EVOLUTION OF PLANNING
SIR,—The evolution of machinery for the Ministry of Production is accelerating. There is an increasing understanding of the difference between the consumer interest in Supply and the producer interest in Production, but it is by no means yet appreciated that, of the two remaining major interests, namely Economics and Planning, the new Ministry requires the complementary service of a Ministry of Planning before it can hope to occupy a balanced place in national machinery of democratic government for total war.
Let me explain. In the modern conception of management, where previously on most managerial control diagrams we saw the managing
director or general manager of a business, particularly in engineering, co-ordinating, inspiring and directing the activities of a works manager, a sales manager and an accountant or commercial manager, we now quite often see the managing director supported by four, not three, equally authoritative managerial executives. These are, the works manager, the sales manager, the commercial manager and the chief engineer. Although each of these men in the small executive group of five has continuous concern in the specialised activities of his opposite members and is able to appreciate their views and arguments, he performs a specialised function in the running of the business. The works manager is responsible, according to plan, for the efficient -operation of his available resources, i.e., labour supply, tools and plant, buildings, raw materials and transport. He is a tactician. The sales manager reports consumer need and within the agreed plan attempts to distribute products to satisfy that need. The commercial manager is responsible for collecting, analysing and maintaining for executive scrutiny all statistics in relation to costs, prices, wages, profits, bank charges and so on. The chief engineer, the newcomer in recent years, has the responsibility of advising on technical trends and development in relation to the product, what work the firm should under- take to do and what are the best modern methods of doing it. He is a strategist. He is responsible for planning, estimating, rate-fixing, purchases and stock control, progressing, and all schemes of methods required to facilitate production flow through the factory. The managing director or general manager who co-ordinates, inspires and directs the activities of these four subordinate managers, must essentially be the chief spokes- man for the firm.
But here is the point that is not generally appreciated. While the firm as a whole can be tabulated as a producing unit in the files of the Ministry of Production, it is also an economic unit in the files of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a supply unit in the files of the Supply departments, and a technical designing or development unit in the files of the users of the goods which the firm is producing or may be improved to produce. Therefore, we have the picture of a balanced management mechanism fitting into the national picture of total war organisation accepting and loyally obeying central government decree, with the works manager concerned to obey the rulings of the Ministry of Production, the sales manager concerned to satisfy the supply depart- ments of the consumers (which should be all in one Ministry of Supply), the commercial manager concerned to obey and guide the firm according to the dictates of the Board of Trade and the Treasury (which should be reorganised and evolved into a Ministry of Economics), and the chief engineer spoiling his inventive genius, his trained foreseeing vision, while he awaits the evolution of a Ministry of Development and Planning to which his meandering loyalties can be attached for guidance and mutual sustenance.
Conversely, if we accept the Minister of Production as works manager for the nation in total war, you can see him as a tactician, with his regional foremen, all with their joint worker-management councils and office staffs, working out tactics, improvising this and that against the needs of the hour and the panic demands of the moment, with no central planning authority or ministry to which they can look for guidance on long-term production strategy. Our minds should be set to develop a real Ministry of Planning now.—Yours faithfully,
GEORGE DICKSON
(Vice Chairman of the London and South Eastern Regional Production Board).
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