Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

STANDARDIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION 6l 600 sorts of lock-washers were in use, they similarly reduced the number to 20. The advan- tages of this reform—haying specified sizes and makes of article always manufactured—are that the articles should be cheaper because produced in greater quantity, and that there should be an easier interchangeability of small parts in different machines. The movement towards standardization of product has been going on for some time, especially in the United States. One of its chief effects has been the encouragement of “ quantity production,” i.e., production on a very large scale, making for cheap- ness. The phrase always brings the natural enquiry as to how quantity production affects quality. The pursuit of this subject, though interesting in its bearings on all industrial affairs, is not relevant to the Taylor system. Experience has certainly shown that by the use of proper methods it is perfectly possible to keep up, or even improve, a standard of quality when an article is manufactured in much greater quantity. In Taylor’s programme the standardization is not of the products from the works, but of the material, the equipment, and the methods used within them. The new management has sometimes been called “ measured ” management; it is in the present context that we shall begin to see the significance of the term. Taylor’s standardization is a system of definitely prescribing or measuring everything con- nected with the work—every tool provided, every