Frederick Arthur Halsey (July 12, 1856 – October 20, 1935) was an American mechanical engineer and economist, who was long-time editor of the '' American Machinist'' magazine, and particularly known for his 1891 article, entitled "The premium plan of paying for labor."Clawson, Dan. ''Bureaucracy and the labor process: The transformation of US industry, 1860-1920.'' New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980.

Biography

Halsey was born in

Unadilla, New York Unadilla is a town in Otsego County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 4,392. The name is derived from an Iroquois word for "meeting place". Unadilla is located in the southwestern corner of the county, ...

to the physician Gaius Leonard Halsey, and Juliet Cartington Halsey. He was the younger brother of Francis Whiting Halsey (1851–1919), who became a noted American journalist, editor and historian. At the age of 22 in 1878 Frederick graduated from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

with a degree in mechanical engineering. Halsey was editor of the '' American Machinist''. In his famous 1891 paper "The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor," he argued "against piecework payment and profit-sharing, and proposing an incentive wage system with an hourly wage, production requirements, and additional pay incentives for workers who exceed production goals -- had a major impact on the subsequent structure of labor pay in America and Britain." In 1902 he was representative of the National Association of Manufacturers and successful opposed the metric system adoption in United States. In 1917 he was one of the founding members the American Institute of Weights and Measures to keep opposing the adoption of the metric system in the US. In 1922 he was awarded the

ASME Medal The ASME Medal, created in 1920, is the highest award bestowed by the ASME (founded as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Board of Governors for "eminently distinguished engineering achievement". The award has been presented every year ...

by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for "eminently distinguished engineering achievement".

Work

''The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor,'' 1891

At the June, 1891, meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Halsey presented a paper entitled "The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor." In this paper Halsey presents four types of labor payment: * ''The day's-work plan'' : the workman is paid for and in proportion to the time spent upon his work.Halsey (1891, p. 75-81) * ''The

piece-work Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time. Context When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations o ...

plan'' : the workman is paid for and in proportion to the amount of work done. * ''The

profit-sharing Profit sharing is various incentive plans introduced by businesses that provide direct or indirect payments to employees that depend on company's profitability in addition to employees' regular salary and bonuses. In publicly traded companies th ...

plan'' : in addition to regular wages, the employees are offered a certain percentage of the final profits of the business. * ''The premium plan'' : The time required to do a given piece of work is determined from previous experience, and the workman, in addition to his usual daily wages, is offered a premium for every hour by which he reduces that time on future work, the amount of the premium being less than his rate of wages. Hugo Diemer (1904) summarized:

Halsey briefly outlines the advantages and disadvantages of the day-work plan, the piece-work plan, and the profit-sharing plan, and then describes the premium plan as used by himself, citing specific instances illustrating the working of the method. 'Under the day-work system, matters settle down to an easy-going pace, and the employer pays extravagantly for his product.' With regard to piece work, Halsey discusses at length the evils of rate-cutting. He presents as an objection to the piece-work plan an argument that may in many cases be a strong one in its favor, namely, that it requires a knowledge and record of the cost of each piece of a complicated machine, and oftentimes of each operation on each piece, thus limiting its application to products which are produced in considerable quantities... Hugo Diemer.
Bibliography of Works Management
" in: ''
Engineering Magazine ''Engineering Magazine'' was an American illustrated monthly magazine devoted to industrial progress, first published in 1891. The periodical was published under this title until October 1916. Sequentially from Nov. 1916 to 1927 it was published a ...
.'' New York, Vol. 27. 1904. pp. 626-658.

And furthermore:

... With regard to profit-sharing, he objects that any system of profit distribution based on collective rather than individual efforts is unfair, that the remoteness of the reward is a disadvantage, that in bad business years there will be no distribution, and that the workmen have no check on the correctness of the employers' figures. With regard to the premium system, he advocates varied hourly premium rates for time gained, depending on the character of the work, a detail that deserves more attention than it has generally received. In the discussion, Mr. William Kent attests to the fact that Mr. Halsey spoke to him about the premium plan a year or so prior to Mr. Towne's discussion on gain-sharing. Mr. Kent introduced the method at that time in the shops of the Springer Torsion Balance Company.''

This work contributed to the wider discussion among British and American engineers about the development of a costing system for factories. It was among the works of initial contributions as Captain Henry Metcalfe (1885/86),

Emile Garcke Emile Oscar Garcke (1856 – 14 November 1930) was a naturalised British electrical engineer, industrial, commercial and political entrepreneur managing director of the British Electric Traction Company (BET), and early author on accounting.Micha ...

