AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

"Efficiency in any project is an admirable attribute. It is even more than admirable in an undertaking designed for the spending of the taxpayer's money in which the lack of this trait is so liable to be interpretated [sic] as graft. It is necessary. After some eight years of connection with highway construction, a familiarity with inefficiency in the management of high projects under state construction is sufficient excuse, we believe, to warrant a dissertation of the opportunities for the practice of efficiency by those in direct charge of these project - the Project Engineers or the Resident Engineers, as they are titled by different states. This is written not in a spirit of criticism of existing systems. We believe that most of the highway officials with whom our experience has thrown us in contact have been primarily interested in getting the work done as expeditiously and inexpensively as the individual cases warranted. It is, rather, a resum�e of causes of inefficiency on the part of the engineer directly in charge of field operations which more long-sighted and broader vision by high officials would make unnecessary" – Introduction, p. iv-v.