- Robert Heller Associates’ efficiency experts, headed by Dudley P. Felt, release their final report, containing numerous recommendations for improvement of Steinway & Sons management and technological process. According to the report, Steinway & Sons should retire all the employees over the age of seventy; reorganize sales department; update accounting methods; sell one of the factories; hire an educated industrial engineer to manage the factories that remain; reorganize the factory layout; streamline the flow of materials; install production control procedures; modernize manufacturing processes; use cheaper lumber; rename “Board of Trustees” into “Board of Directors”; separate the Board of Directors from the operating management of the company; encourage Steinway family to always represent the minority on the board of directors; improve the design of piano cases; formulate a wage incentive plan.
- The ideas for reorganizing the production come from Thomas R. Harris, a young production expert, recently hired by Robert Heller Associates. Having examined the factories, Thomas R. Harris reports: “the general layout of the buildings and departments was scattered and no logical or systematic flow of production had been effected”. He recommends to contain all the production in the Ditmars factories and sell the Riker. He also suggests the way to optimize the manufacturing process that would reduce the required space by 100,000 feet, and decrease the transportation time of the unfinished pianos and their parts by 25%. The resulting plant would be able to produce 5,000 pianos a year in 58% of the space. Thomas R. Harris’s ideas won’t be put into practice until 25 years later. He and Henry Z. Steinway become close friends.