(1887), Henry R. Towne (1891), etc., and notable further contributions came from Arnold, Sterling Bunnell,

Alexander Hamilton Church Alexander Hamilton Church (28 May 1866 – 11 February 1936) was an English efficiency engineer, accountant and writer on accountancy and management, known for his seminal work of management and cost accounting. Biography Church was born in U ...

, Hugo Diemer,

Henry Laurence Gantt Henry Laurence Gantt (; May 20, 1861 – November 23, 1919) was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant who is best known for his work in the development of scientific management. He created the Gantt chart in the 1910s. Gantt ...

, Lingan S. Randolph, Oberlin Smith,

Frederick Winslow Taylor Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants. In 1909, Taylor summed up ...

, etc.Murray C. Wells (1996)
Engineering and accounting
in: ''History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia.''

Michael Chatfield Michael Chatfield (1930s-2004) was an American economist, accounting historian, and Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the Southern Oregon University, known for his work on the history of accounting and accounting thought, and particularly for hi ...

Richard Vangermeersch Richard G.J. Vangermeersch (born 1940) is an American economist, and Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Rhode Island, particularly known for his ''History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia,'' edited with Michael Chat ...

eds. 1996/2014. p. 269-70.

The time ticket

For the implementation of his "premium plan" for labor payment and

production control Within supply chain management and manufacturing, production control is the activity of monitoring and controlling any particular production or operation. Production control is often run from a specific control room or operations room. With invento ...

, Halsey (1891) proposed the form of time ticket. He explains that this ticket should be:

...issued by the foreman, the blanks at the top being filled up by him. If desired as a check he punches a hole on the line, indicating the hour when the work is given out, repeating the same when the work and ticket are returned. The record of the time is kept by drawing a line between various hour marks, an operation which the most illiterate can perform.Halsey (1891, p. 85-86)

It was the intention that the ticket should be used over several days' work, should not be returned until the work is completed, and should contain the record of the entire job. As such, the card has similarities with the Shop Order Card presented by Captain Henry Metcalfe in his " Card system for cost accounting and production control", presented six years earlier. Halsey further explained how his premium plan should work. A standard time is set in advance and registered on the back of the ticket. On the back of the ticket was printed:

According to previous experience this work should require . . . hours. If completed in less time than that a premium of . . . cents will be paid for each hour saved.

Furthermore, Halsey explained that "when the ticket is returned, a comparison of the back with the front shows the premium earned. This is entered opposite the workman's name in a book kept for the purpose, which is a companion to the usual

time book A time book is a mostly outdated accounting record, that registered the work hours, hours worked by employees in a certain organization in a certain period. These records usually contain names of employees, type of work, hours worked, and sometimes ...

payroll A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...

Selected publications

* Frederick A. Halsey,
The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor
" ''Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,'' XXII (1891), * Halsey, Frederick Arthur.
Slide Valve Gears: An Explanation of the Action and Construction of Plain and Cut-off Slide Valves
'' D. Van Nostrand Company, 1894. * Towne, Henry Robinson, Frederick Arthur Halsey, and

.
The adjustment of wages to efficiency: three papers...
''Vol. 1. No. 2. For the American economic association by the Macmillan company, 1896. * Halsey, Frederick Arthur. ''The locomotive link motion.'' Press of Railway and Locomotive Engineering, 1898. * Halsey, Frederick Arthur. ''The premium plan of paying for labor.'' Cornell University, Sibley Journal Press, 1902. * Halsey, Frederick Arthur.
Worm and spiral gearing
'' No. 116. D. Van Nostrand Company, 1903. * Halsey, Frederick Arthur, and Samuel Sherman Dale. ''The metric fallacy.'' D. Van Nostrand Company, 1904. * Smith, Charles Follansbee, and Frederick Arthur Halsey.
The Design and Construction of Cams
'' Hill Publishing Company, 1906. * Halsey, Frederick Arthur.
Handbook for Machine Designers and Draftsmen
'' McGraw-Hill book Company, Incorporated, 1913. * Halsey, Frederick Arthur.
Methods of machine shop work: for apprentices and students in technical and trade schools
'' McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc., 1914.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Halsey, Frederick Arthur 1856 births 1935 deaths American mechanical engineers Cornell University College of Engineering alumni People from Unadilla, New York ASME Medal recipients Engineers from New York (state)