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Title: Fatigue study
the elimination of humanity's greatest unnecessary waste. A first
step in motion study

Author: Frank B. Gilbreth
Lillian Moller Gilbreth

Release date: April 23, 2022 [eBook #67908]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67908

Credits: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATIGUE
STUDY ***

FATIGUE STUDY

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
The General Survey and the Fatigue Survey 19
The Aims of the Fatigue Survey 19
The Time and Place of Making the Survey 20
The Qualification of the Survey Maker 22
What to Look For 25
Variables That Affect Fatigue 29
The Survey Record Sheet 30
Survey Photographs 31
Making the Survey Serviceable 32
CHAPTER III
PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS FOR REST FOR OVERCOMING FATIGUE: WHAT CAN
BE DONE NOW

Provision for Rest 38
Chairs to Make the Rest Most Effective 42
Betterment Work 47
Results 49
CHAPTER IV
HOME READING BOX MOVEMENT: A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION
What It Is 54
The Box in the Plant 55
The Plant as a Source of Supply 55
The Home Element 58
Routing the Magazines 61
The Problem of Maintenance 63
How the Conditions Vary 67
The Home Reading Box and Fatigue 69
The By-Products of the Home Reading Box Movement 70
How to Begin 75
CHAPTER V
PRELIMINARY FATIGUE ELIMINATION: WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW
The Lighting Problem 77
The Heating, Cooling, and Ventilating Problem 82
Fire Protection 84
Safety Protection 85
The Work Place 88
The Work-bench or Table 90
The Chair or Other Fatigue-Eliminating Device 91
Placing the Material Worked On 93
The Placing of Tools and Devices 94
The Clothing of the Worker 95
CHAPTER VI
THE FATIGUE MUSEUM: AN OBJECT LESSON
What a Fatigue Museum Is 99
The Parent Fatigue Museum 100
What the Fatigue Museum Contains 102
What the Museum Does not Contain 102

Types of Chairs and Their Uses 104
Other Fatigue Eliminating Devices 108
How to Use the Devices 109
Starting Your Own Fatigue Museum 111
CHAPTER VII
FATIGUE MEASUREMENT: HOW TO ATTACK THE PROBLEM SCIENTIFICALLY
History of Fatigue Measurement 114
Fatigue, a Test of Efficient Activity 116
The Activity 117
Motion Study, Micromotion Study, the Cyclegraph, and the Chronocyclegraph
118
Method as Measures of Activity
Testing the Work by Motions Required 123
Testing Workers by Motion Capabilities 124
The Use of Activity Records as Data for Eliminating Fatigue 124
The Time Element 125
The Standardization of Work and Rest 127
CHAPTER VIII
MAKING ADJUSTMENTS: HOW PRESENT PRACTICE IS DEVELOPED INTO
STANDARD PRACTICE
A Concrete Example of Making Adjustments 132
Former Method of Assembly 133
How the New Practice Was Derived 134
The Two Factors to Be Considered 134
Outline of the Changes to Be Made 135
The Solution of the Problem 135
Final Adjustment 139
Changes in Type of Work Demanded 140
Change in Mental Attitude 140
Value of This Example 140
CHAPTER IX
THE OUTCOME: HOW FAR HAVE WE ATTAINED OUR AIM?
The Tests of General Health 142
The Test of Prolonged Activity 143
The Test of Posture 144
The Test of Behaviour and Implied Mental Attitude 146

The Test of Transference of Skill 148
Test of “Happiness Minutes,” Individual and Social 149
CHAPTER X
THE FUTURE: WHAT EACH ONE OF US CAN DO
The Work of the Colleges 153
The Work of the Manager 155
The Work of the Worker 156
The Work of the Public 157

FATIGUE STUDY

CHAPTER I

A DESCRIPTION AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF FATIGUE
STUDY: WHAT MUST BE DONE

Fatigue Study and Waste.

In “Motion Study” we stated: “There is no waste of any kind in the world
that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions.”[1]
It is an aspect of wasted motions that we are discussing here. Wasted
motions mean wasted effort and wasted time. One of the results of this
waste is unnecessary fatigue, caused by unnecessary effort expended during
time that must, as a result, be wasted. Time, a lifetime, is our principal
inheritance. To waste any of it is to lose part of our principal asset. To waste
time and to suffer from unnecessary fatigue simultaneously can be excused
only by ignorance. Unnecessary fatigue is caused by some one’s ignorance.
This book aims to call the attention of the world to the relationship between
fatigue and waste, with the hope that the knowledge of our methods of
fatigue elimination may be useful to others.

What Fatigue Is.

A crowd of workers come out of the factory after the day’s work. Some
rush home; others walk at a leisurely pace. Some move slowly and with
effort. Some have their heads back and a satisfied expression on their faces.
Others have their heads bent forward, and look as though life were not
worth while. What is the difference between the members of this group?
Mainly a matter of fatigue. Fatigue is the after-effect of work. It is the
condition of the worker’s organism after he has expended energy in doing
something. It is a necessary by-product of activity. If, as is presumable,
every member of our crowd of workers has been putting in a day full of
activity, we might expect to see the same marks of fatigue on every face and
figure,—but we do not.

What, then, are the reasons for the difference? The state of fatigue has
only been systematically studied during the past thirty years. Even to-day it
is not wholly understood. We do know, however, several things about it,
that may explain what we see in the emerging group. We know that fatigue
is marked by a decrease in power to work, a decrease in pleasure taken in
work, and a decrease in the enjoyment of the hours spent away from work.
We know that exertion not only uses up temporarily the energy of the body,
but that it also seems to generate a sort of poison which “slows one down”
for the time being. In the third place, we know, also, that the effects of
fatigue are more difficult to overcome as the fatigue becomes greater.
Careful observation and records show that a little fatigue is easily overcome
if proper rest is supplied immediately. Twice the amount of fatigue requires
more than twice the amount of rest. Four times the amount of fatigue
demands much more than twice as much rest as the preceding “more than
twice the amount of rest,” until, finally, a state of excessive fatigue requires
a rest period that might have to be prolonged indefinitely. It is this fact that
lies at the basis of the great unnecessary waste in accumulated fatigue.
The trouble with these tired workers, then, is that their work has not been
arranged in the least fatiguing manner nor in such a way that they could get
the most rest and recovery in the least amount of idle time during the
working hours. The ones whose heads are high and whose shoulders are
thrown back may have been provided in some way with sufficient rest. The
ones whose heads are bowed probably have not had the recovery time that
they needed. It is possible that those who have had all the rest they needed
have not produced as much as have the others. The remedy for this may not
lie in shortening the rest, but in improving work methods. The waste in
work not done, or in work done with the wrong method, is a serious
economic waste. The waste in unnecessary fatigue is not only an economic
waste, it is a waste of life, and it calls for immediate attention from every
one of us, whether interested in the individual, the group, or the economic
prosperity of our country.

What Fatigue Study Is.

Our fatigue study is an attack upon this unnecessary waste of human
energy. It is a careful consideration of the problem of activity from the side

of its results upon the human organism. It aims:
1. To determine accurately what fatigue results from doing
various types of work.
2. To eliminate all unnecessary fatigue.
3. To reduce the necessary fatigue to the lowest amount possible.
4. To provide all possible means for overcoming fatigue.
5. To put the facts obtained from the study into such form that
every worker can use them for himself to get more out of life.

The Field of This Book.

The reader who will carefully watch the tired crowd of workers will
probably decide that he would like to do something about the fatigue
problem immediately. There are various methods by which he may attack
the problem. He may, and must, ultimately, review the literature on fatigue.
The work of Marey, of Amar, of Imbert, of Offner, of Thorndike, and of
numerous other physiologists and psychologists lies open to the student of
the subject. He may turn immediately to Miss Josephine Goldmark’s
masterly volume on “Fatigue and Efficiency.” This will give him an insight
into the application of fatigue elimination to the industries. He may decide,
however, that such study must wait, and that he must actually do something
to cut down the fatigue the first thing the next morning, while the driving
force of what he has seen is still strong. Nothing can mean so much to what
he is to do as the strong incentive that drives him to doing it, the desire to
help. But he will do best if he is instructed and directed. He should plan, in
order that he may do the most in the least amount of time, and do the big,
easy, obvious things first.
This book will outline a method of attack, and furnish a working practice
for attacking the fatigue problem in an industrial plant. This practice is
recommended because it rests on the results of measurement. We have here
not simply a collection of illustrations that show what has been done in
eliminating fatigue in the industries. All fatigue elimination is to be
commended, but illustrations that do not embody well-recognized principles
are questionable models. It is easy to make external changes that never

touch the underlying cause of evil. Worthwhile, permanent fatigue
elimination goes at the fundamentals of the work itself, and studies these in
relation to the fatigue. What has been done is worth while when we know
how it has been done, and why it has been done. Given these facts, we can
determine how it may be done again in the same fashion and possibly even
better. The practice that is the result of accurate measurement,—this is the
standard to be demanded.

