Before leaving this part of the book which has been devoted to pointing out the value of the daily task in management, it would seem desirable to give an illustration of the value of the differential rate piece work and also of the desirability of making each task as simple and short as practicable.
The writer quotes as follows from a paper entitled "A Piece Rate System," read by him before The American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1895: "The first case in which a differential rate was applied during the year 1884, furnishes a good illustration of what can be accomplished by it. A 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 112 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
