Under Scientific Management analysis and synthesis are methods of determining standards from available knowledge.  Measurement furnishes the means.

ANALYST’S WORK IS DIVISION.—­It is the duty of the analyst to divide the work that he is set to study into the minutest divisions possible.  What is possible is determined by the time and money that can be set aside for the investigation.

THE NATURE OF THE WORK MUST DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF ANALYSIS PRACTICABLE.—­In determining the amount of time and money required, it is necessary to consider—­

    1. the cost of the work if done with no special study.
    2. how many times the work is likely to be repeated.
    3. how many elements that it contains are likely to be
       similar to elements in work that has already been studied.
    4. how many new elements that it contains are likely to be
       available in subsequent work.
    5. the probable cost of the work after it has been studied—­
       (a) the cost of doing it.
       (b) the cost of the investigation.
    6.  The loss, if any, from delaying the work until after it
       has been studied.
    7. the availability of trained observers and measurers,
       analysts and synthesists.
    8. the available money for carrying on the investigations.

These questions at least must be answered before it is possible to decide whether study shall be made or not, and to what degree it can be carried.

COST THE DETERMINING FACTOR.—­It is obvious that in all observation in the industrial world cost must be the principal determining feature.  Once the cost can be estimated, and the amount of money that can be allowed for the investigation determined, it is possible at least to approximate satisfactory answers to the other questions.  How closely the answers approximate depends largely on the skill and experience of the analyst.

The greater number of times the work is to be repeated, the less the ultimate cost.  The more elements contained similar to elements already determined, the less the additional cost, and the less the time necessary.  The more elements contained that can be used again, even in different work, the less the ultimate cost.  The better trained the analyst, the less the immediate or additional cost and time.

Much depends on the amount of previous data at hand when the investigation is being made, and on the skill and speed of the analyst in using these data.

PROCESS OF DIVISION UNENDING.—­In practice, the process of division continues as long as it can show itself to be a method for cost reducing.  Work may be divided into processes:  each process into subdivisions; each subdivision into cycles; each cycle into elements; each element into time units; each time unit into motions,—­and so on, indefinitely, toward the “indivisible minimum."[4]

MEASURING MAY TAKE PLACE AT ANY STAGE.—­At any of these stages of division the results may be taken as final for the purpose of the study,—­and the operations, or final divisions of the work at that stage, may be measured.