The Relation of Fatigue Study to Measured Functional
Management.

Fatigue study is founded on measurement. This makes it an integral part
of measured functional management. This is management that acts in
accordance with standards. These standards are derived by actually
measuring accurately what is happening. Standards contain the results of
the measurement combined into new working methods. These standards are
maintained only until they can be improved, when the new ones are in turn
measured and maintained. Such accurate measurement demands that the
problem of management be divided into measurable units. These units are
made as small as possible, and constantly smaller as time goes on. It was
the great work of Doctor Taylor to divide an operation, that is, a piece of
work to be measured, into units for timing with a stop watch, and to
separate rest units from work units.
From its beginning, Scientific Management has recognized the
importance of the part played by fatigue. This recognition helps to obtain
that co-operation and permanent beneficial efficiency that are the
underlying ideas and the maintaining forces in this type of management.
But fatigue study has only recently been acknowledged as fundamental to
the most efficient management. Any one can attack the fatigue problem in
its present condition in the industries successfully. He has simply to apply
measurement. He can do this without regarding the investigations and
results of others, if he chooses, but he will progress faster and farther if he
uses results already at hand, and improves on “the best that has been known
and thought in the world.”

Relation of Fatigue Study to Motion Study.

Motion study has been described as the dividing of the elements of the
work into the most elementary subdivisions possible, studying and
measuring the variables of these fundamental units separately and in
relation to one another, and from these studied, chosen units, after they have
been derived, building up methods of least waste. It is through the
measuring of motions that one comes to realize most strongly the necessity
of fatigue study.
There has come, in the past twenty-five years, a strong general realization
that the important factor in doing work is the human factor, or the human
element. Improvement in working apparatus of any type is important in its
effect upon the human being who is to use the apparatus. The moment one
begins to make man, the worker, the centre of activity, he appreciates that
he has two elements to measure. One is the activity itself. This includes the
motions, seen or unseen, made by the worker,—what is done and how it is
done. The other is the fatigue. This includes the length and nature of the
interval or rest period required for the worker to recover his original
condition of working power.
Any one who makes real motion study, or analyzes motion study data,
cannot fail to realize constantly the relationship of motion study to fatigue
study. The fatigue is the more interesting element, in that it is the more
difficult to determine exactly. When we recognize this close relationship
between motion study and fatigue study, we see that we have a body of data
already collected and at our disposal. What is even more desirable, we have
a method of measurement ready at our hand. Every observation of a motion
may be used to give information about fatigue. Is this information of
immediate use to the man who is attacking his fatigue problem for the first
time to-day? Yes, and no. Yes, in that it is at his disposal. No, in that he
must determine his own particular problem before he can start to solve it.
The first step in this direction lies in classifying fatigue.

The Classes of Fatigue.

There are two classes of fatigue:
1. Unnecessary fatigue, which results from unnecessary effort, or
work which does not need to be done at all. A typical example of
such work is that of the bricklayer, who furnished one of the first

subjects for motion study. Any one who has watched a bricklayer
lift all of his body above the waist, together with the bricks and
mortar from the level of his feet to the top of a wall, cannot fail to
realize that bricklaying requires a great amount of energy as well as
skill. Yet by far the most of the energy expended in the method of
laying bricks, that had existed for centuries, was entirely
unnecessary.[2]
2. Necessary fatigue, which results from work that must be done.
The new method, which enabled this same bricklayer to lay three
hundred and fifty bricks per hour, where he had laid one hundred
and twenty bricks per hour before, did not eliminate, and did not
expect to eliminate all of the fatigue accumulated in the working
day. The bricklayer at the end of the day, by reason of motion study
devices, laid more brick, but was nevertheless much less tired.
Experimental work in his case was carried to a high degree of
perfection, because he was recognized as a splendid type of efficient
brawn.

The Problems of Fatigue Study.

The problems of fatigue study are, then, four, which may be stated in
very simple terms:
1. To determine what fatigue is unnecessary.
2. To determine what fatigue is necessary.
3. To eliminate all unnecessary fatigue possible.
4. To distribute the necessary fatigue properly, and to provide the
best possible means for speedy and complete recovery.

The Methods of Fatigue Study.

The methods used must rest on a scientific basis. These methods are the
same for the expert and for the man making his first attack on the problem.
They are as follows:

1. Record present practice, make an accurate and complete
account in writing of what is actually being done.
2. Decide in what sequence things are to be measured, and put
them in such shape that they can be measured.
3. Apply accurate measurement.
4. Determine standards synthetically from the measurement, and
make such changes in practice as will make it conform to the
standard.
5. Compare the new standard practice with the old practice.
Determine exactly what improvements have been made, in order to
be able to predict the line along which new improvements must lie.
This is the standard method of attack of measured functional
management. It can be the more successfully applied to fatigue study in that
the results can be checked at every point by the results of motion study,
which bear a constant relation to them.

Emphasis in Fatigue Study.

Any such study as this demands an emphasis upon accuracy. The man
making the study must have a strong desire for finding and writing down
the facts. He must have willingness to submit every aspect of the problem
he is studying to the test of accurate measurement. Along with this desire
for facts must go a realization of how the facts are to be used. Fatigue study
is a constructive study. It builds up. It uses such terms as “elimination,” but
its fundamental aim is conservation, and this conservation includes adding
to those things which make life worth while. The desire to act as a force for
betterment must be the incentive that makes the man doing fatigue study
ready to record and face the actual facts.

A Work for Every One.

Recording facts is difficult work, but there is no one who cannot do some
of it. It is the duty of every man to face the facts with which he works and
to record them. You have come from the crowd of tired workers with an
incentive to do this. Here is the method by which it may be done.

Summary.

Fatigue study is related to motion study in that both are branches of waste
elimination. Fatigue study classifies fatigue, and outlines methods by which
unnecessary fatigue may be eliminated and rest from necessary fatigue may
be provided.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] See “Motion Study,” p. 2.
[2] See “Bricklaying System,” chapter xiv. Myron C. Clark Co., Chicago.

CHAPTER II

THE FATIGUE SURVEY: WHAT IS TO BE DONE

What a Survey Is.

A survey is an attempt to record existing conditions. It gives:
1. A general view.
2. A more particular or intensive study of the various parts of the
whole and their relation to one another.
It may include recommendations for improvement, but its primary
purpose is to record what actually exists.
The survey is a systematic study of existing conditions. Those making it
have always a well-defined plan in mind. It is necessary, in order to
maintain a proper balance for the completed survey, to give a properly
proportioned representation of what happens, with no element omitted or
over-emphasized.

The General Survey and the Fatigue Survey.

The fatigue survey should be a department of the general survey. A
description of the apparent causes of fatigue, or of the devices present that
eliminate fatigue, can mean little without the accompanying description of
the worker, the conditions of the work and the work itself. The fatigue
survey might be made without a general survey. From the results, fatigue
might be eliminated, or better means for overcoming fatigue provided, but
there would be no assurance that the records applied would be efficient, or
do lasting good, if the causes of fatigue were not understood. The causes
could not be understood without the general survey. The fatigue element
receives more emphasis than any other element of the general survey. We

look for fatigue first, last, and all the time, but we record with it all the
attending circumstances that we can observe or discover.

The Aims of the Fatigue Survey.

The fatigue survey aims:
1. To present an accurate picture of existing conditions from the
fatigue standpoint.
2. To enable all interested in fatigue elimination to visualize the
problem thoroughly.
3. To divide the problem of fatigue elimination into such working
units that it may be possible to attack the problem successfully from
the start.
4. To arouse the interest of every member of the organization in
fatigue and its elimination.
5. To show the relation between fatigue and activity.
6. To teach every member of the organization to conserve his
working powers.

