Profit by Experience.

In considering ways and means for efficient management of
industrial organizations, it is not necessary to commence at the
beginning of each plant. The method of dealing with the problems
of existing plants is also applicable to new organizations, for a
new organization is only new in a limited sense. It uses men of
experience. It uses existing machines and implements. It follows
existing methods of conducting business and in the general
management of its affairs.

Even the so-called new method which may be the center around which
the so-called new business is built contains very little that is
new. The newest things in the ordinary industrial world contain
many old and well-known elements. The very use of a so-called
new method or machine as a center around which to build an
organization is in itself so old that it is a confirmed habit with
us to be lured on to investing in such things by the statement
that some new process or means is to be employed.

A really new thing that calls for wholly new ways and new means
for manufacture is almost inconceivable. The nearer we approach to
newness in the industrial world the thinner becomes the ice on
which we are moving. Therefore, let us know that when we advise
following habit lines in all moves in management of an existing
organization we imply that the same course should be taken in
establishing a new company or organization.