ABSTRACT
The Training within Industry (TWI) programs were developed when the United States was in a crisis and, because they had limited time, money and personnel, the TWI Service placed requirements on how the overall objective of increased productivity was to be met. Each of the executives who comprised the nucleus of the Service knew what to do for an individual company, but productivity had to be increased for all defense contractors across the entire country. Therefore, whatever was to be done had to apply equally to any company and few assumptions could be made. Few companies had training departments and industrial engineering departments were not as common as they are today. Because time was a factor, whatever material was given to a company had to be straightforward enough that the average person could be quickly taught to disseminate it with successful results. At the close of the TWI Service in September 1945, a final report was written that described the five-year journey of the TWI Service. In the Preface, C.R. Dooley, the director of the TWI Service, wrote
TWI work was undertaken to meet the specific objective of immediately increasing production for defense, then for war. No long range objective was set, but there are many implications for the development of the individual and for the improvement of the country’s educational system.1
