Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

STANDARDIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION 67 as this will certainly not include all contingencies. It is worth noticing that the Universal System for classifying knowledge, now generally accepted in libraries, and departments filing documents, eman- ated from an American. This is the one known as the Dewey or Decimal system. It has been recom- mended by the U.S. President’s Commission for Economy and Efficiency for filing records in Govern- ment departments. Mr. Thompson’s essay discusses among other topics the unsuitability of the Dewey system to works management, although he expresses the aspiration that a Government committee should be created to classify and symbolize “ all business ” as Dewey undertook to do for all knowledge. The Dewey system uses figures entirely. If one uses letters there are 26 (more usually 23) alternatives in each entry, or spacing, of the symbol, where a figure gives only 10 possibilities. Secondly, letters can be arranged so that mistakes are more easily detected if they are read or copied wrongly than figures can be. Thirdly, letters can be made of more assistance to the memory, initial letters being used to a very large extent. The two last considerations are important in a works where, as we have said, all sorts of people are to use the symbol for all sorts of purposes, whereas Dewey’s system is primarily only for filing. Good management seems to require some form of symbolization for the matters with which it deals— some form well thought out and carefully adapted. Dr. Taylor evolved one for himself in the early stages