Afterward we employed nine per car per day. This did not mean
that six out of fifteen men lost their jobs. They only ceased being
unproductive. We made that cut by applying the rule that everything and
everybody must produce or get out.
We cut our office forces in halves and offered the office workers better
jobs in the shops. Most of them took the jobs. We abolished every order
blank and every form of statistics that did not directly aid in the
production of a car. We had been collecting tons of statistics because
they were interesting. But statistics will not construct automobiles--so
out they went.
We took out 60 per cent. of our telephone extensions. Only a
comparatively few men in any organization need telephones. We formerly
had a foreman for every five men; now we have a foreman for every twenty
men. The other foremen are working on machines.
We cut the overhead charge from $146 a car to $93 a car, and when you
realize what this means on more than four thousand cars a day you will
have an idea how, not by economy, not by wage-cutting, but by the
elimination of waste, it is possible to make an "impossible" price.
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