Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

66 EFFICIENCY METHODS A management can certainly proceed much more easily to standardize through a classification of this kind than by proceeding vaguely without a plan. Duties can be defined, then equipment and material described, and, lastly, methods of procedure out- lined. Equipment, material and methods are to be made as good as possible, and then, by the use of a suitable incentive, duties are to be performed as well as possible. This is the programme for efficiency. The essential feature about the classification, when developed, is that it should be used throughout the whole organization for every purpose by everyone at work, and that it therefore must embrace everything in the factory. When an item has received a certain symbol or figure in classification, it must be known by that symbol in the drafting-room, the operating shops, the costs department, the document-filing department, the stores and stock-room, and so on. The next question will be, What sort of a symbol to use ? It should be mnemonic, or suggestive to the memory, also isolated and distinct for each item, and as brief as is compatible with thesé two needs. The effort of classification, and in particular the use of symbols, is fascinating to many minds as a mental exercise. They delight in elaborating a wide elastic scheme to suit all contingencies. While schemes of this kind are a necessary basis for con- structing a classification in any particular concern, the manager who introduces one has to make his own modifications and selections for his own business,