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
The amount of skill that is successfully transferred may be used as
a test of fatigue elimination. Each member of the organization is
supposed to transfer skill, and also to acquire skill. He transfers
to others the skill in the lines of work in which he is proficient,
yet which are not the highest types of work that he can do. He learns
from others such types of work as are of the highest type that it is
possible for him to learn, that he has never had an opportunity to
learn because of the time taken by work requiring less skill, that it
was necessary under the old plan for him to do.
It is a fallacy to suppose that work which does not demand all the
skill at one’s disposal is less fatiguing than work which does. Work is
not less fatiguing because it demands less skill. It is less fatiguing
when it is done with ease and when there is a joy of achievement
requiring skill; that is, when it is satisfying. Because of lack of
opportunity, one may only perform with ease the work which does not
demand much skill. As soon as he learns to perform the skilled work
with ease, it causes even less fatigue, other things being equal,
than does unskilled work, because it holds the interest, hence the
attention, more easily.
We enjoy doing that which we can do well. Whether we improve in the
doing because we take pleasure in doing it, or simply because the
pleasure makes us do more, and we improve with the practice, is not
of great importance. Psychologists are divided in their opinions as
to the effect of pleasure upon work, but all agree that, directly or
indirectly, pleasure in the work does affect the work favourably.
Through the transference of skill this pleasure is given to the
work, or increased in the work, and, therefore, the amount of skill
transferred is a test of fatigue elimination.
Test of “Happiness Minutes,” Individual and Social.
The final test of fatigue elimination, as of every other change made
in doing things, is its influence upon the total output of “Happiness
Minutes.” The aim of life is happiness, no matter how we differ as to
what true happiness means. Fatigue elimination, starting as it does
from a desire to conserve human life and to eliminate enormous waste,
must increase “Happiness Minutes,” no matter what else it does, or it
has failed in its fundamental aim. Have you reason to believe that your
workers are really happier because of the work that you have done on
fatigue study? Do they look happier, and say they are happier? Then
your fatigue eliminating work has been worth while in the highest
sense of the term, no matter what the financial outcome. Naturally the
savings that accrue must benefit every one, but saving lies at the
root of fatigue elimination, and, if every member of the organization,
including the manager and the stockholders, is getting more “Happiness
Minutes,” you surely are working along the right lines.
[Illustration: FIG. 32]
[Illustration: FIG. 33
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