The Master Manager: Costs, Chemistry, and Coke Summary and Analysis

From 1872 through 1889, Carnegie builds an integrated industrial business to become the best-known manufacturer in the world, publishes three books, travels around the world, and becomes a philanthropist with the express intent to give away his fortune. At the age of fifty-four he finds a wife for his home, a business successor and considers retirement. His follows the successful path of building through a depression and lack of customers by driving costs down and increasing output. Holley's pre-production estimates and Shinn's voucher system provides Carnegie's Edgar Thomson Works with accurate profitability in its first month of operation. Carnegie's insistence on knowing the costs continues for his twenty-five years in the steel business. He requires a weekly cost sheet from managers "to know how well and how cheaply" they operate his...