Henry Laurence Gantt

Background

Henry Laurence Gantt was born on May 20, 1861, in Calvert County, Maryland. He was the son of Virgil and Mary Jane (Steuart) Gantt.

Education

As a boy, Gantt displayed marked analytical ability. He attended the McDonogh School in Baltimore County and entered Johns Hopkins University, from which he was graduated at the age of nineteen with the degree of B. A.

For three years, Gantt taught at the McDonogh School, and then entered Stevens Institute of Technology where he was graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1884.

Career

The specialization of his life’s work began in 1887 when Gantt became associated with Frederick W. Taylor pioneer in scientific industrial management, at the Midvale Steel Company. This association continued for some three years, or until Taylor severed his connection with that firm.

Gantt was associated with several firms thereafter until 1897, when he again joined Taylor, first at the Simonds Rolling Machine Company and two years later at the Bethlehem Steel Company. Here he threw all of his abilities and energies into the installation and development of scientific methods of industrial operation; and perfected his task-and-bonus system of wage payment.

In 1902, he left Taylor and his work and opened an office as a consulting engineer.

At the hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1910 over an increase in railroad freight rates, Gantt was one of the principal witnesses for the government, developing in his testimony the possibilities of economies in railroad operation that would come from better management.

These hearings brought to the American public the first knowledge of the new methods that were in process of development. The years that followed were filled with the struggle of the newer ideas with the old.

As a consulting engineer, Gantt had as his professional clients some of the most progressive concerns in the United States. In the course of this work, he wrote his Work, Wages, and Profits (1913) in which he elaborated his ideas of industrial management and demonstrated his methods of ascertaining the costs of idle men, plant, and equipment.

This was followed by Industrial Leadership (1916), addresses delivered before the seniors of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University when the World War was demonstrating the need of efficient leadership in war and industry.

When the United States declared war on Germany he offered his services and his organization to the government. As a result of this war work, he devised a method of visual control of work known as the “Gantt Chart” which was adopted by the United States Shipping Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation as well as by the Ordnance Department of the United States Army.

It is today the most widely used analytical presentation of the mechanism of management, and a description by Wallace Clark, The Gantt Chart (1922), has been translated into the languages of all industrial nations.

Achievements

• One of Gantt's major contributions to management engineering and industry was a professional paper, “Training Workmen in Habits of Industry and Cooperation, ” presented in 1908 to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in which he boldly declared that industrial workers were human beings, not machines and that the policy of driving workmen must give way to a policy of leading. He also devised a method of visual control of work known as the “Gantt Chart” which was adopted by the United States Shipping Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation as well as by the Ordnance Department of the United States Army.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Organizing for Work, by Gantt

    ( When approached from the Lean perspective, Henry Lauren...)

  • Investigating an Industry: A Scientific Diagnosis of the Diseases of Management

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Work, Wages, and Profits; Their Influence on the Cost of Living

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Gantt chart, a working tool of management;

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Work, Wages and Profits

    (Work, Wages and Profits (~344 pages))

  • Industrial Leadership (Classic Reprint)

    (Facing Page Chart I. Hemming on Sewing Machine 76 Chart I...)

  • Henry Laurence Gantt, leader in industry,

Views

The last year of Gatt's life, the first after the close of the World War, was devoted to developing the thought that business and industry must render essential service if they are to survive.

In a little book, Organizing for Work (1919), published about three months before his death, he enunciated the principle that “the community needs service first, regardless of who gets the profit, because its life depends upon the service it gets. ”

Quotations: “In other words, we have proved in many places that the doctrine of service which has been preached in the churches as religion is not only good economics and eminently practical, but because of the increased production of goods obtained by it, promises to lead us safely through the maze of confusion into which we seem to be headed, and to give us that industrial democracy which alone can afford a basis for industrial peace. ”

"Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development. The general policy of the past has been to drive; but the era of force must give way to the era of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and lead, to the advantage of all concerned. "

"The increase of this efficiency is essentially the problem of the manager, and the amount to which it can be increased by proper study is, in most cases, so great as to be almost incredible. "

"The greatest problem before engineers and managers today is the economical utilization of labor . The limiting of output by the workman, and the limiting by the employer of the amount a workman is allowed to earn, are both factors which militate against that harmonious co-operation of employer and employee which is essential to their highest common good. "

Personality

Gantt was essentially a leader, possessed of creative power, high purpose, courage, independence, and tireless energy. His associates had a strong feeling of loyalty to him and made every effort to carry through his plans and win his approval.

He never spared himself and he always bore the brunt of hostile criticism during the years of general antagonism to scientific management. He never compromised his high standards of honesty and professional ethics.

Though very modest in evaluating his own work, he was vigorous in speech and action to the point of brusqueness when attacking conditions that needed to be improved or remedied.

Connections

Gantt married, November 29, 1899, Mary Eliza Snow, who with a daughter survived him.

Father:

Virgil Gantt

Mother:

Mary Jane (Steuart) Gantt

Wife:

Mary Eliza Snow

References

• Organizing for Work by Henry Laurence Gantt