On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

On the Division of Labour

217.  Perhaps the most important principle on which the economy of a manufacture depends, is the division of labour amongst the persons who perform the work.  The first application of this principle must have been made in a very early stage of society, for it must soon have been apparent, that a larger number of comforts and conveniences could be acquired by each individual, if one man restricted his occupation to the art of making bows, another to that of building houses, a third boats, and so on.  This division of labour into trades was not, however, the result of an opinion that the general riches of the community would be increased by such an arrangement; but it must have arisen from the circumstance of each individual so employed discovering that he himself could thus make a greater profit of his labour than by pursuing more varied occupations.  Society must have made considerable advances before this principle could have been carried into the workshop; for it is only in countries which have attained a high degree of civilization, and in articles in which there is a great competition amongst the producers, that the most perfect system of the division of labour is to be observed.  The various principles on which the advantages of this system depend, have been much the subject of discussion amongst writers on political economy; but the relative importance of their influence does not appear, in all cases, to have been estimated with sufficient precision.  It is my intention, in the first instance, to state shortly those principles, and then to point out what appears to me to have been omitted by those who have previously treated the subject.

218. 1.  Of the time required for learning.  It will readily be admitted, that the portion of time occupied in the acquisition of any art will depend on the difficulty of its execution; and that the greater the number of distinct processes, the longer will be the time which the apprentice must employ in acquiring it.  Five or seven years have been adopted, in a great many trades, as the time considered requisite for a lad to acquire a sufficient knowledge of his art, and to enable him to repay by his labour, during the latter portion of his time, the expense incurred by his master at its commencement.  If, however, instead of learning all the different processes for making a needle, for instance, his attention be confined to one operation, the portion of time consumed unprofitably at the commencement of his apprenticeship will be small, and all the rest of it will be beneficial to his master:  and, consequently, if there be any competition amongst the masters, the apprentice will be able to make better terms, and diminish the period of his servitude.  Again, the facility of acquiring skill in a single process, and the early period of life at which it can be made a source of profit, will induce a greater number of parents to bring up their children to it; and from this circumstance also, the number of workmen being increased, the wages will soon fall.

219. 2.  Of waste of materials in learning.  A certain quantity of material will, in all cases, be consumed unprofitably, or spoiled by every person who learns an art; and as he applies himself to each new process, he will waste some of the raw material, or of the partly manufactured commodity.  But if each man commit this waste in acquiring successively every process, the quantity of waste will be much greater than if each person confine his attention to one process; in this view of the subject, therefore, the division of labour will diminish the price of production.

220. 3.  Another advantage resulting from the division of labour is, the saving of that portion of time which is always lost in changing from one occupation to another.  When the human hand, or the human head, has been for some time occupied in any kind of work, it cannot instantly change its employment with full effect.  The muscles of the limbs employed have acquired a flexibility during their exertion, and those not in action a stiffness during rest, which renders every change slow and unequal in the commencement.  Long habit also produces in the muscles exercised a capacity for enduring fatigue to a much greater degree than they could support under other circumstances.  A similar result seems to take place in any change of mental exertion; the attention bestowed on the new subject not being so perfect at first as it becomes after some exercise.

221. 4.  Change of tools.  The employment of different tools in the successive processes is another cause of the loss of time in changing from one operation to another.  If these tools are simple, and the change is not frequent, the loss of time is not considerable; but in many processes of the arts the tools are of great delicacy, requiring accurate adjustment every time they are used; and in many cases the time employed in adjusting bears a large proportion to that employed in using the tool.  The sliding-rest, the dividing and the drilling-engine, are of this kind; and hence, in manufactories of sufficient extent, it is found to be good economy to keep one machine constantly employed in one kind of work:  one lathe, for example, having a screw motion to its sliding-rest along the whole length of its bed, is kept constantly making cylinders; another, having a motion for equalizing the velocity of the work at the point at which it passes the tool, is kept for facing surfaces; whilst a third is constantly employed in cutting wheels.

