Benjamin S. Graham

Who was Benjamin S. Graham?

Benjamin S. Graham, Sr. was a pioneer in the development and application of scientific management and industrial engineering techniques to office and factory clerical work. He is recognized as the founder of paperwork simplification. He saw a growing need for improvement in information processing back in the 1940s.

He was trained in work simplification by Allan H. Mogensen and Lillian Gilbreth. Afterwards he adapted the Gilbreth flow process charts that were being used to improve factory work for use with more complex business processes. He was working with the Standard Register Company of Dayton, Ohio. His purpose was to display processes so that employee teams could study them and streamline them. Graham was invited to join Mogensen’s staff to provide instruction in paperwork simplification at Mogensen’s Work Simplification Conferences. He also participated in the programs of the Work Simplification Round Tables at New York University, the spring Methods Conferences conducted by the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and at UCLA’s Engineering and Management Course.