Henry Laurence Gantt – His Central Interest was the Human Being

Gantt born in 1861, completed his university training at Johns Hopkins and taught at his former school, McDonagh School for four years during 1880- to 1883. . He returned to teaching at a later stage during 1886-87 and concentrated on manual work. In the interval he had qualified at Stevens Institute and obtained his degree as a mechanical engineer. In July, 1887 he left the instructor’s post and joined Midvale Steel Company as assistant in the engineering department. A year later he had become assistant to the Chief Engineer, F.W. Taylor. The following year he was promoted to Superintendent of the casting department and held this post until 1893. In the subsequent period, he held high positions in four factories.

In January, 1902, he started his consultancy work. In all, he covered some fifty assignments in the seventeen years of his active life. His selection of management to offer consultancy services was based on his assessment of management’s willingness to treat the labour fairly and reward them for higher productivity. He used to give the prospective managements his book ‘Work, Wages and Productivity’ and only if the management was willing to subscribe to the ideas in that book, Gantt accepted consultancy assignments.

His first original contribution to scientific management was the conception of “task and bonus system.” He read the paper ‘A Bonus System of Rewarding Labour’ at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in December 1901. From the outset Gantt was clear himself and enthusiastic to demonstrate to others that the bonus basis of wage payment was not merely another incentive scheme but the key to effective management. It induced workers to see that their machines were kept clean and in good running condition, in order to avoid breakdown. It entailed, as an integral part of shop management, a scientific investigation in detail of each piece of work and the determination of the best methods and times of performance. Finally, it led logically to the systematic training of operatives and, at a later stage, Gantt had a bonus plan for rewarding foremen who could up-grade the backward and inefficient workers. The scheme was a success from the start. Wherever applied, it brought arresting increases in output, a falling-off in accidents and breakdowns, and a general toning-up of workshops and operatives.

In 1904, Gantt broke new ground with an assignment as efficiency expert at a textile plant, Sayles Bleacheries. In this assignment he made special efforts in the training of workmen. He read to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers the famous paper, ‘Training workmen in Habits of Industry and Cooperation.’ Some years later he amplified his views in a further paper (1915) on ‘Modern Methods of Training Workmen.’ In making American industry accept training as a responsibility of management, Gantt’s personal influence was considerable.

The best known element in Gantt’s contribution to management is the bar chart that bears his name which he developed in June 1917, in his work under Ordinance Bureau during the First World War.

Gantt was awarded posthumously the Henry Laurence Gantt Medal by the Institute of Management and ASME for distinguished achievement in industrial management as a service to the community for his humanizing influence upon industrial management and for invention of the Gantt chart.



Abridged by Dr. K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao from “Henry Laurence Gantt (1861-1919)” in the book ‘The Making of Scientific Management vol I; Thirteen Pioneers’ edited by L. rwick and E.F.L. Brech, Sir Issac Pitman andSons Ltd., London, First published in 1994, Reprint in 1966.