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THE
REVIEW
fflJSIC T^ADE
VOL LXIX. No. 11
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Sept. 13, 1919
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Increasing the Efficiency of the Factory
T
H E factory problems of today present many complex phases, most of them due to conditions resulting
from the upset caused by the war. Not only is it proving increasingly difficult to get a sufficient number
of factory workers to fully man the plants in the various industries, but such plants as happen to be fairly
well manned are not producing with maximum efficiency as a rule. The condition is general, and not con-
fined to any one line of trade.
Inasmuch as the National Piano Manufacturers' Association have taken up seriously the question of voca-
tional training with a view to providing skilled workers for piano factories, with Richard W. Lawrence, chair-
man of the Vocational Training Committee, working hard to formulate some definite program for the carrying
on of this idea, it is interesting to learn that Government officials have not been asleep to the needs of industry,
and have given this particular question earnest attention.
Col. Arthur Woods, assistant to the Secretary of War, has just formulated a plan, nation-wide in scope, by
which factory owners and industrial corporations throughout the country, said to be 20,000 in number, are to un-
dertake systematic industrial training for their workers on a basis that will permit these workers to prove self-
supporting during the period of apprenticeship. Col. Woods' plan is to be carried out on the theory that the pres-
ent high cost of living is due largely to decreased production, and the development of efficiency in this particular
will serve automatically to bring down prices of necessary commodities to a reasonable basis. Investigation is
said to have proven that American factories generally are running at a very low level of efficiency, the percentage
of production as compared to normal for the New England district, for instance, being given as sixty per cent.
It is likewise estimated that six million men are being used to do work that could be done by 4,500,000, provided
they were prooerly trained and placed in a position where their skilled efforts would be productive of increased
efficiency.
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It is said that in cases where the plan has already been tried out it has proven most successful, and great
expectations are held regarding its possibilities when fully developed. The report is made that a shoe factory near
New York employed a number of apprentices at $15 a week, and by careful guidance these same men were within
the period of a month or six weeks earning as high as $70 a week. The practice of training apprentices carefully
and offering them genuine incentive to perfect themselves in their work and increase their earning capacity not
alone provides a corps of efficient workmen for the factory and increases its production immeasurably, but likewise
provides an abundance of material from which to select competent men for an executive position. A plan that
will aid one manufacturer in solving his skilled help problem should likewise help another manufacturer, though
he be in an entirely different line. The piano industry, therefore, should be greatly interested in the work being
carried on by Colonel Woods and his associates, with a view to adopting the plan in part or in its entirety them-
selves. It must be remembered that any plan put forth is of necessity more or less theoretical in character, for
there is little or no precedent upon which to base definite conclusions, but even the working out of a theory that
has the earmarks of practicability is to be preferred to remaining passive and doing nothing.
Under-production exists to an unusual extent in the piano industry at the present time, as witness the vast
totals represented by unfilled orders already on the books of the manufacturers. If the present great demand
for musical instruments is to be supplied there must of necessity be greater productivity on the part of the
factories, and any plan which will bring this about is worthy of careful consideration.
The question is not one entirely of wages, but rather one of production. The man who is producing up to
maximum is worth far more in proportion than the one who is proving inefficient. Where earning power is based
upon production entirely the manufacturer has little chance, of loss. He is only paying in proportion to what he
needs.