Fatigue study : $b the elimination of humanity's greatest unnecessary waste. A first step in motion studyGilbreth, Lillian Moller
Science
Fatigue study : $b the elimination of humanity's greatest unnecessary waste. A first step in motion study
Gilbreth, Lillian Moller
Fatigue; Industrial efficiency; Motion study
In an excellent series of articles on dress, published some years
ago, Miss Tarbell laid down the rule that “suitability” is the final
test of a costume. It is with this in mind that the clothing worn by
the members of the organization while at work should be examined. It
must be said, in the first place, that there is no more reason for
the common custom of the worker providing his special outer clothing
while at work than there is for his providing his other tools and
equipment. In other times, the workmen of many trades preferred to
provide their own tools, and did so, but in a scientifically managed
plant to-day, the workers are provided by the management with standard
tools. The management has standardized the best in a tool, and keeps
it in the best possible working condition. In the same way, it should
be the duty of the management to provide special working clothes, when
they have been standardized. This involves, of course, the problem of
laundering, which may seem complicated to one who is not acquainted
with what has been done in this field.
There has been very little done in most kinds of work to provide a
costume, designed to conform to motion economy and least fatigue, that
is, at the same time, useful, artistic, and pleasing. Progress has been
rendered even slower by the fact that many workers have a prejudice
against such garments, feeling that they show a class distinction. All
that is necessary is to create a fashion of wearing such garments,
like the fashion of wearing atelier or studio clothes. In no place can
an example of unsuitable clothing be more clearly seen than in the
laundry industry. Much of the work done in the typical laundry is done
while standing, and the women who form a majority of the workers wear
clothes, and particularly shoes that make the work far more fatiguing
than it need be. Yet in this very industry some of the most progressive
work to improve conditions is being done. In Europe a shoe with a
thick wooden sole and a heavy leather upper over the front part of the
foot only is considered the most comfortable and least fatiguing. It
is also certainly the cheapest and most durable. But Americans will
not wear such a shoe. The shoe furnishes the most difficult feature of
the costume problem. Here again the most important thing is that the
“fashion” of wearing comfortable and efficient garments shall be set.
We have hoped for years that sensible fashions in workers’ clothes
might be set by patterning after tennis or other athletic costumes, but
the time when this will become general seems as yet far distant, due to
the necessity of the worker using his oldest and discarded “dress up”
clothes, ultimately for his working clothes. Nevertheless, the great
loss in efficiency, due to the general custom of wearing clothes that
interfere with comfortable work, and that cause unnecessary fatigue,
has caused us to start a campaign for the design and standardization
of more suitable clothes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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