The Time and Place of Making the Survey.

The survey should be made as soon as plans for making it are completed,
and before any changes in the actual practice are made. If there is any idea
of changing the type of management, it may well be made even before such
a change is thoroughly outlined. It is the first step to be taken by any
organization which is thinking of introducing the scientific type of
management. The entire “plant” should be surveyed. The work should start
where there is the most fatigue, and where the greatest amount of good can
be done immediately. This, for several reasons; such as:
1. The largest amount of waste can thus be eliminated.
2. The co-operation of the workers will be most quickly gained.
This will be true not only of the workers actually studied, but of all
of the workers in the organization. They will appreciate the attitude

of the new management, and will be glad to help if they can see the
actual benefit from the start.
3. The survey maker will become encouraged as he sees his data
successfully used.
4. The survey, if made by an amateur, will help him when he
attacks more difficult problems.
If the survey maker is an amateur, he had best begin where working
conditions most demand betterment. It is simpler to record working
conditions than to describe the worker or the method by which the work is
done. A really adequate record of a worker requires a knowledge of
physiology and psychology. An adequate record of method requires an
expert knowledge of motion study. A preliminary record of fatigue of all
sorts may be made by an amateur. He had best, however, get his practice in
recording working conditions. Moreover, it will be best to observe a worker
who is known to be co-operative at the start. The co-operation of the worker
is the most important element in getting accurate records. Such workers will
also help from the start to suggest or invent devices for eliminating fatigue,
if they are started thinking along these lines. Later, one can handle the non-
co-operative as one becomes more practised, and there is always the
likelihood that, by the time one gets to these at first non-co-operative
workers, their attitude will have been changed by the good results and the
general sympathy towards the fatigue survey.

The Qualification of the Survey Maker.

The survey maker must be an accurate observer. He must be able to see
what the conditions really are, and to describe and record what he sees in
simple, clear language that will enable others to understand what he says.
The survey may be made by any one of several types of survey maker:
1. The owner of the plant. He will have the most vital interest in
the resulting fatigue elimination. No matter who else makes a
survey, the owner should examine it closely, or should make one for
himself. We have found that, if the owner can be persuaded to take
one day of his time to make even a most rapid and superficial
fatigue survey of his plant, the result is always of enormous benefit

to the work; but, while his interest may be enlisted with a walk
through his plant, his zeal will not be obtained until he has actually
sat in the various seats and chairs, and actually, personally, tried out
the various work places.
2. The survey may be made by some other member of the
organization, who is an amateur at the work. The benefits of having
a survey maker who is a member of the organization is that he
“understands the peculiar and local conditions” thoroughly, and that
those who are observed may therefore have more confidence in his
work and perhaps may be less apt to resent being observed. The
disadvantages are that he will be so well acquainted with and
accustomed to seeing the conditions that he will not be apt to note
many apparently unimportant details. These may really be
important, when one comes to make changes.
3. The survey may be made by an amateur not a member of the
organization. The advantage of this is that the observer will be
disinterested. The disadvantages are the usual disadvantages of lack
of training. There may, also, be some delay in the observed worker’s
co-operating with the observer. This is not apt to occur if the survey
maker is properly instructed before he begins his work.
4. The survey may be made by an expert. It makes little
difference, in this case, whether the expert is, or is not, a member of
the organization. In actual practice he seldom is a member of the
organization.
There is much saving in time in having an expert survey maker, who will
be, in the industries, preferably a motion study expert. From extensive
practice he will be able to see possible improvements at the same time that
he sees existing conditions. However, he must not let his plans for
improvement affect the exactness of his records of the present. On the
contrary, these plans will insure that he makes his records of the present
detailed and accurate, in order that the progress may be apparent.
Whatever may be the preparation of the survey maker, his chief
qualification should be a keen interest and enthusiasm for this work. If a
man really wants to eliminate fatigue, and is willing to learn how to do it,
he can become a survey maker.

What to Look For.

There are three chief groups of things to look for:
1. The characteristics of the worker, or, as we have called them,
“variables of the worker.”
2. The characteristics of the working conditions,—“the variables
of the surroundings, equipments, and tools.”
3. The characteristics of the methods of work; that is, “the
variables of the motions.”[3]
First, in describing the worker, there are several possible methods of
obtaining valuable information. One is by observing him. A second is by
talking with him. Before using either of these, it is necessary to see what
records of him are already in the hands of the management. There will
probably be some information in the employment bureau, if an employment
bureau exists; if not, the man who hired him may have some data
concerning him. Usually this will save the worker’s time in answering
questions. It is well to know as much as possible about the worker’s life
history and home conditions,—this especially that one may understand
whether he goes to work refreshed or tired in the morning.
The procedure may be as follows:
1. Record the man’s name, age, birthplace, preparation,
experience, and fitness. These last will all be a help in determining
the percentage of fatigue.
2. Record the man’s physical characteristics, as far as can be
observed; such as, size, strength, skill, strong points, and weak
points.
3. Record, as closely as possible, the man’s behaviour, as
indicating his mental condition. To be specific, note whether he
seems interested in the work. Note his habits of doing the work,—
whether he does the work the same way every time, or whether he
varies in his methods. Note his degree of ability to learn quickly.
Note his power of concentrating attention. Note his degree of
contentment with the work.

The degree of detail with which this notation may be made by an amateur
doing the work depends largely upon his training in psychology.
Second, in recording working conditions:
1. Record those things that affect all workers in the group. These
are the length of working day, condition of lighting, heating,
cooling, and ventilating; fire protection; safety protection as it
affects all,—this to include protection from dust, lint, or any
substance which might affect health.
2. Record the conditions that affect the individual worker:—
places of the work; the work bench or table or other device for
holding the work; the chair, foot rails or rests, or other device for
affording rest to the body or some part of the body; the material
worked on and its placing; the tools or other devices by which the
work is done; the clothing of the worker.
3. Record the results of the work:—the average amount of output;
the hours of the working day when most fatigue seems to exist.
Record which conditions observed are the result of work having
been done by the management, and which are the result of work
having been done by the individual worker.
If a general appearance of fatigue seems to occur at any time, make
special notes of all attending conditions of every kind. Note anything that is
particularly good or particularly bad.
Third, little can be done at this stage by the amateur survey maker in
recording the variables of the methods, and in making motion analysis
charts. He may, however, make notes of methods that seem to him unusual
or efficient. For example, if he observes two workers who seem physically
much the same, and who have practically identical surroundings, and finds
that one of these accomplishes more than the other, or is less fatigued, the
difference is likely to lie in the motions or the methods used. These should
be carefully noted. Such data as these will prove of value in the intensive
studies of motions to be undertaken later.

Variables that Affect Fatigue.

We included in “Motion Study,”[4] a list of forty-two variables that affect
motions. The list we use consists of one hundred and nineteen. We feel that
our list is by no means complete. It is necessary only to note here that every
possible change in the work, the worker, or the method has its effect upon
the fatigue. This need not act as a deterrent from making changes. It need
only act as a warning that no change made without a thorough consideration
of every element of the problem can be of permanent value.

The Survey Record Sheet.

The survey maker will do well to list all of the things, which he intends
to look for, upon one sheet, which he may use as a tentative record sheet.
Such a sheet will prove itself an admirable record of how far advanced the
organization is in fatigue elimination. The survey maker in any particular
plant may modify it to suit individual conditions.
The making of such a record sheet is most stimulating to the survey
maker. He should make a collection of all the different survey sheets
obtainable, even though used in the social or educational fields. He should
be required to make at least a tentative sheet of his own. Through his
attempts to do this, he will come, as in almost no other way, to a realization
of the importance of the problem that is before him.

Survey Photographs.

A photograph is one of the most satisfactory survey records. It is not
always easy to get such a photograph. In the first place the survey maker is
not sure what should be photographed. In the second place the worker is not
always eager that he or his work place should be photographed. This is even
more true of the management than of the men. Some managers are not
willing to allow their work places to be photographed, when they realize
that such photographs will live as “before and after” records. Where
photographs can be taken, they are the ideal records, in that they are
accurate, detailed, unprejudiced, easily understood, easily preserved, and
constantly available. We have found the photograph the most valuable of
records, and have used it continuously since 1892. On every side we find
that scientists are more and more realizing the importance of the photograph

record. A trained photographer often has the desirable qualities to become
an admirable survey maker. The motion picture film makes it possible to
record activity as well as rest.

