A Management Odyssey: The Royal Dockyards, 1714-1914

The Royal Dockyards were Britain's oldest state enterprise and biggest and most complex industrial unit. This book shows how the Admiralty over two centuries struggled to master the intractable problems of organization and management which the dockyards presented. Haas maintains that the dockyards portrayed an image of being inefficient, high-cost producers. These problems were chiefly extreme centralization but, paradoxically, weak control, inadequate coordination of departments, and accounting procedures, unreliable information about production, costs and material, an insufficiently educated and professionalized constructive corps, and an underpaid and slack workforce. Contents: Preface
Introduction
The Eighteenth Century: Running in Place
Tinkering with the System, 1793-1815
Lightening Ship, 1815-1834
Winds of Change, 1834-1854
Under Seige, 1854-1868
Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1868-1885
The Watershed, 1885-1900
A New Century and New Ideas, 1900-1914
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index.