222. 5.  Skill acquired by frequent repetition of the same processes.  The constant repetition of the same process necessarily produces in the workman a degree of excellence and rapidity in his particular department, which is never possessed by a person who is obliged to execute many different processes.  This rapidity is still further increased from the circumstance that most of the operations in factories, where the division of labour is carried to a considerable extent, are paid for as piece-work.  It is difficult to estimate in numbers the effect of this cause upon production.  In nail-making, Adam Smith has stated, that it is almost three to one; for, he observes, that a smith accustomed to make nails, but whose whole business has not been that of a nailer, can make only from eight hundred to a thousand per day; whilst a lad who had never exercised any other trade, can make upwards of two thousand three hundred a day.

223.  In different trades, the economy of production arising from the last-mentioned cause will necessarily be different.  The case of nail-making is, perhaps, rather an extreme one.  It must, however, be observed, that, in one sense, this is not a permanent source of advantage; for, though it acts at the commencement of an establishment, yet every month adds to the skill of the workmen; and at the end of three or four years they will not be very far behind those who have never practised any other branch of their art.  Upon an occasion when a large issue of bank-notes was required, a clerk at the Bank of England signed his name, consisting of seven letters, including the initial of his Christian name, five thousand three hundred times during eleven working hours, besides arranging the notes he had signed in parcels of fifty each.

224. 6.  The division of labour suggests the contrivance of tools and machinery to execute its processes.  When each processes, by which any article is produced, is the sole occupation of one individual, his whole attention being devoted to a very limited and simple operation, improvements in the form of his tools, or in the mode of using them, are much more likely to occur to his mind, than if it were distracted by a greater variety of circumstances.  Such an improvement in the tool is generally the first step towards a machine.  If a piece of metal is to be cut in a lathe, for example, there is one particular angle at which the cutting-tool must be held to insure the cleanest cut; and it is quite natural that the idea of fixing the tool at that angle should present itself to an intelligent workman.  The necessity of moving the tool slowly, and in a direction parallel to itself, would suggest the use of a screw, and thus arises the sliding-rest.  It was probably the idea of mounting a chisel in a frame, to prevent its cutting too deeply, which gave rise to the common carpenter’s plane.  In cases where a blow from a hammer is employed, experience teaches the proper force required.  The transition from the hammer held in the hand to one mounted upon an axis, and lifted regularly to a certain height by some mechanical contrivance, requires perhaps a greater degree of invention than those just instanced; yet it is not difficult to perceive, that, if the hammer always falls from the same height, its effect must be always the same.

225.  When each process has been reduced to the use of some simple tool, the union of all these tools, actuated by one moving power, constitutes a machine.  In contriving tools and simplifying processes, the operative workmen are, perhaps, most successful; but it requires far other habits to combine into one machine these scattered arts.  A previous education as a workman in the peculiar trade, is undoubtedly a valuable preliminary; but in order to make such combinations with any reasonable expectation of success, an extensive knowledge of machinery, and the power of making mechanical drawings, are essentially requisite.  These accomplishments are now much more common than they were formerly, and their absence was, perhaps, one of the causes of the multitude of failures in the early history of many of our manufactures.

226.  Such are the principles usually assigned as the causes of the advantage resulting from the division of labour.  As in the view I have taken of the question, the most important and influential cause has been altogether unnoticed, I shall restate those principles in the words of Adam Smith: 

“The great increase in the quantity of work, which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances:  first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of time, which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and, lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.”

Now, although all these are important causes, and each has its influence on the result; yet it appears to me, that any explanation of the cheapness of manufactured articles, as consequent upon the division of labour, would be incomplete if the following principle were omitted to be stated.

That the master manufacturer, by dividing the work to be executed into different processes, each requiring different degrees of skill or of force, can purchase exactly that precise quantity of both which is necessary for each process; whereas, if the whole work were executed by one workman, that person must possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and sufficient strength to execute the most laborious, of the operations into which the art is divided.(1*)

227.  As the clear apprehension of this principle, upon which a great part of the economy arising from the division of labour depends, is of considerable importance, it may be desirable to point out its precise and numerical application in some specific manufacture.  The art of making needles is, perhaps, that which I should have selected for this illustration, as comprehending a very large number of processes remarkably different in their nature; but the less difficult art of pinmaking, has some claim to attention, from its having been used by Adam Smith; and I am confirmed in the choice of it, by the circumstance of our possessing a very accurate and minute description of that art, as practised in France above half a century ago.

