HPS282S - HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING
Spring 1998
Controlling Bodies, Controlling Minds
31 March 1998
I. The Railroads and Systematization
A. Engineers and the Growth of Railroads
B. The Line and Staff Organization of Railroads
C. Growth, Dispersion and the Problems of Systematization
II. America and Systems at the End of the Nineteenth Century
A. The Rapid Growth of American Industry and Population after US Civil War
1. 1870-1915 sees 12-fold incr. in industrial production
2. 1890 US ind. prod. is greater than the sum of its 3 largest rivals.
3. Concentration of firms
4. Increase in population
B. Systematic Management
1. Industrial betterment movement.
2. Systematizers or systematic management: Attacked improvisation in businesss and taught profitability of orderly arrangements:
a) inspired by the railroads in many cases
b) popular analogies: army, machine, human body cf. Ure and the Philosophy of Manufactures
c) paradoxically not very explicit about laying down body of formal doctrine.
d) Features:
(1) Central Office
(a) Standardized forms
(b) Centralized planning and control
(2) Efficient cost accounting
(a) Unit cost analyses
(b) Job cards and time clocks
(3) Improved administration
(a) Centralized Purchasing
(b) Standardized Materials
(c) Inventory control plans
(4) Wage policies and incentive plans
(a) Premiums and piecework rates
e) Many features adopted by Taylor
III. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915)
A. Early Career and Character
B. Ideological Aspects of Taylor's Work
1. Robust individualism
a) Motivating forces for human action
(1) American middle class materialism
b) Perspective for evaluation of human skill and remuneration
2. Rejection of group values and solidarity, class consciousness
3. Belief in objective ("scientific") approach to human relations that stood above classes and persons
C. Midvale Steel and High Speed Tool Steel
D. "Scientific Management"
1. "Scientific" Analysis of Work
2. "Scientific" Selection of Workers
3. Training of Workers
4. Involvement of Management
E. Scientific Management in Action
1. scheduling of work
2. inventory management
3. thorough cost accounting
4. purchasing procedures
5. economic incentives (differential piece rates)
- Much of above inherited from systematic management. More original perhaps:
6. getting specially selected and trained workers
7. store and tool room organization
8. standardized and explicit procedures written up in job descriptions
a) US Steel in 1947 has 1150 job descriptions with 152 representative classifications
(1) e.g. Shovelling Sand
(2) "Fair day's work" defined as "that amount of work that can be produced by a qualified employee when working at a normal pace ... equivalent to a man walking, without load, on smooth, level ground at a rate of three miles per hour"
9. best technical process
10. functional foremanship (gang boss, speed boss, disciplinarian)
11. planning department
