Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE At intervals during the past four years I have been investigating the actual working of scientific management in practice. The results here given are derived in the majority of cases from personal visits to the plants in twelve States and conferences with owners, managers, and experts employed. The information in regard to the others is derived mainly from the consulting engineers. Information was sought with reference to the number, distribution, and types of plants to which scientific management has been applied; so much of the history and personality of the men engaged as is essential to an understanding of the development of their work; and the actual differences in practice between scientific and other types of management. Attention was also given to the results, both in the administration of plants and in the conditions of individual workers. The possible social consequences and tendencies involved in the movement offer a tempting field for speculation (which will be cultivated in another part ofthis book), and a few significant facts bearing on them were uncovered. In the feeling that a study of the failures might be almost as instructive as that of the successes, the facts in regard to them also were gathered and analyzed. 1. Statistics The total number of applications of scientific management definitely known to me is 212. This does not exhaust the list, however, as there are some cases in which the client is unwilling that his connection with this movement shall be known, and others in which consultants are reluctant-to give information. There is an uncertain number of such instances, probably small, in which either the work has been completed or is still in process. Of these 212 applications, 4 are to municipal wo…