228.  Pin-making.  In the manufacture of pins in England the following processes are employed: 

1.  Wire-drawing. (a) The brass wire used for making pins is purchased by the manufacturer in coils of about twenty-two inches in diameter, each weighing about thirty-six pounds. (b) The coils are wound off into smaller ones of about six inches in diameter, and between one and two pounds’ weight. (c) The diameter of this wire is now reduced, by drawing it repeatedly through holes in steel plates, until it becomes of the size required for the sort of pins intended to be made.  During this process the wire is hardened, and to prevent its breaking, it must be annealed two or three times, according to the diminution of diameter required. (d) The coils are then soaked in sulphuric acid, largely diluted with water, in order to clean them, and are then beaten on stone, for the purpose of removing any oxidated coating which may adhere to them.  These operations are usually performed by men, who draw and clean from thirty to thirty-six pounds of wire a day.  They are paid at the rate of five farthings per pound, and generally earn about 3s. 6d. per day.

M. Perronnet made some experiments on the extension the wire undergoes in passing through each hole:  he took a piece of thick Swedish brass wire, and found

Feet Inches Its length to be before drawing 3 8 After passing the first hole 5 5 second hole 7 2 third hole 7 8

 It was now annealed, and the length became

After passing the fourth hole 10 8 fifth hole 13 1 sixth hole 16 8 And finally, after passing through six other holes 144 0

The holes through which the wire was drawn were not, in this experiment, of regularly decreasing diameter:  it is extremely difficult to make such holes, and still more to preserve them in their original dimensions.

229. 2.  Straightening the wire.  The coil of wire now passes into the hands of a woman, assisted by a boy or girl.  A few nails, or iron pins, not quite in a line, are fixed into one end of a wooden table about twenty feet in length; the end of the wire is passed alternately between these nails, and is then pulled to the other end of the table.  The object of this process is to straighten the wire, which had acquired a considerable curvature in the small coils in which it had been wound.  The length thus straightened is cut off, and the remainder of the coil is drawn into similar lengths.  About seven nails or pins are employed in straightening the wire, and their adjustment is a matter of some nicety.  It seems, that by passing the wire between the first three nails or pins, a bend is produced in an opposite direction to that which the wire had in the coil; this bend, by passing the next two nails, is reduced to another less curved in the first direction, and so on till the curve of the wire may at last be confounded with a straight line.

230. 3.  Pointing. (a) A man next takes about three hundred of these straightened pieces in a parcel, and putting them into a gauge, cuts off from one end, by means of a pair of shears, moved by his foot, a portion equal in length to rather more than six pins.  He continues this operation until the entire parcel is reduced into similar pieces. (b) The next step is to sharpen the ends:  for this purpose the operator sits before a steel mill, which is kept rapidly revolving:  it consists of a cylinder about six inches in diameter, and two and a half inches broad, faced with steel, which is cut in the manner of a file.  Another cylinder is fixed on the same axis at a few inches distant; the file on the edge of which is of a finer kind, and is used for finishing off the points.  The workman now takes up a parcel of the wires between the finger and thumb of each hand, and presses the ends obliquely on the mill, taking care with his fingers and thumbs to make each wire slowly revolve upon its axis.  Having thus pointed all the pieces at one end, he reverses them, and performs the same operation on the other.  This process requires considerable skill, but it is not unhealthy; whilst the similar process in needlemaking is remarkably destructive of health. (c) The pieces now pointed at both ends, are next placed in gauges, and the pointed ends are cut off, by means of shears, to the proper length of which the pins are to be made.  The remaining portions of the wire are now equal to about four pins in length, and are again pointed at each end, and their lengths again cut off.  This process is repeated a third time, and the small portion of wire left in the middle is thrown amongst the waste, to be melted along with the dust arising from the sharpening.  It is usual for a man, his wife, and a child, to join in performing these processes; and they are paid at the rate of five farthings per pound.  They can point from thirty-four to thirty-six and a half pounds per day, and gain from 6s. 6d. to 7s., which may be apportioned thus; 5s. 6d. the man. 1s. the woman, 6d. to the boy or girl.

