess. Mr. Hathaway speaks2 with humorous scorn of the “ foreman who will shut one eye, go into a trance, and fix the proper time for a job.” The cost charging may and often does follow a similar course. It has been said that in some British firms the chief occupation of the estimat- ing staff is to give quotations for “ actual ” costs. Far more care is taken in considering cost of material, far more trouble is taken to allow for possible variation in material; labour, waste of labour, and variation in labour are never properly taken account of. faylor and Thompson say that m concrete work labour cost is from a quarter to 1 " Concrete Costs,” chap. iv. _ o Tijnc Study, an article in Industrial Engineering, vol ii. P- 85. In C. B. Thompson’s Collection.