Making the Survey Serviceable.

Such photographs form an important element in making the survey
serviceable. The survey is an admirable record to use after improvements
have been made, to show exactly what the trend of progress has been. It is,
however, most important, as furnishing the working data from which the
actual improvements are made immediately. To be serviceable, then, the
survey must do certain things:
1. It must make it possible for any one studying it actually to
realize existing conditions. It is apparent what a help the
photographs are in thus visualizing the problem.
2. It must emphasize those conditions that require immediate and
great improvement. These can be shown most plainly by
photographs, but it must be remembered that a photograph without a
proper written explanation often means but a small portion of what
it should to a man who has not himself seen the conditions.
3. It must be in such form that it can be easily followed or
studied. This will be assured if the plan has been properly made, and
if the plan outlined has been consistently followed.
The observations should be grouped. The groups should be put under
appropriate headings. The order should be excellent. It will help greatly if
partial and final summaries are included.
The amateur will do best to put all of his recommendations for changes at
the close of the survey. Such recommendations should certainly be
included. The survey maker should note the improvements that occur to him
while making the survey. This he may do on the regular survey blank, but
when writing up the survey, he should put his suggested improvements in a
separate place, for the following reasons: His suggestions may be good, but
may be only a few of possible suggestions. Reading them with the survey
may prevent the reader from thinking out suggestions of his own. Again, the
suggestions, while good, may be obvious, in which case the reader might

consider the entire survey a record of obvious facts, which, therefore, is of
little value; in which case, while it is well to record them, it is seldom
advisable to include them in the body of the survey. The reader may lose
interest because of the suggestions, and may fail to realize the value of the
record itself.
Another means of making the survey serviceable is to pay strict attention
to the style. This should be the extreme of simplicity and clearness. Use
short, familiar, and necessary words. Use short sentences requiring no
punctuation except the period. In fact, wherever possible, use a printed
form, and write in the fewest possible words that can include a simple,
definite, and complete description. Wherever possible, make the survey so
interesting that it will hold the attention without effort. This has been done,
and can always be done. Photographs, especially stereoscopic photographs,
are of great assistance; so are charts, or graphs, illustrating the results of the
observation; and tables that will show facts, recapitulations, and tendencies,
at a glance.
The data of the survey may be written up by the survey maker, if he is
clever at such work; if he is not, it had better be written up by some one to
whom he explains it, and who is naturally a clever writer.
The survey in proper form can be used as a force to arouse interest in
fatigue elimination throughout the entire organization. It must be put in the
most attractive form possible. As an illustration of the possibilities in
making dry material interesting, study the farmers’ bulletins used by the
national government and various State governments, especially the bulletins
of Kansas and Wisconsin.
It is a courageous organization that would consent to making its original
fatigue survey public. However, the survey should certainly be in the hands
of every member of the organization who desires to see it. It will be
recognized that the survey is the starting point for making improvements in
the elimination of unnecessary fatigue. Too little is often done to take the
workers into the confidence of the management. The fatigue survey might
well act as a starting point in this direction; therefore, if not the entire
survey, it is certain the examples worthy to be copied should be freely
circulated. The efficiently, specially-clothed worker, the excellent

arrangement of tools, the best arranged work place,—photographs and
descriptions of these might be posted to excellent advantage.
After all, the real aim of the survey is to be serviceable. It will be most
serviceable when it is used by the greatest number of individuals, and it will
be chiefly serviceable in that it stimulates them to do something definite to
improve conditions. It must suggest what is to be done, and where it is to be
done. As to when the improvements are to be made, there are certain things
that can be done immediately,—as soon as existing conditions are
understood. Our next task is to show what these are, in order that the
stimulated organization may expend its energy for the greatest amount of
permanent good to the greatest number.

Summary.

The fatigue survey is a record of present conditions and practice, that
endeavours to show particularly and in detail where and when fatigue
exists. This record contains a description of all the attending circumstances.
It is to be in such form that it may be easily read and understood. By
studying it, any one interested may learn where fatigue exists, and may
receive suggestions as to how it may be prevented, eliminated, or remedied.

FOOTNOTES:
[3] See “Motion Study,” pages 6 and 7.
[4] D. Van Nostrand Co., 25 Park Place, New York City.

CHAPTER III

PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS FOR REST FOR
OVERCOMING FATIGUE

Provision for Rest.

The first necessity in our fight against fatigue is to eliminate the causes of
unnecessary fatigue. The second is to provide for proper rest to overcome
fatigue, whether necessary or unnecessary.
If the worker goes home too tired each night, the first method of
remedying this condition is to provide rest periods during the working day
—to set aside time in which he may recover his proper and normal working
strength. One method by which this may be sometimes done is by
shortening the working day. This permits the worker to get into better
condition either before work, after work, during a lengthened noon hour, or
during the “second breakfast” and “tea recess” of many European
organizations. The supposed advantage of this plan is that it gives little or
no jolt to the working process. To this we might answer, as circumstances
vary, that it does give a jolt, because speed must be increased in order that
output should be maintained; or we might say that the jolt is really needed.
The disadvantage, in some cases, of shortening the working hours is the
effect upon the entire industry in the vicinity. This is a feature to be
considered, for in the long run maximum prosperity is dependent upon
largest outputs. There can be no doubt that in most cases it is advisable and
profitable to shorten working hours, but how and when this is to be done is
a serious problem. In our own office, our stenographers work every other
Saturday till 1:00 p.m. only, and the alternating Saturday they do not work at
all; that is to say, we give them a holiday of Saturday afternoon and Sunday
every other week, and all Saturday and Sunday the other weeks, besides
their regular two-weeks vacation in summer. We find that we get more and
better work as a result. No plant, operating under the measured type of

management, that we know of, has ever regretted shortening its working
hours. It may be that the working hours formerly existing were so long that
shortening the hours was the only immediate adequate remedy. The danger
in shortening hours is that, if the whole problem is not thoroughly studied,
the worker may not be sure of the same or a larger wage for work which he
is able to do in the shorter time. Fatigue elimination is fundamentally the
duty of the management. The worker cannot afford to pay for the fatigue
elimination, directly or indirectly. Let the short hours be planned for and
assured, but make sure before introducing them that everything is in such
condition that wages can be maintained or raised. This is a matter requiring
study of actual records and not “guess,” “personal opinion,” or “judgment.”
There are other methods of providing for fatigue elimination or recovery,
that do not involve so many elements. Such a method is providing rest
periods during the working day. This is a method that may be used
immediately. To whom are these rest periods to be given, then? Ultimately,
of course, to every member of the organization whose work is of a nature
that requires a fixed rest period. The work should, preferably, be so
arranged that every worker, be he in plant or in management, would achieve
larger outputs by having definite and properly located rest periods. It has
been proved in most work that more output can be achieved by applying
one’s self steadily for short periods, and then resting, than by applying one’s
self less steadily and having no rest periods. This, of course, applies only to
work which in itself provides no rest periods. At the beginning of the
fatigue eliminating campaign, provide rest periods for those who seem to
need them most. There are two, off-hand, quick methods of determining
which workers these are. One is the appearance of the workers at various
times of the day, and at the end of the day. The other is the amount of output
and the rate that output is turned out by the worker during the day and
during the various parts of the day. In some organizations, it has been the
standard practice to take no chances when the worker looks or feels tired.
They provide rest periods immediately, long enough to allow him to recover
and go back to the work with zest. This is, of course, the immediate remedy.
“Provide the rest period first. Discuss its efficiency later.” This first-aid plan
has worked splendidly for a long time among women workers in such
industries as the drygoods trades. The typical welfare work may be
unscientific from the standpoint of those familiar with highly organized
methods, but it has sensed the trouble keenly and quickly, and provided at

least a temporary remedy without delay. “Time to rest when one needs it.”
This is the first slogan of the campaign for eliminating the evils of
overfatigue.

Chairs to Make the Rest Most Effective.

