If this limitless waste of human material, this pitiable crushing of
joy in the day's work, and this crippling of the economic output is at
last to be reduced, indeed nothing is more needed than a careful
scrutiny of the various psychophysical functions involved in the work.
A mere classification of the industrial occupations according to the
classes of manufactured objects would be of no value for this need, as
often a small industrial concern may embrace occupations which, are
based on many different psychophysical functions. A harvester consists
of two hundred and fifty different parts, and almost every one of
these parts demands a long series of manufacturing, processes.
Thousands of different kinds of labor are thus combined in one factory
and each process demands for the best work particular psychophysical
traits, even though many of them can be carried out by quite unskilled
laborers. In a large manufacturing establishment the manager assured
me only recently that more than half a million different acts have to
be performed in order to complete the goods of that factory. On the
other hand, it evidently is proper to form larger groups in which
processes are brought together which are similar with reference to the
mental activity needed, while they may be dissimilar from the
standpoint of industrial technique.
This analysis of the special processes can be furthered best by the
coöperation of the experienced men of industry. Many of the replies
which I received contained quite elaborated contributions to such a
study of various industrial processes from a psychological point of
view. They sometimes covered the ground from the simplest activity to
the subtlest and most difficult economic tasks, and this, not only
with reference to the functions of the laborer, but also even with
reference to the function of the industrial manager. The outsider can
see these psychological requirements of the particular occupation only
in crude outlines. The subtler nuances of differences between tasks
can be gained only by an intimate knowledge of the industry. Again I
may give an illustration. In the case of a well-known typesetting
machine, thousand of which are in daily use, I had the impression that
the rapidity of the performance was dependent upon the quickness of
the finger reaction. The managers, on the other hand, have found that
the most essential condition for speed in the whole work is the
ability to retain a large number of words in memory before they are
set. The man who presses the keys rather slowly advances more rapidly
than another who moves his fingers quickly, but must make many pauses
in order to find his place in the manuscript and to provide himself
with new words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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