Using the Principles of Production

It is, in summary, of major importance in managing a business to know which system applies; to carry its principles through as far as possible; to find out which parts of production can be organized in a more advanced system and to organize them accordingly; and to know what demands each system makes on management.

Where historical and technological obstacles have barred the organization of production in the appropriate system, as in the basic-steel industry, it is a major challenge to management to work systematically on overcoming these obstacles. Emphasis should not be on working a little more effectively what is basically, the wrong system.

A business using the wrong system has to satisfy all the demands that the appropriate and more advanced system would make on management. Yet it does not have the wherewithal to pay for them, for this can come only out of the increased ability to produce which the more advanced system provides.

All four principles of production provide the foundation for both production work and achieving worker. All are compatible with the dynamics of working or can be made compatible. When they fail to do so, it is not the principle that is at fault; it is its misapplication.

Specifically, the failure of mass production to give the worker achievement is essentially poor engineering. It is either failure to understand the meaning of mechanization or it is failure to understand the difference between work and working.

(Drucker, 1974, p. 205)