Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-07-01
ENGLISH BUSINESS METHODS.
Scientific Management" No Nov
city Over There.

From the London Mail.
Scientific management is a principle
vaguely felt by all business men and in
most businesses vaguely applied. But it
can be only for the general commercial
good that it should be formulated and
recognized as business essential of a
definite practical character capable of
definite practical application.
| The principle might be thus stated: There
is always a best way of doing routine
work, and 1t is the immediate business of
the executive to discover it. formulate it,
and make it standard. Usually this is
left to the initiative of the workman or
clerk, or of the foreman or head clerk.
But the new idea" makes this a func-
ton OF the executive.
|. For instance, there Is a great catering
concern in London which is universally
known splendid organization and div
idend machine. But 1t is not general
ly known how infinitely the actions of the
subordinates are directed from the eXecu-
| tive offices. Even such a tiny detail as
the best way Of laying a table has been
studied and made standard: each waiter
or waitress Is required to lay a table in
! that particular way. So that when girl
is transferred from one branch to another
she finds the details OF routine exactly
the same. There Is nothing for her to
unlearn and waste time in unlearning.
That is scientific management.
With certain multiple-snop company
the window dressing of each shop is prac-
tIcally all done from headquarters. An
expert sits in a London office ard makes
plans for every shop in the Chain. De-
tailed Instructions are sent to each branch
and the branch sets out the standard
window That again is scientific manage
ment.
In the office tnera are the same oppor-
tunities for stanjardizing as i'm the rac-
tory. \ certain firm required all its short
hand typists to fill in a printed schedule
of the number of letters they took down:
the etteIs, post cards. kilograms. memo
randa. etc, they typed: the odd bits of en-
yelope address ng and parcel wrappiE
they carried out. Graded marks were
awarded for each kind of work and from
that it was dedrced what should be the
normal days work of a typist. and how
much it cost the house to send out a let
ter. post card or parcel.
Naturally. such a test revealed a hi :
difference in the capacities OF different
typsts. 1t was then the business of the
executive to stuly the quickest ways of
working without extra expenditure of en-
ergy. and have the slowest workers in
structed.
But a research of that kind goes
farther I. may show that the fault es
not with the typist, bu; with the plan
ming of the office. Perhaps some of the
subordinates waste too much time in
moving about to find papers or collect
memoranda. 1t may show the desira-
bility cf installing an overhead rail
way" system such as will be found in the
counting house of at least one London
departmental store.
Ii may also disclose the point that the
fault es with one of the minor execu-
tives Instead of reading through his
mornings pile of letters by himself. and
when he has decided on the answer to
each calling in the stenographer, he has
the wasteful business habit of keeping
4, n
through each letter in her presence. /
have seen two men, with similar pile
of letters to answer. spend, respectively,
about a quarter of an hour and over an
hour in debating. Small time Wastages,
trivial in themselves, mount up aston
shingly In the course of a year