ABSTRACT
The Industrial Revolution ushered in an era of a production economy in which a single powerful idea resulted in gigantic industries and huge enterprises that thrived on scale. In the scale economy, efficiency was very important, and managers had to focus on getting the conveyor belt moving in the most optimal fashion. Hand-and-motion studies were conducted to assess a better way of producing goods from a generally unchanging specification. Strict time records were kept, and wages were only functions of duration of work or production. The contract between the employee and owner was simple: wages for time worked or goods produced. Measurement was reasonably straightforward: recorded time on punched cards or paper or a count of produced units of goods. This was sufficient to execute the wages part of the contract. Work was characterized as a commodity product-a substitute could be found with relative ease. This was an era of determinism.
