13 Facts About Harrington Emerson

Harrington Emerson was an American efficiency engineer and business theorist, who founded the management consultancy firm Emerson Institute in New York City in 1900.

Harrington Emerson attended private schools in Europe, and from 1872 to 1875 studied engineering at the Technical University Munich.

In 1897, Harrington Emerson started focusing on mechanical engineering, and was employed shortly after by the Electric Storage Battery Company in New York.

Harrington Emerson was married to Mary Crawford Suplee, and the youngest of their three daughters was the American painter Louise Harrington Emerson Ronnebeck.

Harrington Emerson has installed his system partially, though in no instance completely, in some 200 different plants from Alaska to Mexico, from Louisiana to Canada, from Southern California to Maine.

In May, 1904, because of labor troubles, Harrington Emerson was given the task of reorganizing certain features of the Santa Fe railway system.

Harrington Emerson's authority extended only to that one department known as the motive power department; and he was, therefore, concerned mainly with the maintenance and repair of locomotives, much of which work was centralized in shops at Topeka.

Nevertheless, by the time Harrington Emerson had worked out from Topeka to the end of the 10,000 or so miles of road, his system was affecting 12,000 men, and he had a task upon his hands which took three years of time, and the assistance of a large staff of railway experts.

Harrington Emerson distinguished his system from scientific management based on three characteristics:.

Harrington Emerson has thus developed a wage system which is in its results practically the same as Gantt's "task and bonus" plan, except that under the Gantt system no bonus is paid until a man comes up to standard performance, in the hope that the large increase then suddenly granted will bring all up to a common productivity.

Harrington Emerson was present when Taylor's "Shop Management" was read, in 1903, and did almost all of his mature work in the light of that exposition.

In regard to his general thought, Harrington Emerson has received stimuli from many sources; but as concerns the application of efficiency to industrial plants, there is good ground for believing that he is much more deeply indebted to Taylor than to any other.

Indeed, men well acquainted with both have told us that Harrington Emerson was once accustomed to refer to Taylor as the source of his ideas: Taylor he regarded as trying to do too much, as being in advance of his time; it was he, Harrington Emerson, who, by rendering lofty projects more practical, was able to achieve results.