FATIGUE STUDY [Illustration: FIG. 1 This is a picture of the pin plan we use, which shows the city as divided into districts, and which shows the collectors and contributors, as marked by different coloured pins.] FATIGUE STUDY _The Elimination of Humanity’s Greatest Unnecessary Waste_ A FIRST STEP IN MOTION STUDY BY FRANK B. GILBRETH Member of American Society of Mechanical Engineers AND LILLIAN M. GILBRETH, PH. D. New York STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY 1916 _All rights reserved_ Copyright, 1916 BY STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1916. PREFACE In the final analysis, that organization is best that has the best quality of workers. No organization can continue to be of first quality whose workers are over-fatigued. Other things being equal, that country will be most happy and most successful whose workers have the least unnecessary fatigue. Aside from the pleasure one may obtain from it, it is the duty of every one to eliminate the causes of unnecessary fatigue, and to promote the dissemination of knowledge of how to recover most quickly from unnecessary and necessary fatigue. Fatigue study rests on scientific investigation that requires the special training of an expert, and laboratory methods and equipment; but there are elementary methods of studying and eliminating fatigue that are not only so simple that any one can understand and apply them, but that are also a definite stage in the preparation of the fatigue study expert. It is the aim of this book to outline both these preliminary methods and the scientific methods of fatigue elimination and to put the available material for fatigue study into such shape that any one interested may make immediate, definite, and profitable use of it. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I A DESCRIPTION AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF FATIGUE STUDY: WHAT MUST BE DONE FATIGUE STUDY AND WASTE 3 WHAT FATIGUE IS 4 WHAT FATIGUE STUDY IS 7 THE FIELD OF THIS BOOK 7 THE RELATION OF FATIGUE STUDY TO MEASURED FUNCTIONAL MANAGEMENT 9 RELATION OF FATIGUE STUDY TO MOTION STUDY 11 THE CLASSES OF FATIGUE 13 THE PROBLEMS OF FATIGUE STUDY 14 THE METHODS OF FATIGUE STUDY 14 EMPHASIS IN FATIGUE STUDY 15 A WORK FOR EVERY ONE 16 CHAPTER II THE FATIGUE SURVEY: WHAT IS TO BE DONE WHAT A SURVEY IS 18