Harrington Emerson

'The Twelve Principles of Efficiency, like the twelve signs of the zodiac, divide the heavens into twelve parts, thus giving us twelve different directions of attack on inefficiency' -Harrington Emerson   Harrington Emerson was one of the leading figures in America when it came to industrial engineering and management and organisational theory. He was a big advocate for standardisation and efficiency. ‘Nearly two hundred companies adopted various features of the Emerson Efficiency System, which included production routing procedures, standardised working conditions and tasks, time and motion studies, and a bonus plan which raised worker’s wages in accordance with greater efficiency and productivity’. What we can gather is that his ideas and organisation schemes have been endorsed by all sorts of firms. There are hundreds of thousands of different companies and workplaces all carrying out very different jobs and requiring very different skill sets. However, one thing that they a...

  Harrington Emerson’s eleventh principle is Written Standard-Practice Instructions. The primary basis of this principle is Emerson’s belief that all standards should be recorded in the form of written instructions for employees and employers. He believed these should detail the standards themselves which they should comply with, as well as the method of such compliance. [1]   Emerson believed that this was important for both safety and efficiency purposes. He uses the standardisation of gun practice, a relevant example of his time, to explain this. Emerson tells us that after years of monitoring the use of guns, the US government published a ‘ voluminous book of instructions and suggestions’ on gun practices. This was done confidentially to ensure it was only used by US soldiers and it was done in-order-to inform them of the best ways to go about using a gun in a safe and effective manner. These guidelines were from then on the permanent standard-practice guidelines. [2] ...

  Emerson’s 10th principle relates to the efficiency not only of the worker, but also the efficiency of managers. His tenth principle “Model work methods” is applied to managers or supervisors. He theorized that in order to receive work that would be considered “quality” by the managers, the managers had to model what qualified as good work to the workers.  “Determining them is necessary if we want to achieve satisfactory results.” This principle surpasses the workplace Research has shown that modelling is an effective instructional strategy in that it allows students to observe the teacher's thought processes Using this type of instruction, teachers engage students in imitation of particular behaviours that encourage learning.” By modelling the desired work, workers and students alike, are able to decipher what elements of a piece of work are considered good. Effective modelling also improves the value of the managers. Good effective modelling leads to concise, high-qual...

  A continuation of the theme of standardization, Emerson’s 9th principle says that “to make the most of your opportunities, you must "adapt yourself so that you can dispose of external factors or adapt external conditions so that the person becomes the axis around which everything revolves." This implies that in order for one to be one's happiest in not only the workplace but also in their lives outside of work- one must be able to adapt to the environment around them.  By being able to adapt to the continuously changing environment, you are then able to prioritize yourself once again. Aside from being able to prioritize yourself, it's been found that those who are able to adapt have a higher value in the workplace, are more likely to be recognized as a leader, and their overall happiness and life satisfaction is greater. Adapting to frequent change also has long term health benefits such as lowered stress levels.  Emerson’s 9th principle is extremely applicable to h...

  One of the major themes in Emerson’s 12 principles was the idea of standardization. He advocated that standardization was a basis for efficiency, which is a widely accepted theme today. His 8th principle, “Requirements must be tailored to the individuals and vice versa” is a prime example of the theme of standardization.  Emerson theorized that by standardizing working conditions that the efficiency of workplaces would improve, and it has. It has been found that standardized work has a plethora of benefits including creating stability, keeping quality consistent and reducing variability in products. Along with standardizing the workplace, Emerson also presented the idea of bonus plans. This plan raised the workers wage in accordance with the workers productivity and efficiency. This plan also incentivized employees, which in turn increased productivity and efficiency. Furthermore, it has been found that standardized working conditions have increased worker satisfaction rates...

  Emerson’s seventh principle states that the course of action should be precisely determined. He stresses the importance of forward planning and having a direct route to follow to achieve your goals. Emerson acknowledges that while having a plan, the success of the project is determined by external and internal forces. While you have direct control over the internal forces, you do not have control over and subsequently are always relying on the external forces to truly be successful.  After leaving the University, Emerson became an emigration agent for the Union Pacific Railroad, land agent for the Burlington and Missouri Railroad in Keith County, Nebraska and surveyor with the Lincoln Land Company. This allowed Emerson to gain extremely valuable knowledge of choice lands. Emerson and his family ended up i nvesting $70,000 into a, in theory brilliant idea of investing in future town sites but was destroyed by drought and crop failures dropped crop prices and interrupted mort...