This phrase is not quite so common as it used to be, but we all still know what it means - if you can get things to work smoothly, then you can make things hum.
The origin of the phrase is to do with the days of the mills and the industrial revolution and machinery in general.
When machines broke down then productivity fell, and so someone was needed to fix the machines.
Some of the massive items in the industrial revolution were really big beasts and it took a special skill and a rare person who could get them to hum, who could make them work again, and hence the phrase has stuck for someone who can get things working generally smoothly.
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