The merchants have again been the pioneers here, in realizing that
reclining chairs or couches furnish the most effective rest. It is not
necessary here to discuss the physiological effects resulting from a change
of blood pressure. It should be noted that even a few minutes in a reclining
position provides such rest as could not be gained in a much longer time if
seated upright in the most comfortable of chairs. If attending conditions
allow of reclining chairs or couches, for at least the exceptional and
emergency cases, these should immediately be provided. It surely does take
real courage for the management of an organization of strong and strenuous
men to install reclining chairs, couches, and high foot-rests for rest periods;
but fame awaits the one in this field, who can make the practice general.
The brain worker of all types has long realized the benefits of the
occasional use of the reclining chair. Flat couches without even the smallest
of pillows are a part of the regular working equipment of some of our
greatest brain workers. It is considered no disgrace, nor is it worthy of note,
if a tired soldier flings himself flat upon the ground to rest. It attracts no
attention for an exhausted worker to go to sleep on a hard wooden bench at
noontime. But to put a couch in some quiet spot, or even a chair with extra-
high, large, flat, arm rests, where the same type of rest might be enjoyed
most effectively, this seems radical, and “might make the men think we had
gone crazy.” It might be objected that the worker should not allow himself
to become so fatigued that this type of rest is necessary. The answer is,—if
rest in this position will overcome what is almost complete exhaustion,
what increases in national efficiency and prosperity may it not cause in
overcoming quickly less violent stages of fatigue?
Next to the couch or reclining chair, in efficiency, is the arm-chair. There
are “arm-chairs,” and chairs with real arms specially fitted to the individual
worker. These will be even more efficient if provided with a foot-rest. We
have actually installed such arm-chairs out in the works with very good
results. We have had many a case where even the workers laughed loudly

when the special, unusual chairs were brought in. They began to use them
more out of friendliness towards us than out of any belief in the special
usefulness of these peculiar chairs. However, at the end of a few days of
actual use, they were able to handle their work in greater quantities and
with less fatigue. “It’s a joke to work like that,” one said. Some of the
workers claimed that they did not need such a chair, but, after it became the
fashion to use it, each one seemed glad enough for the better rest provided.
From this type of chair down to the smallest possible seat, the gradation
is gradual and constant. In certain types of work, like selling in a drygoods
store, the space is sometimes so narrow that the only type of chair
practicable, under present conditions, is the small folding seat that can slip
under the shelves or fold up against them when the girl is serving a
customer. Such also is the type of chair that folds up under or next to a
machine, which the operator is tending, and which can be pulled out during
the periods when the machines need no tending, and the operator is simply
inspecting or waiting for the next tending period. Every one realizes the
advantage, as a resting device, of anything upon which one can occasionally
sit. The two-inch, iron arm of a seat on a railroad train, the tiny seat that
folds into a walking stick or umbrella, that the enthusiast at the races takes
with him,—these are typical examples of seats that seem almost ridiculous,
yet that have an enormous effect upon the amount of fatigue accumulated in
a few hours, or in a day. “A chair to rest in;” this is the second slogan. If a
chair is not procurable, then some sort of a seat, even a packing box with no
back, even a post to lean against, or a rail to lean upon,—anything to shift
the pressure is better than nothing. Far better a seat with no back,
immediately, than the best type of chair in the indefinite future. Get some
sort of seat for the worker to-day, and begin planning for the efficient chair
at the first day possible.
The final word on chairs in this preliminary work is that some sort of a
chair should be provided for every member of the organization. There is a
wide-spread belief that one chair for every two or three or more workers is
sufficient; that “they can change off using it.” The argument was something
like this: “No one needs to sit more than one-third of the time, therefore one
chair to each three workers is enough,” etc. The chief fallacy is the implied
idea that the rest periods of the workers can be so arranged that the chairs
can be in constant use, and that each worker will have a chair at his or her

disposal at the proper time. Now in theory, of course, this is not an
impossible arrangement. It might have to be made if chairs and seats cost
many dollars apiece, and it probably would be done then, if there was a
proper realization of the importance of overcoming fatigue. But when chairs
are as cheap and plentiful as they are now, there is no excuse for thinking of
such a condition. In practice, where there are not enough chairs for every
one, at certain times of the day the chairs are empty, as every one is busy. At
other times, when work is duller, the chairs are all used, and many workers
are trying to rest as best they can, standing. These conditions can be noted
in any drygoods store, in any shop or factory where there is an inadequate
supply of chairs. “A seat for each and every worker whether he needs it or
not;” this is the third slogan.

Betterment Work.

The third division of provision for rest falls under the general heading of
betterment work, or what is popularly called “welfare work.” The term
“betterment work” is used by those who are interested in measured
management instead of “welfare work,” to emphasize a distinction in
thought. Some welfare work implies that it is the gift of the manager to the
workers. Betterment work is the same type of work, done with the distinct
understanding that what is done is for the good and profit of the
organization. It is the due of every member of the organization to have the
best resting condition possible. Making these conditions better is betterment
work. There is no intention to criticize welfare work. Most welfare work is
betterment work. Some workers, however, object to welfare work as
implying “charity.” Therefore, we say betterment work. It is the worker’s
due that he gets. Such work comprises establishing rest rooms, lunch
rooms, entertainments—anything that can make the resting time more
attractive and profitable. It may also imply the service of a betterment
worker or a staff of such workers; or it may be that the organization itself
takes up the work co-operatively, with no outsider to direct it. Doubtless
some such activity already exists. If so, it would be the duty of the fatigue
eliminators to recognize it and encourage it.
The fourth provision for rest is really a part of betterment work. It must
be described at some length. This is the Home Reading Box Movement,

which furnishes a definite means for making rest periods, both at work and
at home, attractive and profitable. Before turning to a description of this, we
may estimate the effect upon the worker of the preliminary work so far
done.

Results.

The results of the preliminary work we have done are as follows:
1. The interest in fatigue becomes more vital. We have aroused
more interest in fatigue elimination, and have made it general. With
the establishment of properly distributed rest periods, chairs, seats,
etc., the recovery process becomes interesting. As he knows how
resting improves his working conditions, the worker becomes more
warmly interested in the fatigue itself. It is a very different thing to
talk about the evils of fatigue, or even to see the advantages of
proper rest exhibited in object lessons, than it is to get proper rest in
a specially designed chair for the first time in one’s working life.
Fatigue, which was an enemy, becomes now not only my enemy, but
our enemy—mine, because I recognize it has affected me; ours,
because we are fighting it together for our best interests, severally
and collectively.
2. The interest in fatigue becomes more intelligent. Many
workers, especially women, feel that it is to be expected that they
will get exceedingly tired by night; that one cannot expect to do so
much late in the day as early in the day; that stopping to rest is
cutting down one’s output, thus cheating one’s self, if one is a piece
rate worker, or cheating the management, if one is a day rate worker.
The worker now comes to realize that he hurts the management and
himself, when he gets too tired. “It is your duty to rest when you
need it;” that is the fourth slogan. It must be remembered also that
the rest periods provide time for clearer and more intelligent
thinking. It is impossible to come to any valid conclusion when one
is working at top speed part of the day, and in a state of exhaustion
the rest of the time. We have now an opportunity to think, and brains
rested enough with which to think.

3. The output increases. Usually, in practice, the output increases
as a result of the fatigue-recovery periods. Increased outputs
encourage both management and worker. They must, however, be
inspected and controlled. Some one with the proper training must be
in charge, that excessive fatigue may not be accumulated, and the
rest periods lose their purpose. With the increase in output must
come added compensation in wages. If this is provided, the fatigue
eliminating campaign will not be regarded as a new scheme for
driving the worker. Better for the good of the management and the
men to limit the output to its usual amount during this period, until
the workers see that too much fatigue to-day interferes with the
standard quantity of output to-morrow, than to attempt to allow
increased output without increased pay. The world can better afford
to lose the extra product, than the management to appear even for a
moment to be trying to overwork the men.
4. The spirit of co-operation grows. The worker realizes
instinctively, if the survey has been properly made, and if this
preliminary work has been properly done, that the aim of fatigue
study is the good of all concerned. There is a psychological element
to this. It might be possible to question the motive of installing
fatigue eliminating devices. There is no question as to the motive in
installing the resting devices and rest periods. The rest periods allow
time for development of the social spirit. “To know all is to
understand all,” a wise Frenchman has said. “I like every one whom
I know,” is the thought of another wise man. “Let’s go at the fatigue
survey all together,” is the fifth slogan. The Home Reading Box
Movement is, perhaps, the channel where this spirit of co-operation
expresses itself most freely.

