The Importance Of Being Arthur

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Arthur identified and analyzed every one of the 225 individual steps -- who could do what, when, and how.He constructed an operations flow chart that, when unfurled, was 15 feet long. The system was a masterpiece of coordination but it would work only if everyone gave his best effort. Arthur was particularly concerned about the dockworkers and drivers. They were physically moving the freight and if they couldn't or wouldn't do the job, the entire system would bog down. The next question he had to answer was how he could insure that these men worked at optimum efficiency. Further, the question was amplified by his own experience. He realized that, left to their own devices, most employees create their own "comfort level," a work pace that, too often, is significantly slower than management expects it to be.So, Arthur began to think about a fail-safe system of daily productivity measurement.

He remembered when he was 13, pedaling a bike all over Union City, N.J., as a Western Union messenger boy. "One day," he recalls, "the company did time-and-motion studies on us riding our bikes to deliveries.That's where I got the idea. If it could work on bikes, why couldn't it work on trucks?"

Beginning about 1960, Arthur started the exhaustive process of building an archive of time-and-motion studies covering virtually every conceivable function a driver or dockworker was likely to perform. Every driver, for example, was carefully tracked time and time again, to see just how long it took him to complete his run.A series of standard times was developed; it reflected variables such as the number of pieces to be delivered, their weight, miles per stop, the area served, returns, pickups, and delays.

The first crude measurements were done manually from information supplied on the driver's manifest. Today, it's done by computer on a daily basis. Each day, the historic standard time for a given route is compared with the driver's actual time. The standard time represents 100% efficiency for a given run and is considered an "acceptable standard." "Ninety-six percent of our workers," says Arthur, "meet or exceed this standard every day." And if there's ever any questions about a given driver's results, they can be double-checked against the service recorder disks and the Argo Tachographs. The first device shows when a truck is moving and when it's stopped and for how long; the second device records miles per hour, rpms, miles driven, and when the truck was moving.

Over the course of two hours, you're listening to the development of the perfect productivity system with an increasing sense of awe and unease. You hear Arthur say, "We're realists. We know our business. We want a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. We expect work and we mean to get it." And you know it works because A-P-A's success tells you so. But gradually you find yourself not wanting to hear another word about the system. You wish it would go away. You think it's offensive. Arthur asks you why, in a way that says he knows what's coming. You tell him that it represents a depressingly harsh view of human nature.

Arthur says an employee once put it another way. "What do you need all these measurements for anyway?" the employee said. "All it means is that you don't trust me." Both you and that man, Arthur says patiently but emphatically, have missed the point entirely.

"It's not that I don't trust them," he explains, "but I know human nature. I know that good and evil are constantly in the balance. What I've done is to pit each man against himself so he can tip the scales one way or the other by himself. Every man craves direction, a sense of purpose, a sense of dignity. I've planned out the problems. I've planned out the frustration and waste. I've freed him to enrich his life, to achieve greater self-awareness. That's why I fought the men in the early days, because they wanted to be human hulks and I wouldn't let them."

And the system, because it's impartial, because the numbers don't lie, and because every man writes his own record, also did something almost unheard of. It neutralized the traditional antagonism between the union and management. "There's nothing left to argue about," Arthur says. "I've given the men more security, and a better kind of security, than the union ever could. After all, every man protects his own job every day by his own performance. He doesn't need someone else to protect it for him. That's why the union's never been an issue here."

Before you leave, you stop downstairs to look at an oil painting. Arthur asked you to. He said it sums up his story. It's called The Honest Workman. Arthur lined up 20 men so the artist could get the face of the hnest workman just right. Even then, it was re-drawn six times. The painting hangs on the wall just inside the front door to the executive offices. The man in the painting has one hand on his hip, and the other hand clutches a clipboard and papers. He is wearing a brown jacket and his shirt is open wide at the neck. The painting is done mainly in shades of sturdy, dependable brown. The man's face is the focal point of the composition. There is a bowl of fresh white carnations and yellow mums on a shelf underneath the portrait. There is also a plaque. The plaque assures the viewer that this man, who has just finished his day's work, is the real hero of A-P-A, "our typical workman who... has created this great organization."

"If you stare right at his face," Arthur says, "you can hear that man talk and you know what he's saying. He's saying: 'I know I've done my best for the company, for myself, and for my family, and if you don't know it, boss, then screw you."

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