231. 4.  Twisting and cutting the heads.  The next process is making the heads.  For this purpose (a) a boy takes a piece of wire, of the same diameter as the pin to be headed, which he fixes on an axis that can be made to revolve rapidly by means of a wheel and strap connected with it.  This wire is called the mould.  He then takes a smaller wire, which having passed through an eye in a small tool held in his left hand, he fixes close to the bottom of the mould.  The mould is now made to revolve rapidly by means of the right hand, and the smaller wire coils round it until it has covered the whole length of the mould.  The boy now cuts the end of the spiral connected with the foot of the mould, and draws it off. (b) When a sufficient quantity of heading is thus made, a man takes from thirteen to twenty of these spirals in his left hand, between his thumb and three outer fingers:  these he places in such a manner that two turns of the spiral shall be beyond the upper edge of a pair of shears, and with the forefinger of the same hand he feels that only two turns do so project.  With his right hand he closes the shears; and the two turns of the spiral being cut off, drop into a basin; the position of the forefinger preventing the heads from flying about when cut off.  The workmen who cut the heads are usually paid at the rate of 2 1/2d. to 3d. per pound for large heads, but a higher price is given for the smaller heading.  Out of this they pay the boy who spins the spiral; he receives from 4d. to 6d. a day.  A good workman can cut from six to about thirty pounds of heading per day, according to its size.

232. 5.  Heading.  The process of fixing the head on the body of the pin is usually executed by women and children.  Each operator sits before a small steel stake, having a cavity, into which one half of the intended head will fit; immediately above is a steel die, having a corresponding cavity for the other half of the head:  this latter die can be raised by a pedal moved by the foot.  The weight of the hammer is from seven to ten pounds, and it falls through a very small space, perhaps from one to two inches.  The cavities in the centre of these dies are connected with the edge of a small groove, to admit of the body of the pin, which is thus prevented from being flattened by the blow of the die. (a) The operator with his left hand dips the pointed end of the body of a pin into a tray of heads; having passed the point through one of them, he carries it along to the other end with the forefinger.  He now takes the pin in the right hand, and places the head in the cavity of the stake, and, lifting the die with his foot, allows it to fall on the head.  This blow tightens the head on the shank, which is then turned round, and the head receives three or four blows on different parts of its circumference.  The women and children who fix the heads are paid at the rate of 1s. 6d. for every twenty thousand.  A skilful operator can with great exertion do twenty thousand per day, but from ten to fifteen thousand is the usual quantity:  children head a much smaller number:  varying, of course, with the degree of their skill.  About one per cent of the pins are spoiled in the process; these are picked out afterwards by women, and are reserved, along with the waste from other processes, for the melting-pot.  The die in which the heads are struck is varied in form according to the fashion of the time; but the repeated blows to which it is subject render it necessary that it should be repaired after it has been used for about thirty pounds of pins.

233. 6.  Tinning.  The pins are now fit to be tinned, a process which is usually executed by a man, assisted by his wife, or by a lad.  The quantity of pins operated upon at this stage is usually fifty-six pounds. (a) They are first placed in a pickle, in order to remove any grease or dirt from their surface, and also to render them rough, which facilitates the adherence of the tin with which they are to be covered. (b) They are then placed in a boiler full of a solution of tartar in water, in which they are mixed with a quantity of tin in small grains.  In this they are generally kept boiling for about two hours and a half, and are then removed into a tub of water into which some bran has been thrown, for the purpose of washing off the acid liquor. (c) They are then taken out, and, being placed in wooden trays, are well shaken in dry bran:  this removes any water adhering to them; and by giving the wooden tray a peculiar kind of motion, the pins are thrown up, and the bran gradually flies off, and leaves them behind in the tray.  The man who pickles and tins the pins usually gets one penny per pound for the work, and employs himself, during the boiling of one batch of pins, in drying those previously tinned.  He can earn about 9s. per day; but out of this he pays about 3s. for his assistant.