Summary.

Preliminary provision for rest for overcoming fatigue consists of
establishing rest periods, providing chairs or other devices in which one
may rest, and establishing or encouraging betterment work. These result in
a more vital and intelligent interest in fatigue, and a spirit of co-operation.
This work is embodied in five slogans. These are as follows: “Time to rest

when one needs it;” “A seat to rest in;” “A seat for each and every worker
whether he needs it or not;” “It is your duty to rest when you need it,” and
“Let’s go at the fatigue survey all together.”

CHAPTER IV

THE HOME READING BOX MOVEMENT

What It Is.

The Home Reading Box Movement is a system of placing interesting,
educational, and valuable reading matter at the disposal of the workers in an
industrial organization. It consists of
1. A box in the plant in which the reading matter can be placed
and kept until taken out by the workers.
2. Boxes in the homes of members of the organization or of the
community interested, where reading matter intended for the plant
can be kept until it is collected.
3. A system by which the reading matter gathered in the homes is
taken to the plant reading box, is taken from the plant box to the
homes of the workers, and, in turn, either returned to the plant or
passed on to other homes which would have pleasure or profit from
it.

The Box in the Plant.

The box in the plant is located at a place most convenient for the
workers. Its size depends upon the size of the collections. It should be large
enough to hold two collections of papers, magazines, and books. It should
be located where the workers can get to it without loss of time and with
fewest motions. The best place is usually near the path of exit after the
day’s work. It will simplify the routing of the reading matter, if the box is
put under a window next to the street, so that magazines can be put in by
any one driving or walking by, without coming in and thereby possibly
disturbing the operation of the plant. The box is made a regular part of the
plant equipment by receiving a station number like every other “station” on

the messenger’s route. The first box installed happened to be No. 34. All
boxes since have received this number, and the same number becomes the
home reading box symbol, thus,—“34.”

The Plant as a Source of Supply.

It is invariably a surprise to the management, as well as the workers, to
find how much reading matter for the home reading box is available in the
plant itself.
Every business man receives quantities of catalogs and other business
and technical literature, and sample copies of publications, sent in the effort
to get new subscribers. These are glanced at by the man receiving them, and
then and there usually thrown into the waste-basket. A catalog is the best
literary effort of the concern it represents, and usually contains valuable
instruction. Now if the mail sorter or the purchasing department see no
immediate need of the things in the catalog, it usually finds its way quickly
to the waste-basket. That such catalogs have a decided interest to the users
of the home reading box is shown by the fact that new catalogs are always
taken away to the homes. The average manager has not the time to give
each catalog the attention that it really deserves, but in the majority of cases
there will be one or more men out in the plant who have both the time and
interest to devote to the catalog. These usually discarded catalogs are
sometimes read to see if they will not contain a thought for the “suggestion”
box; the by-product being that the plant is kept up to date, so far as
information contained in new catalogs is concerned. In the same way
sample magazines or papers may come in, which make no particular appeal
to the man to whom they are sent, or a magazine brings a marked article
which is cut out and put on file,—the rest of the magazine being thrown
into the waste-basket.
All of this usually discarded material can be, with profit, sent to the home
reading box. The man in the office, who looks at and discards it, simply
stamps or writes on it “34,” the symbol of the home reading box, or the
number of its station in the inter-office postal system, and puts it in his
“out” basket. On his next trip for distributing papers, the messenger takes
the reading matter marked “34” from the “out” baskets, and deposits it in
“34,” the home reading box.

Another source of supply consists of the newspapers, magazines, or
books bought by the members of the organization as they come to work.
The average man in the management departments buys a paper or magazine
as he comes to work. His daily paper is surely discarded, his magazine is
often discarded, sometimes even a book is thrown aside as completed.
These also go through the “out” basket to the home reading box. A cent or
two a day for a morning paper is little or nothing to some members of the
organization. A cent or two a day is a very important element in some
working men’s budgets. Besides there is an enormous waste, if daily papers
are thrown away after having been read by but one person.

The Home Element.

A home reading box which has no other source of supply than that
mentioned is not to be despised, but many advantages of the movement are
lost, of course, if it is so restricted. It is desirable and customary, therefore,
to interest as large a number of homes as possible in the movement. There
are, first, the homes from which reading matter comes. The first problem is
to arouse interest in such homes. The conversation goes something like this:
“Haven’t you some reading matter that you wish to get rid of, that we
could have for the Home Reading Box Movement?”

Fig. 2
This shows a typical collection of magazines ready to go to the Home
Reading Box at the plant.

Fig. 3
This shows the passing of magazines from the wagon into the plant.
The plant box is placed directly below the window, where, if no one is
inside waiting to take the magazines, they may easily be dropped from
the outside of the plant without disturbing any one in the plant.

“Just what do you want?”
“Well, anything that is interesting, but especially magazines of recent
date, with which you have finished.”

“Oh, but we get hardly any magazines. Let me see. We do take the
Saturday Evening Post, and my wife reads the Home Journal and the
Woman’s Home Companion, and I buy some of the weeklies and some of
the monthlies.”
“And you get trade catalogs and trade papers of various kinds besides?”
“Oh, yes, we get some of those that pertain to our business.”
“Well, what do you do with them all, when you have finished reading
them?”
“Why, we throw the advertising matter into the waste-basket, and the
trade papers we keep with the idea of binding some day, but we never have
bound them. I don’t know exactly what does become of them. I don’t think
we ever really look at the old ones.”
It is this reading matter that we desire to send promptly into some home
reading box. As to the other homes to which the reading matter ultimately
goes, these may be, or may become, or may help others to become, the
same type of home. At present little reading matter can enter, because the
wage earner cannot spare enough from his wages to buy much literature,
and is too tired to go to the library in the evening. There is often the same
desire for reading in this home, though it has not had such a chance to
become trained. The whole family has the same desire to see the pictures,
and the children the same joy in colouring the drawings or cutting them out.
The neighbours will like to borrow anything that is interesting, and the
reader will increase his stock of information and his vocabulary, and form
the habit of reading besides. There are exactly the same possibilities of
developing habits and tastes. All that is lacking is the opportunity.
The one hope for the working man is through education, and the greatest
educational possibilities now, with very few exceptions, go into the waste-
baskets of the nation. For example, consider the pile of Saturday Evening
Posts that come out each week. These would make a pile more than three
miles high each week. Think of the many other magazines and their effect
upon homes that cannot afford to buy them.[5]

Routing the Magazines.

The whole problem is to get the magazines from the home to the plant
promptly and in the easiest way possible. When the first home reading box
was established, we carried the magazines in our arms from our homes to
the plant, where the magazines found their way to the home reading box by
means of the inter-office messenger system. As other people became
interested, there were more magazines than could be conveniently carried,
so we sent an automobile around, now and then, for collecting the
magazines and taking them to the plant. Gradually other people were asked
to co-operate, and regular collections were made monthly by some member
of the organization, who had time and an automobile at his disposal. If the
auto was busy or the weather bad, an express wagon or a truck went the
rounds. The aim, however, was, and is, always to have the collecting a part
of the co-operation plan. It became a common sight in the town where the
movement started to have a college professor take a Saturday afternoon off,
and collect the magazines in his electric coupé, or to have one of the boys
and his chums go out in a touring car, and fill the box at the plant, so that
the men would find a fresh supply Monday morning. In some plants, where
none of the homes in the vicinity has reading matter, it is boxed and sent by
express from friends of the movement at a distance. Some bundles have
come from as far as Bryn Mawr for the Home Reading Boxes in
Providence.
It is a great sight to see the big bundles come in, and to watch the
workers, as they are opened. Every one is allowed to take what he pleases
and as many as he pleases. There have been no restrictions whatever,
because the unhampered privileges have not been abused. He may bring
any back, if he chooses, or he may keep all he takes, or he may pass them
on to his less fortunate friends or neighbours who are not employed in a
plant having a home reading box. He is rather urged to pass them on when
he has finished with them, as we wish to maintain the reading club, or
circulating library, idea. We consider the reading matter as loaned, and to be
passed on in an endless chain. If the worker chooses to consider what he
gets as a gift, that is his privilege. He may break the chain without reproach;
in fact, breaking the chain has been the cause of starting real libraries on a
small scale in many houses.

