The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-10-21
GETTING TOGETHER
 FOR EFFICIENCY


 Show Us How Brandeis Really
 Created a New Profession Win
 moving Fake Efficiency Engineers.
 BOYD FISHER
 Efficiency Society
 Exclusive Service The Survey Press Bureau.)
 When Louis D. Brandeis, of Bos- ton, acting as attorney for the ship pers before the Inter State Commerce Commission in their fight against a threatened increase of freight rates, declared that the railroads of the country could save million dollars a day, by increased efficiency of opera ton, the railroad managers inmedi- ately exclaimed in chorus: Show us howl" And the nation echoed: 'sShow us howl It developed that MT. Brandeis was quoting as authority Harrington Emerson, whose profession is called efficiency engineering and that MT. Emerson was but one of a group of
 
 make it their business to show us how to accomplish in any industry re- suits similar to those secured by Tay- Tor at the Midvale Steel Works in PhiIad delphia.
 These how men specialize in diff ferent kinds of business and in the countless branches of business. .s Like florified auditors pr accountants, they go from client to client criticizing, standardizing and systematizing well established enterprises.
 Their systems and methods are generally termed, scientific manage ment." The chief feature is care ful timing with the stop watch of the motions of specialized workmen, mainly the unskiIled, and the estab- 1 1ishment for the benefit of foremen l and workmen of uniform instructions on the basis of the economical mo tions of the most expert and efficient | workman on the given job. Other fea- lures are cost accounting, stores keeping, planning and routing of work, and organization-charting These various features are empha- sized, neglected. or supplemented ac- cording to the needs of the special | case or the system and experience of the individual engineer. MT Brandeis, pronouncetnent gave the efficiency engineers a great | boost They were quick to make capital out of the unexpected popular attention. Many began to make large claims about their ability to reform and yitalize industries Many new men skilled, possibly, in some one de- partment of business, jumped to en- terS the field as efficiency engineers and reckless1y began to tackle jobs of reorganization and systematizing far too big for them.
 At this point the Efficiency Society stepped into the beach. Drawing to- gether more than a thousand men of accomplishme in almost every line of work and industry; it effected early in the year an organization which proposes to study and furnish the standards for judging the various methods of efficiency and scientific management and for appraising the | industrial engineers who propose to l 11lStetII E4I0In fId1lTOdO presidents and deans of colleges, heads of man | ufacturing corporations and progres- | sive workmen in mills, newspaper I men and government officials-a sur prisingly varied 1ist-proposed to turn | their joint efforts to the promotion or 1 all methods for increasing the per centage of result or product for a 1 given expenditure of human effort Especially at the start the society | expects both to help esta ablish a pro- 1 fessionaI standing for and to apply professional checks upon the effici- l ency engineer. It wishes to make him
 more careful in his claims and tc | prevent him from discrediting the | new calling by attempting jobs too 1 big for him. It will attempt the diff ficult work of eliminating fakers without unduly judging individuals. But this is merely the superfcia11y
 obviods work of the society," Its real function is much more fundamental Fl Printers Ink magazine, in a recent