contention when the scheme of management is to allow each workman to do
the work as he pleases and hold him responsible for results.
Unfortunately, in ninety-nine out of a hundred such cases only the first
part of this plan is carried out. The workman chooses his own methods
and implements, but is not held in any strict sense accountable unless
the quality of the work is so poor or the quantity turned out is so
small as to almost amount to a scandal. In the type of management
advocated by the writer, this complete standardization of all details
and methods is not only desirable but absolutely indispensable as a
preliminary to specifying the time in which each operation shall be
done, and then insisting that it shall be done within the time allowed.

Neglecting to take the time and trouble to thoroughly standardize all of
such methods and details is one of the chief causes for setbacks and
failure in introducing this system. Much better results can be attained,
even if poor standards be adopted, than can be reached if some of a
given class of implements are the best of their kind while others are
poor. It is uniformity that is required. Better have them uniformly
second class than mainly first with some second and some third class
thrown in at random. In the latter case the workmen will almost always
adopt the pace which conforms to the third class instead of the first or
second. In fact, however, it is not a matter involving any great expense
or time to select in each case standard implements which shall be nearly
the best or the best of their kinds. The writer has never failed to make
enormous gains in the economy of running by the adoption of standards.

It was in the course of making a series of experiments with various air
hardening tool steels with a view to adopting a standard for the
Bethlehem works that Mr. J. Maunsel White, together with the writer,
discovered the Taylor-White process of treating tool steel, which marks