My understanding is that UPS has partially bypassed this by setting per-route targets which update independently, but within a multi-driver route it could still apply. FedEx dodged it by franchising so that slow workers outright went into debt to the company, but then got sued on employees-as-contractors grounds. Overall, though, I think it's a huge and underrated effect limiting Taylorism. Designing strictly around efficient workers isn't viable if you can't find a lot of them, and using multiple workflows is rarely cost-effective.
There's a story in Rivethead about a car-assembly stamping job that was assigned to two people splitting tasks, but could be done by one person working very smoothly. New guys would do it in pairs, but experienced workers could each do a half-shift solo and duck out to the bar for the other half. As far as I know, time-motion studies never put an end to that, because it was too scarce a skill to schedule and organize for. (Of course, the inability to squeeze out more productivity has consequences for automation, but that's another story.)
My understanding is that UPS has partially bypassed this by setting per-route targets which update independently, but within a multi-driver route it could still apply. FedEx dodged it by franchising so that slow workers outright went into debt to the company, but then got sued on employees-as-contractors grounds. Overall, though, I think it's a huge and underrated effect limiting Taylorism. Designing strictly around efficient workers isn't viable if you can't find a lot of them, and using multiple workflows is rarely cost-effective.
There's a story in Rivethead about a car-assembly stamping job that was assigned to two people splitting tasks, but could be done by one person working very smoothly. New guys would do it in pairs, but experienced workers could each do a half-shift solo and duck out to the bar for the other half. As far as I know, time-motion studies never put an end to that, because it was too scarce a skill to schedule and organize for. (Of course, the inability to squeeze out more productivity has consequences for automation, but that's another story.)