The human mind seems incapable of believing anything that it cannot conceive and understand...  I speak from experience, for when it was first asserted that merchant flour mills could be constructed to attend themselves, so far as to take meal from the stones, and the wheat from the wagons and raise them to the upper storeys, spreading the meal to cool and gathering it by the same operations into the bolting hopper, etc. until the flour was ready for packing, the projector was answered:  You cannot make water run up hill, you cannot make wooden millers.

--Oliver Evans

Oliver Evans' automated mill, Redclay Creek, Delaware (1785)
 

1. Grain goes into RECEIVING HOPPER and drops down a chute to the elevator in the basement. 2. ELEVATOR dumps grain into ROLLING SCREEN to filter out dirt and other foreign objects.  3. Grain falls into SMUTTER or FANNING MILL to remove any mold or dirt attached to the grain. 4. Grain falls into STORAGE BINS above the millstones. 5. Grain falls into the HOPPER above hole in middle of MILLSTONES.  The SHOE, beneath the hopper, regulates flow of grain onto BED STONE. 6. Grain falls onto MILLSTONES that move at the rate of 125 rpm. 7. Warm, moist flour falls through a chute into basement where ELEVATORS pick it up and carry it to attic. 8. HOPPER BOY cools and drys flour with a revolving rake.  9. Flour drops into AUGER or CONVEYOR, which moves it, while continuing to dry it, to head of BOLTER. 10. Revolving motion moves flour over BOLTER's screens.  FLOUR falls through the finest mesh.  MIDDLINGS pass through the medium screen.  BRAN falls out the end. 11. Flour, depending on its fineness, drops into different HOLDING BINS and is loaded into barrels.

Evans' design incorporated three innovative elements to carry the grain automatically from one processing stage to another:  the "endless belt," the "endless screw," and the "chain of buckets."   The result was a continuous line of production.  His automated mill could handle 300 bushels an hour.  Those who said it couldn't be done later came to observe the mill in operation.  Continuous production has been such an integral part of the modern manufacturing landscape for such a long time that it is difficult to conceive of a factory without it.  In Evans' day, no one could imagine a system built on what was a wholly new operational principle.

Besides, there was (and still is) considerable disagreement over the relative quality and reliability of hand-finished parts compared to those tooled exclusively by machine.  Machinists saw themselves as expert craftsmen.  They took special pride in their creations and resisted being replaced by machines that could mass produce mediochre parts.

For Isaac Singer, one of a number of successful nineteenth-century sewing machine manufacturers, the answer was obvious:  Quality in production depends more on expert hand finishing and fitting than on the large-scale manufacture of uniform parts by special-purpose machines.

In 1862, Singer was confronted with a serious dilemma.  In that year, an overwhelming number of consumers voiced complaints about the sewing machines they had purchased.  Repairing the faulty machines and replacing broken or malfunctioning parts forced Singer to reconsider the wisdom of his preferred method of operation.

Singer's first sewing machine (1851-1858)

Taylor's Method

First.  Find 10 or 15 different men ... who are especially skilful in doing the particular work to be analyzed.

Second.  Study the exact series of elementary operations or motions which each of these men uses in doing the work which is being investigated, as well as the implements each man uses.

Third.  Study with a stop-watch the time required to make each of these elementary movements and then select the quickest way of doing each element of the work.

Fourth.  Eliminate all false movements, slow movements, and useless movements.

Fifth.  After doing away with all unnecessary movements, collect into one series the quickest and best movements as well as the best implements.

This one new method ... is then substituted in place of the ten or fifteen inferior series which were formerly in use.  This best method becomes standard, and remains standard, to be taught first to the foremen ... and by them to every workman in the establishment until it is superseded by a quicker and better series of movements.

The Task

• work planned in advance ... which is to be solved ... not by the workman alone, but in almost all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the management

• specifies
• what is to be done
• how it is to be done
• exact time allowed for doing it

• always so regulated that the man who is well suited to his job will thrive while working at this rate during a long term of years and grow happier and more prosperous, instead of being overworked

• "scientific management" consists very largely in preparing for and carrying out these tasks

• whenever workman does task right, and within the time limit specified, he receives an additional 30 - 100% to his ordinary wages

• in no case is the workman called upon to work at a pace which would be injurious to his health

Now one of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation is that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type.

The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work of this character.

Therefore the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work.  He is so stupid that the word "percentage" has no meaning to him, and he must consequently be trained by a man more intelligent than himself into the habit of working in accordance with the laws of this science before he can be successful.

Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Automaker Henry Ford put Taylor's method to work in his plants.

The Language of Mass Production

"Ford Sociology Department" -- name given to the office whose function was to monitor and spy on personal lives of employees in order to root out and expose moral failure

"Ford stomach" -- a nervous condition among Ford employees attributed to the stress and exhaustion of assembly line work

"Ford whisper" -- a form of covert speech used on assembly lines

"fordism" -- an unbalanced celebration of automated efficiency that threatens the basis of civilization