standard steel forging, many thousands of which are used each year, had
for several years been turned at the rate of from four to five per day
under the ordinary system of piece work, 50 cents per piece being the
price paid for the work. After analyzing the job, and determining the
shortest time required to do each of the elementary operations of which
it was composed, and then summing up the total, the writer became
convinced that it was possible to turn ten pieces a day. To finish the
forgings at this rate, however, the machinists were obliged to work at
their maximum pace from morning to night, and the lathes were run as
fast as the tools would allow, and under a heavy feed. Ordinary tempered
tools 1 inch by 1 1/2 inch, made of carbon tool steel, were used for
this work.

"It will be appreciated that this was a big day's work, both for men and
machines, when it is understood that it involved removing, with a single
16-inch lathe, having two saddles, an average of more than 800 lbs of
steel chips in ten hours. In place of the 50 cent rate, that they had
been paid before, the men were given 35 cents per piece when they turned
them at the speed of 10 per day; and when they produced less than ten
they received only 25 cents per piece.

"It took considerable trouble to induce the men to turn at this high
speed, since they did not at first fully appreciate that it was the
intention of the firm to allow them to earn permanently at the rate of
$3.50 per day. But from the day they first turned ten pieces to the
present time, a period of more than ten years, the men who understood
their work have scarcely failed a single day to turn at this rate.
Throughout that time until the beginning of the recent fall in the scale
of wages throughout the country, the rate was not cut.