Practical Application of Science and Principles of Management - A. Hamilton Church

Book: The Science and Practice of Management, A. Hamilton Church 1914/1918

Organic Functions of Manufacturing Management/Administration: 

Design, Equipment, Control, Comparison and Operation

Principles of Management

• Accumulate Experience and Use in Setting up new production units 
• 
  
• Regulate Effort of Machines and Men
• 
  
• Division of Effort
• Coordination
• Conservation - Efficiency - Productivity
• Remuneration proportional to Effort
• 
  
• Increase Productiveness of Effort of Each Individual

Organizing the Function of Design

PRINCIPAL APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS IN REGARD TO DESIGN.
Related to Manufacture of Machinery

1. Analysis of the machine or other product into unit parts or components.

2. Analysis of each part into process units corresponding with operation units {e.g., planing, drilling, etc.)

3. Analysis of each process unit into two varieties  of work, namely, preparation or setting, and
operation.

4. Analysis of each of these varieties into its elements, namely, the several steps necessary
to do the work.

5. Time study of each of these separate steps. The aggregate of time required for all the
steps of preparation becomes a standard time. Similarly with time required for all
the steps of operation.

6. Motion study of preparation and operation steps may be desirable, when the frequent
repetition of the same work makes it remunerative.

7. In connection with (2) above, it may be  found necessary to specify the use of certain tools, jigs, etc. These may, in some cases, require designing and constructing. Then their use requires analysis and study in the same manner as components.

Analysis of the method of operating machines, apart from individual items of product, is a part of Operation Function.

Organizing the Function of Equipment 

The selection and installation of equipment has a separate set of efficiencies from its current working or administration. Careful selection and arrangement according to the Laws of Effort is essential unless the plant is to be burdened, more or less permanently, with inefficient conditions, since it is the function of equipment to provide suitable conditions for production in every department.

Similarly, when the equipment has been installed, a large part of the conditions it sets up are made effective only by efficient administration. The administrative side of equipment deals with maintaining suitable conditions. However good the equipment and however skillfully it may have been arranged in the first instance, the realizable efficiency will depend on whether the Laws of Effort are being observed in running it. Some of the principal ways in which the laws 

are applicable have been indicated. 

Both in installation and administration of equipment, there are standards to be ascertained, and lived up to. These standards are also subject to rectification and improvement from time to time. When both the original standards of installation and the current standards of administration are high, the function will be working at its best. If either of them has been organized without reference to standards, efficiency is a matter of luck and will probably be much lower than it should be. 

PRINCIPAL APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS IN REGARD TO EQUIPMENT.

1. Analysis of the proposed product, with a view to determine what kind of equipment must
be provided to handle the volume of work expected.

2. Quantitative analysis of the different kinds of equipment service that will be required, under the principal divisions of: — power plant; storage, handling and conveying facilities; operation equipment ; offices ; and the buildings that will be required to house these arrangements.

3. Determination of space allotment required for buildings, yards, offices and machinery,
based on (2).

4. Analysis of route to be followed by product, persons and communications between  departments.

5. Analysis of route to be followed by product,  persons and communications within departments or shops.

6. Arrangement of buildings, yards, offices and machinery to the best advantage in regard
to the space available, based on (4) and (5).

Organizing the Function of Operation

PRINCIPAL APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS IN REGARD TO OPERATION.

1. Analysis of the different skills, trades, callings and machine processes into operation units.
(Note. — Units of design must correspond exactly with these operation units.)

2. Analysis of the scope or range of each machine, where it is capable of performing more than one operation, or can be varied in capacity, speed, feed, etc.

3. Analysis, by means of motion study, of the various steps of feeding material to and operating each machine. This is the most valuable field for the employment of motion study, inasmuch as the now standards thus set up can be fostered into new habit on the part of the operator.

4. Analysis of the productive capacity of each machine or "production center", so that a "loading standard" can be set up. The average amount of product turned out in a given period can then be calculated and made use of in arranging sequence of orders and making promises of delivery.

5. Analysis of the "total effective production capacity" of the plant, based on number of working hours in a given period, so that "capacity used" can be distinguished from "capacity wasted", and thus a measure of the general efficiency of production in each shop set up.

Note. — The analysis of individual items of product by time or motion study is a part of Design.

Law of Efficient Flow 

page 388

Maximum efficiency as regards flow is achieved when each machine in the plant is continuously engaged in producing one single component of the product, the output of the various machines being so proportioned that all the components turned out in the shop are assembled as fast as they are produced ; also where the supply of raw material is so provided for that the quantity of raw material carried in stock is not more than absolutely necessary to prevent shortage which would stop the stream of production. Further, on the commercial side the flow of work is at its best when the manufactured and assembled product is sold and delivered as fast as it leaves the shop. 

These conditions can rarely be realized in the kinds of business that approximate to the ''engineering"  but for any type of business they represent what would be the highest efficiency— because the quickest turning over of capital— could they be realized. The nearer any business can approach these ideal conditions the nearer it will be to absolute efficiency, regarded from the point of view of the flow of work. Properly regarded these conditions become a measuring rule by which to compare the actual conditions in a plant. Some of them will be seen at once to be impossible of attainment owing to the nature of the work, but the most skillful organizer will be he who gets with the means at his disposal the nearest approximation to this continuous stream of production that his conditions will allow.


PRINCIPAL APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS IN REGARD TO COMPARISON.

1. Analysis of operation sequences, to determine at what points inspection is necessary.

2. Analysis of all accessory services (power, etc.) to determine the points at which observation
and record are necessary.

3. Analysis of operation sequences, to determine between which points costs should be taken
out.

4. Analysis of the different sources of wastes, to determine at what points they should be ob-
served and recorded.

5. Analysis of the material situation, to determine what varieties of material should be
subjected to chemical examination or physical inspection on receipt in stores.
6- Analysis of burden to determine how it should be charged against production capacity.

PRINCIPAL APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS IN REGARD TO CONTROL. 

1. Analysis of the material situation, to determine its requisition, purchase-ordering, receiving, storing, handling or conveying, and issue to shops. 

2. Analysis of the product situation, to determine its receipts by shops, passage from production center to production center, and subsequent delivery into stores or warehouse. 

3. Settlement of spheres of duty, based on (1) and (2). 

4. Analysis of the customers' order situation, to determine how they shall be received, accept- 

ed, delivery promises made, dissected departmentally, and passed to persons concerned. 

5. Settlement of spheres of duty based on (4). 

6. Analysis of the employment question, to decide on appointments, qualifications, and 

rates of wages or salaries. 

7. Determination of the method to be adopted as to rate fixing for piece-work, or bonus jobs — 

whether based on time study, standard price-lists, or fixed by a foreman or rate-setter. 

8. Settlement of spheres of duty based on (6) and (7). 

9. Analysis of the stages at which, in complex industries, instructions have to meet material, with a view to establishing a control office or planning department to co-ordinate such movements. 

10. Settlement of spheres of duty based on (9).

Five axioms of administration - All of them of prime importance.

1. Skill can be transferred to, and embodied or stored in appliances.

2. Interchangeability of parts is frequently desirable.

3. Lower unit cost normally implies increased capacity for output.

4. The amount of direct labor and of burden in unit cost, and not the ratio or percentage, is alone
the test of efficiency.

5. Capital is a factor in cost.

It is not supposed that this is an exhaustive presentation of all the important axioms of administration, but it is believed that these are the most important and fundamental. They are presented in this detached, independent form since none of them is directly-derivable from the principles already enumerated, yet none of them can be regarded in itself as a regulative principle. They are rather statements of fact, so nearly self- evident after a little examination as to be beyond all challenge.