two workmen, in one of our large and successful engineering
establishments of the old school, stand over the cylinder of an engine
which was being built, with chalk and dividers, and discuss for more
than an hour the proper size and location of the studs for fastening on
the cylinder head. This was simplicity, but not economy. About the same
time he became thoroughly convinced of the necessity and economy of a
planning department with time study, and with written instruction cards
and returns. He saw over and over again a workman shut down his machine
and hunt up the foreman to inquire, perhaps, what work to put into his
machine next, and then chase around the shop to find it or to have a
special tool or template looked up or made. He saw workmen carefully
nursing their jobs by the hour and doing next to nothing to avoid making
a record, and he was even more forcibly convinced of the necessity for a
change while he was still working as a machinist by being ordered by the
other men to slow down to half speed under penalty of being thrown over
the fence.

No one now doubts the economy of the drafting room, and the writer
predicts that in a very few years from now no one will doubt the economy
and necessity of the study of unit times and of the planning department.

Another point of analogy between modern engineering and modern
management lies in the fact that modern engineering proceeds with
comparative certainty to the design and construction of a machine or
structure of the maximum efficiency with the minimum weight and cost of
materials, while the old style engineering at best only approximated
these results and then only after a series of breakdowns, involving the
practical reconstruction of the machine and the lapse of a long period
of time. The ordinary system of management, owing to the lack of exact
information and precise methods, can only approximate to the desired