234. 7.  Papering.  The pins come from the tinner in wooden bowls, with the points projecting in all directions:  the arranging of them side by side in paper is generally performed by women. (a) A woman takes up some, and places them on a comb, and shaking them, some of the pins fall back into the bowl, and the rest, being caught by their heads, are detained between the teeth of the comb. (b) Having thus arranged them in a parallel direction, she fixes the requisite number between two pieces of iron, having twenty-five small grooves, at equal distances; (c) and having previously doubled the paper, she presses it against the points of the pins until they have passed through the two folds which are to retain them.  The pins are then relieved from the grasp of the tool, and the process is repeated.  A woman gains about 1s. 6d. per day by papering; but children are sometimes employed, who earn from 6d. per day, and upwards.

235.  Having thus generally described the various processes of pin-making, and having stated the usual cost of each, it will be convenient to present a tabular view of the time occupied by each process, and its cost, as well as the sums which can be earned by the persons who confine themselves solely to each process.  As the rate of wages is itself fluctuating, and as the prices paid and quantities executed have been given only between certain limits, it is not to be expected that this table can represent the cost of each part of the work with the minutest accuracy, nor even that it shall accord perfectly with the prices above given:  but it has been drawn up with some care, and will be quite sufficient to serve as the basis of those reasonings which it is meant to illustrate.  A table nearly similar will be subjoined, which has been deduced from a statement of M. Perronet, respecting the art of pin-making in France, above seventy years ago.

English manufacture

236.  Pins, Elevens, 5546 weigh one pound; one dozen = 6932 pins weigh twenty ounces, and require six ounces of paper.

 Name of the process
 Workman
 Time for making 1 lb of pins Hours
 Cost of making 1 lb of pins Pence
 Workmen earns per day s. d. 
 Price of making each part of a single pin in millionths of a
penny

1.  Drawing wire (224)         Man    .3636  1.2500   3 3     225
2.  Straightening wire ( 225)  Woman  .3000   .2840   1 0      51
Girl   .3000   .1420   0 6      26
3.  Pointing (226)             Man    .3000  1.7750   5 3     319
4.  Twisting and cutting heads Boy    .0400   .0147   0 4 1/2   3
(227)                       Man    .0400   .2103   5 4 1/2  38
5.  Heading (228)              Woman 4.0000  5.0000   1 3     901
6 Tinning or whitening        Man    .1071   .6666   6 0     121
(229)                       Woman  .1071   .3333   3 0      60
7.  Papering (230)             Woman 2.1314  3.1973   1 6     576
7.6892 12.8732   — —    2320

Number of persons employed:  Men. 4; Women. 4; Children, 2.  Total, 10.

French manufacture

237.  Cost of 12,000 pins, No. 6, each being eight-tenths of an English inch in length,—­as they were manufactured in France about 1760; with the cost of each operation:  deduced from the observations and statement of M. Perronet.

 Name of the process
 Time for making twelve thousand pins Hours
 Cost of making twelve thousand pins Pence
 Workman usually earns per day Pence
 Expense of tools and materials Pence

1.  Wire                      —­   —­      —­  24.75
2.  Straightening and cutting 1.2 .5     4.5      —­
3.  Coarse pointing           1.2 .625  10.0      —­
Turning wheel(2*)         1.2 .875   7.0      —­
Fine Pointing              .8 .5     9.375    —­
Turning wheel             1.2 .5     4.75     —­
Cutting off pointed ends   .6 .375   7.5      —­
4.  Turning spiral             .5 .125   3.0      —­
Cutting off heads          .8 .375   5.625    —­
Fuel to anneal ditto      —­   —­      —­    .125
5.  Heading                  12.0 .333   4.25     —­
6.  Tartar for cleaning       —­   —­      —­    .5
Tartar for whitening      —­   —­      —­    .5
7.  Papering                  4.8 .5     2.0      —­
Paper                     —­   —­      —­   1.0
Wear of tools             —­   —­      —­   2.0
24.3 4.708

