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 Home Reading Box has been successfully installed by a group
of manufacturers engaged in the same trade. This particular work
furnishes an admirable starting point, and is a great help in arousing
local interest. If even a few interested in the same trade in various
parts of the country will co-operate, it will soon be possible, through
trade journals, and through a general demand for equipment designed
from the fatigue standpoint, to revolutionize fatigue conditions in
that industry. Editors and writers of papers of all types have been
quick to see the benefits of fatigue elimination, and to offer to
co-operate in a campaign for education. Manufacturers have been equally
eager to satisfy any demands which may be made. The managers can have a
large share in making such demands, and in encouraging the support of
publications in which they are interested.
The Work of the Worker.
The worker has two chief ways in which he can help in fatigue
elimination. The first is to co-operate with the management in
installing fatigue elimination methods and devices in the particular
plant in which they are both interested. The second is to help to make
fatigue elimination fashionable. This latter duty lies with no one
but the worker himself. No new methods spread more quickly than the
“fashion of work.” There is nothing of which a well run plant is more
proud than the “way” it works, the work spirit. The whole idea must be
that it is a disgrace to have causes of unnecessary fatigue existing.
Overfatigue is a positive proof of inefficiency. There is no fear but
that the workers will recognize these duties, and will perform them
heartily and with good will, when they know that they are getting a
square deal. It is right that they should make very sure that they
are going to receive such treatment, and that fatigue study is not a
new scheme for taking advantage of them, but they must be ready to
listen to the proof and to accept it when they are convinced that it
is true. Having accepted it, and thus made sure that they are safe in
co-operating, the next step is to help actively in the good work.
The Work of the Public.
The great work of the public is to demand fatigue elimination. The
adoption of a few simple slogans, like “Buy of the seated worker,”
would help bring immediate results in fatigue elimination. Consider
what the Consumers’ League has done in securing better working
conditions. Note how the “Safety First” movement has spread through the
whole country. The “Fatigue Eliminating Movement” can spread in the
same way, if only every one will do his part to demand that the fatigue
be reduced and to help in the actual reduction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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