The Problem of Maintenance.

There are various important features to the maintenance problem. In
order that the supply may remain sufficient, as large a number as possible of
co-operators must be secured, and they must, naturally, be required to do
the least amount of work possible.
In Providence, where the work started, the work was, during this first or
starting period, placed in charge of a young man who devoted considerable
time to putting it on a systematic basis. He divided the city into four
districts, each district representing a telephone exchange district. Routes for
collection were made out, and volunteer collectors assigned to the different
routes. Notices of collections were sent out, and schedules strictly adhered
to. Co-operators were, of course, allowed to keep their magazines in any
place or in any way that they chose, but were urged, when convenient, to
place the collecting home reading box in their respective front halls, near
the front entrance, where, on the day that the collector called, the box could
be emptied by him into the waiting automobile with least possible delay to
him and with the least inconvenience to the household. As the list of
subscribers, or co-operators, has grown, it has been a simple matter to
amplify the routes. The same methods of collection are maintained.
In another plant, each member of the organization is responsible for what
he can collect, and brings it to the plant himself.
At a girls’ college, where there is a branch, the girls collect the magazines
in the dormitory, or ask their parents and friends to express what they have
finished with, and then box the supply at intervals and express it on to the
selected plants. We recommend this method because it is so simple.
At the present time the home branch demands a very small amount of
time for operation. “Make it easy for every one,” might well be the motto of
the home reading box movement. The “out” basket and the inter-office
system furnish the solution for the office force. As for the worker himself,
the placing of the box where it will be most convenient for him has already
been emphasized. Choose a place where the worker can pick the magazines
up on his way out at noon or at night, with room enough around the box to
allow half a dozen people to stop, select, and chat as they turn the
magazines over. One must actually see the workers reading the magazines
noon times, instead of, as formerly, losing consistently at poker to the
foremen, in order to appreciate the full benefits of the home reading box

movement. It may seem surprising to see the workman carrying home two
to four dollars’ worth (in original cost) of magazines each week—reading
suited to every member of the family. But there is really nothing strange
about it. This is what he would always have done had he had the chance.
A second factor in maintenance is keeping the reading matter up to date.
When the movement is first started, the workers will take anything home,
out of interest or curiosity. In districts where there is little reading matter
available outside, they may continue to take home almost anything put into
the box. But with continued reading they become more discriminating. This
is, of course, exactly what is desired. Then the reading matter, to make the
strongest appeal, must be timely. A morning paper is exciting in the
morning, quite readable at noon, not impossible at night. Except as practice
in reading, it has little value the next morning. A May magazine issued in
the middle of April is current literature through May 31st. It becomes a last
month’s magazine on June 1st. Any one enjoys carrying the magazine of the
month about with him. It is a fact that most men, especially those who do
not have many magazines, feel a little peculiar when seen reading an old
magazine of current events in public. They have the consciousness of
conspicuousness that at least distracts the attention. No magazine that has
pictures or stories or articles on travel, or anything that is interesting at any
time, will go without a great circle of readers, but current events must be
current in order to hold the attention thoroughly. The workers will be glad,
in the average plant, to get anything to read, but, if you want to keep them
excited, send the magazine out the moment that you have finished with it at
home, so that it will be this month’s magazine. The strong preference for
this month’s magazine may not be founded upon wisdom, but it is very
human.

How the Conditions Vary.

The home reading box will prove a success in any plant, no matter how
simple the installation and running plan are, but it can only retain its best
results when a careful consideration is given to the conditions that affect the
particular problem. The important feature is, of course, the type of worker
who is to receive the literature. Where the group of workers consists of
foreigners, many of whom read no English, and speak it little, the picture

magazines are the most sought. Where you have a group of highly skilled
mechanics, technical magazines and trade catalogs are highly appreciated.
There is such a great difference in the workers of any one place, that the
rule is to give them anything and everything—from the Outlook to the
Police Gazette, inclusive. If you give them enough to read, they will sooner
or later waste none of their time on anything but the best. The desire for
good reading is almost wholly a matter of education, and the best way to
become educated is to read, read, read. If you are at a distance from
civilization, old magazines will be almost as welcome as new.
You must realize that the problem is different in different cases. What
some people need is general education. Of course, that is what we all need,
but the worker in particular. What others need is specialized teaching. What
still others need is relaxation. All need amusement and entertainment. We
want, of course, to supply what is interesting and profitable, but the final
test is giving the worker the thing that will please him most, that he will
delight to have, that he may increase his vocabulary and learn to read
quickly, for not till then will he acquire the reading appetite and habit. Give
the foreigner who reads with difficulty the pictures with the simple captions
that he can “spell out.” Give the factory girl the woman’s magazine that will
show her how to trim her hats and fix her dress, and that may give her all
sorts of useful home ideas besides. Give the inventive mechanic the
technical and trade magazine that may supply the missing link in his
invention or suggestion. Give the socialistic worker the “Political Economy
Journal,” that will put his ideas in more logical shape. Use discrimination in
your distribution when you can, but, if you cannot, put the box in anyway,
fill it with reading matter, and start something to-day.

The Home Reading Box and Fatigue.

Not only is the influence of the home reading box upon fatigue
important, but the amount of fatigue existing has a strong influence upon
the home reading box. The home reading box plays an important part in
recovery from fatigue. It is a help to the worker during the time that he is
not at work. It is the psychologist’s task to investigate the relation of mental
fatigue to bodily fatigue, and the proper amount of mental stimulus to
prescribe or allow during the periods when the body is resting; but it is

good practice, while waiting the results of the psychologist’s investigation
to be formulated into industrial terms, to encourage the worker to read
whatever he likes.

The By-products of the Home Reading Box Movement.

There are so many important results from the home reading box
movement that it is difficult to decide which are the products and which are
the by-products. Let us call the product the fatigue elimination for which we
planned, and that results when we establish the home reading box
movement. Along with this come the following:
1. The recognition of fatigue elimination as a vital part of
management. This is secured by numbering the box as a station, by
using the “out” baskets as routing channels, by having the
messenger carry the magazines to the box from the baskets as part
of the daily routine.
2. The education of the worker. Quite aside from the fact that the
reading matter interests, amuses, or rests him, the worker is
educated by his reading. It is this side of the movement that has
most interested sociologists and educators. The chief trouble with
the worker to-day is that he needs more and more education. The
average worker has two obstacles. In the first place, he has a limited
vocabulary that retards his speed in reading. In the second place, he
cannot read educational matter fast enough to hold his attention.
Through the reading matter put at his disposal, he does learn more
words,—both how to recognize them and how to use them. He thus
becomes better able to express himself, as well as a more rapid
reader. Of course this implies mental development. The worker who
is better educated to start with also acquires more vocabulary and
more speed. It may be a technical instead of a general vocabulary,
but the development is the same.
3. The stimulation of invention. This takes place through the ideas
obtained from the technical magazines and trade catalogs. We have
noted time and again men who have said, in effect,—“You know I
got this idea from an article I read from the box;” or, “You know I
have had this idea for a long time, but I could not see exactly how to

work it until I saw a picture in a magazine I got out of the Home
Reading Box;” or, again, “I saw a picture the other day that
suggested something that we could use on my machine. I am going
to turn in the suggestion to the Suggestion Box.” The suggestion
box and its use are to be described at length later.
4. The stimulus towards making suggestions for prizes. It is noted
here that the reading not only stimulates the worker making
suggestions, but gives him a chance to put his ideas into more
practical and working shape. Where the Suggestion Box has been
running some time before the Home Reading Box has been put in,
we note the sudden rise in the number of suggestions offered after
the installation of the Home Reading Box.
5. Co-operation with public and travelling libraries and other
educational institutions. A plant library is becoming a regular
institution. It is usually one of the first things introduced by the
welfare or betterment department. The problem is to make the
workers take out the books. In some plants the management also
buys books and starts a circulating library. In others, the public
library sends a loan collection that is changed as often as the plant
desires. Even in districts where there are no public libraries such
books are available, as most of the States have State loan collections
of this type. In a typical New England plant the librarian of the city
was more than willing to co-operate. He asked the plant to supply a
list of books which he should send. His letter was discussed in the
foremen’s meeting, and every member present helped by submitting
a list of books that he had read and enjoyed most in his life. From
these lists a list of fifty books was made up and sent to the librarian,
who pronounced it the best list that he had ever seen. The books
were promptly brought to the plant, and put in a convenient place
where every member of the organization could see the titles and
borrow them. The first book taken out by an Italian labourer was
Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in the original. But the library at the plant
is another story. The influence on the home reading box is to make
the library much more popular and to affect markedly the books in
greatest demand. There is a strong influence also seen upon the
number of workers who attend evening school at the general