The great expense of turning the wheel appears to have arisen from the person so occupied being unemployed during half his time, whilst the pointer went to another manufactory

338.  It appears from the analysis we have given of the art of pinmaking, that it occupies rather more than seven hours and a half of time, for ten different individuals working in succession on the same material, to convert it into a pound of pins; and that the total expense of their labour, each being paid in the joint ratio of his skill and of the time he is employed, amounts very nearly to 1s. 1d.  But from an examination of the first of these tables, it appears that the wages earned by the persons employed vary from 4 1/2d. per day up to 6s., and consequently the skill which is required for their respective employments may be measured by those sums.  Now it is evident, that if one person were required to make the whole pound of pins, he must have skill enough to earn about 5s. 3d. per day, whilst he is pointing the wires or cutting off the heads from the spiral coils—­and 6s. when he is whitening the pins; which three operations together would occupy little more than the seventeenth part of his time.  It is also apparent, that during more than one half of his time he must be earning only 1s. 3d, per day, in putting on the heads; although his skill, if properly employed, would, in the same time, produce nearly five times as much.  If, therefore, we were to employ, for all the processes, the man who whitens the pins, and who earns 6s. per day, even supposing that he could make the pound of pins in an equally short time, yet we must pay him for his time 46. 14 pence, or about 3s. 10d.  The pins would therefore cost, in making, three times and three quarters as much as they now do by the application of the division of labour.

The higher the skill required of the workman in any one process of a manufacture, and the smaller the time during which it is employed, so much the greater will be the advantage of separating that process from the rest, and devoting one person’s attention entirely to it.  Had we selected the art of needle-making as our illustration, the economy arising from the division of labour would have been still more striking; for the process of tempering the needles requires great skill, attention, and experience, and although from three to four thousand are tempered at once, the workman is paid a very high rate of wages.  In another process of the same manufacture, dry-pointing, which also is executed with great rapidity, the wages earned by the workman reach from 7s. to 12s., 15s., and even, in some instances, to 20s. per day; whilst other processes are carried on by children paid at the rate of 6d. per day.

239.  Some further reflections suggested by the preceding analysis, will be reserved until we have placed before the reader a brief description of a machine for making pins, invented by an American.  It is highly ingenious in point of contrivance, and, in respect to its economical principles, will furnish a strong and interesting contrast with the manufacture of pins by the human hand.  In this machine a coil of brass wire is placed on an axis; one end of this wire is drawn by a pair of rollers through a small hole in a plate of steel, and is held there by a forceps.  As soon as the machine is put in action, —

1.  The forceps draws the wire on to a distance equal in length to one pin:  a cutting edge of steel then descends close to the hole through which the wire entered, and severs the piece drawn out.

2.  The forceps holding the piece thus separated moves on, till it brings the wire to the centre of the chuck of a small lathe, which opens to receive it.  Whilst the forceps is returning to fetch another piece of wire, the lathe revolves rapidly, and grinds the projecting end of the wire upon a steel mill, which advances towards it.

3.  After this first or coarse pointing, the lathe stops, and another forceps takes hold of the half-pointed pin, (which is instantly released by the opening of the chuck), and conveys it to a similar chuck of an adjacent lathe, which receives it, and finishes the pointing on a finer steel mill.

4.  This mill again stops, and another forceps removes the pointed pin into a pair of strong steel clams, having a small groove in them by which they hold the pin very firmly.  A part of this groove, which terminates at that edge of the steel clams which is intended to form the head of the pin, is made conical.  A small round steel punch is now driven forcibly against the end of the wire thus clamped, and the head of the pin is partially formed by compressing the wire into the conical cavity.

Notes: 

1.  I have already stated that this principle presented itself to me after a personal examination of a number of manufactories and workshops devoted to different purposes; but I have since found that it had been distinctly pointed out in the work of Gioja.  Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze Economiche. 6 tom. 4to.  Milano, 1815, tom. i. capo iv.

2.  The great expense of turning the wheel appears to have arisen from the person so occupied being unemployed during half his time, whilst the pointer went to another manufactory.