Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-12-05
'K|LO-MAN' HOUR
TESTS EFFICIENCY
New Measure of Business
Management Is Intro
duced by Experts.
BY J. c. ROYLE.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

special D1SpaJCn 10 Ine OLaF.
:. NEW YORK, December 5.-The knell
was rung today on any potential monop-
oily in the industries of the United
States. 1t was tolled in the report of
L. P. Afford and j. p. Hannum before
the American Society of Mechanical En-
gineers. This report dealt with individ-
ual efficiency of workers and efficiency
of management, and showed beyond a
doubt that the greatest efficiency was
not attained by the larger companies.
It also showed that the smaller con-
Germs, through efficiency, could compete
with the larger units Of the same indus
try successfully.
A new unit of measurement of eff
cheney and management was used in de-
veloping the report, which seems likely
to become standard in industry. Il Is
the kilo-man hour, which represents
the value in dollars of the nan hour Of
labor. s..A.a.
Ratio of Efficiency.
The report demonstrated that the re-
lation of highest to lowest efficiency in
the same industry was as 10 to that
is, each man hour of labor produced in
one, concern 10 times the value of the
product in the other. The actual fig
ures adduced range from $l0,870 per
1000 kilo-man hours TO $548 per 1000
kilo-n1an hours of labor.
Some of the figures built up, as a
result of a study of some 10000 con-
Germs using three and half billions
of hours of man-poWer labor, showed
the range between high and low eff
cheney in textiles was as 20 to /; in
gas manufacture, 40 to 1; in lumber
production, SO to /: in paper, 20 to l.
Steel fabrication had the narroWest
spread with difference Of only 1.54
per cent between highest and lowest
man-hour production.
It was astonishing to learn from the
report that the small concern in general
showed decidedly higher grade of
management than the large corpora
ton. In IS of the SO industries studied,
the smallest company had higher rate
Of efficiency than the largest company.
AS Charles p. Tolson, consulting en-
gineer, puts it: THE character of manu-
featuring equipment must be a large
factor in the wide range OF productive
results per kilo-man hour. There must
be other offsetting factors that are
holding profits at fairly uniform levels,
despite these surprising differences in
output per unit of labor. These factors
we must find and learn to control.
"It is too much to expect that we
can so control all factors that all
plants will be raised to a uniform and
supreme level of operation. Never
theless it is within reason to expect
that through revaluation of all the fac
tors and their coordination the pros
perity of our American industries will
be upgraded by larger margin than
heretofore believed possible
Factors In AnaIvSis.
Among the factors taken into con-
sideration in working out man-hour
efficiency is the industrial accident fac
tor, measurable in time-lost accidents
per thousand man-hours worked. A
Study of this alone is likely to result
In the saving of millions of dollars and
thousands of lives. 1t is obvious that
managerial methods are never twice
the same. Equipment, location, build
ings, processes and methods all enter
in. but one thing which makes the
kilo man-hour applicable is human
effort.
The automobile industry, in which
the largest value of product per thous-
and man-hours of any industry in this
country. with an average of $6,410.
Yet the smallest company studied in
this field showed a production rate OF
36.40 cars per thousand Inan-hours,
as against 1877 cars for the largest,
which worked 106,200,000 man-hours,
as against 1925 for its little COM
petitor. The largest cotton fabric pro-
Queer turned out 1887 pounds per
thousand nan-hours, as against 10,310
pounds for the smallest producer in this
field.