Taylor's Cube
Taylor was solving his own version of Rubik's Cube™. His problem had a few primary characteristics.
First, Taylor or some of his friends could both formulate and solve the problem. They made a business out of it. It was possible to find an equation accounting for the variables that dictated how much work a man could do in a day at a particular job. At Bethlehem Steel Company in 1900, Taylor had one of his protégés, a mathematician named Carl Barth, try to devise “the law” of pig iron labor. Barth puzzled over it for some time, but eventually came up with 43% work, 57% rest. [6] Nice and scientific.
[6] Taylor, 27.
The equations describing the “laws” of work were certainly complicated algebra. They took some figuring, and they were ...
Get Managing Software for Growth: Without Fear, Control, and the Manufacturing Mindset now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
