FUNCTIONALIZATION IN MANAGEMENT.--"Functional Management"
consists, to quote Dr. Taylor, "in so directing the work of
management that each man from the assistant superintendent down
shall have as few functions as possible to perform. If practicable,
the work of each man in the management should be confined to the
performance of a single leading function."[5]
A study of functionalization as applied to management must
answer the following questions:
1. How is the work divided?
2. How are the workers assigned to the work?
3. What are the results to the work?
4. What are the results to the worker?
TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT SELDOM FUNCTIONALIZES.--Under Traditional
Management the principle of Functionalization was seldom applied or
understood. Even when the manager tried to separate planning from
performing, or so to divide the work that each worker could utilize
his special ability, there were no permanently beneficial results,
because there was no standard method of division.
THE WORK OF THE FOREMAN NOT PROPERLY DIVIDED.--The work of a
foreman was not divided, but the well rounded man, as Dr. Taylor
says,[6] was supposed to have
1. Brain
2. Education
3. Special or technical knowledge, manual dexterity or strength
4. Tact
5. Energy
6. Grit
7. Honesty
8. Judgment, or common sense
9. Good health.
Dr. Taylor says--"Plenty of men who possess only three of the
above qualities can be hired at any time for laborer's wages. Add
four of these qualities together, and you get a higher priced man.
The man combining five of these qualities begins to be hard to find,
and those with 6, 7 and 8 are almost impossible to get."
Yet, under Traditional Management these general qualities and
many points of specific training were demanded of the foreman. Dr.
Taylor has enumerated the qualifications or the duties of a gang
boss in charge of lathes or planers.[7] Careful reading of this
enumeration will show most plainly that the demands made were almost
impossible of fulfillment.[8]
Another list which is interesting is found in "Cost Reducing
System," a long list of the duties of the Ideal Superintendent or
foreman in construction work.[9]
QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES OF
FIRST CLASS FOREMAN
A first class foreman must have:
bodily
strength
brains
common sense
education
energy
good health
good judgment
grit
manual dexterity
special knowledge
tact
technical knowledge.
He must be:
able to concentrate his mind upon small things
able to read drawings readily
able to visualize the work at every stage of its progress,
and even before it begins
a master of detail
honest
master of at least one trade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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