evening school or some of the special evening schools in the
vicinity.
6. The influence upon clubs and other organizations. The home
reading box furnishes also topics for discussion in all of the
organization of members of the plant. This influence can be noted in
foremen’s meetings, in organization meetings, and in any formal or
informal gathering of the organization. The influence is seen in the
topics discussed and in the form and style of the discussion. The
worker can speak with authority, if some magazine or catalog
“backs up” his ideas. He can bring new light on the problem, if he
has seen several views presented in the material he has read. He has
a definite suggestion, something to say when he is called upon,
something to volunteer if he is not called upon.
7. The spirit of co-operation. Most important of all the spirit of
co-operation is fostered, co-operation among the workers, co-
operation of worker and management, co-operation between all
interested in the movement as subscribers, as collectors, as readers,
as “passers-on.” As a positive force this spirit of co-operation is
more valuable than anything else.

Fig. 4
The Public Library Branch at the New England Butt Company,
Providence, R. I., for eliminating the necessity, and consequently the
fatigue, of journeying to a regular Public Library.

How to Begin.

Begin by interesting the management force and insuring a supply of
reading matter. Then put up the box in the plant, and tell the men that
whatever goes in it is at their disposal. If you have the right ideas back of it,
the development is inevitable. Your motto must be “Keep the box full.” The
“how” will come to supply the need. The workers will see to keeping the
box empty, if you do your part properly. The important thing is that the
movement be started at once. It is not only an important part in making

more pleasant the time spent in recovering from fatigue, but also an
enormous help in fatigue elimination. It is to this that we must next turn our
attention.

Summary.

The Home Reading Box Movement is a method of putting reading matter
at the disposal of the worker. It collects this reading matter from the homes
of those interested and from the desks of members of the organization who
have finished with it, and places it in a box. The workers take it from this
box to read either during noon rests or at home. The movement not only
helps to overcome fatigue, but has many valuable by-products, and is an
important element in fatigue elimination.

FOOTNOTES:
[5] The publishers are all in favor of the Home Reading Box Movement,
as it creates readers.

CHAPTER V

PRELIMINARY FATIGUE ELIMINATION: WHAT CAN BE
DONE IMMEDIATELY, AT THE VERY BEGINNING

The Lighting Problem.

It is not necessary to have a scientific knowledge of motion study,
physiology, and psychology, or even of hygiene, in order to make
preliminary, anti-fatigue improvements in working conditions of any
industrial organization that has not already had a regular fatigue survey
made. We might profitably begin with lighting, since no fatigue is more
wearing than eye fatigue. We attempt here only to ask a few general
questions about the light. “Is there enough light, so that every one can see
his own work perfectly?” “Is the light properly distributed?” “Is glare
prevented?” Etc. Nearly all factory managers of to-day are careful to
provide enough light for the worker. In their desire to furnish light enough,
many workers often have more light than is really comfortable, and are
forced to adjust their eyes constantly in order to see distinctly. The lighting
to be found in most factories is not properly distributed, and seldom strikes
the work at the least fatiguing angle.
The greatest fatigue from lighting, however, lies in the question of glare
and reflection. One sees examples of this everywhere. It is caused largely
by a misplaced pride in equipment or machinery, and by keeping everything
in a high state of polish. One is often disturbed and inconvenienced in even
the best equipped public libraries by the glare of the electric lights upon the
shiny, varnished, or otherwise highly polished surfaces of the desks.
Oftentimes we see lights carefully placed so that the individual gets light
enough with his light in the right location, while lights in the distance shine
in his eyes. Even when the lights are provided with adjustable shades, it is
almost impossible to place one’s book in such a position that reflected light
will not shine from the page to the eyes. The glare from nickel-plated

machinery, be it a large factory machine or a typewriter, or any other kind
of shop or office equipment, will cause fatigue, if the eye is required to
work constantly in the vicinity; but the source of fatigue is not recognized.
A dull black finished machine may not be as beautiful either to
manufacturer or purchaser as would be a shiny, nickel-plated machine of the
same design, but the main question is, “How much comfort will the
operator take while using the machine?” The kind of finish of such
machinery is usually affected greatly, if not determined wholly, by the
question of salesmanship. Good appearances have always been a large
element in making sales, and it is natural and right that the manufacturer
should like his product to be attractive in appearance, and that the manager
should take pride in the looks of his factory or office. But our entire
standard of what is desirable in “good looks” in a work place has changed.
We look now for efficiency and fatigue elimination rather than for ornament
and glaring polish. We reduced fatigue, annoyance, and distraction on
several pieces of work by having our clients paint nickel and other bright
parts with a coat of dull black paint. For the best results to the eye, the same
finish as that on the inside of a camera is to be recommended.
We are coming to realize more and more that the great test of everything
is suitability, and that the mysterious and tangible thing called “suitability”
simply consists of the measure of predetermined units of desired qualities.
The operating room in the hospital is bare, with plain walls and rounded
corners, with the least opportunity for dust lodgment, because that is most
suitable to the type of work done there. The modern business desk is flat
topped, with no tiny drawers or cubby-holes to collect papers and
miscellaneous odds and ends, because this type of desk conforms best with
present day systems of office management. In the same way all machinery
and office equipment should be without so-called ornament or polish,
because in this way the most work can be done with the least amount of
fatigue. Our whole idea of ornament is changing. Suitability here also is the
standard, and the artists have done noble work in setting an example to the
trades. “Suitability” must become a slogan for every department in the
organization.

Fig. 5
This photograph shows a typical “motion-studied” desk. This desk is
cross-sectioned, so that standards can be made as to the placing of
those things that are constantly required for work. The only drawer
containing any permanent materials is pulled out at the left. It contains
duplicate supplies of our standard forms, so arranged that a man will
not run out of supplies at his desk, as the holder in which the reserve
supply is placed is a notification to the desk supply boy that supplies in
addition to the weekly furnishings are wanted immediately.

Fig. 6
This picture shows a “one-motion” pencil rack. This is one of the many
little devices that we have used to cause every one throughout the plant
to think in terms of elementary and least fatiguing motions. This pencil
rack was devised little by little, suggestions coming from different
employees. For example, one suggestion was that the grooves be
painted different colours, representing the standardized places for the
different coloured pencils. Another suggestion was that a deep
horizontal groove be added, that the fingers might go around the pencil
at the exact place where used when in the position of writing. The slant
of the rack is that slant whereby the pencil will surely slide down by
gravity to the stop at the bottom of the pencil rack, but not slide with
force enough to break even the most delicate point.

Such a device alone saves very little time or fatigue, but it represents
one of many kinds of devices that make for habits that cause less
fatigue.

The new doctrine will interest the selling department, who act as
intermediaries between the manufacturing department and the public who is
to buy the product. It will be a real part of the preliminary work in adjusting
such conditions as lighting to take the sales department and purchasing
department into conference on the subject. Let all interested see that
nothing comes into or goes out of the plant until the question, “What is its
relation to fatigue?” has been considered. We forget sometimes that a thing
may have value not only because it has certain qualities that eliminate
fatigue, but also because it lacks certain qualities that would cause fatigue.
Go, then, through your own plant with the question of glare in your mind.
Examine and inspect every work place, and see what can be done. Not only
for reasons of glare, but for other reasons we recommend that every work
place should be inspected for unnecessary fatigue by having a man,
competent in fatigue study, actually sit and stand in the working position in
each and every work place in the establishment once every three months
during the installation period, and not seldomer than once per year
thereafter. Sometimes it will be found that moving the nearest light or
shading a distant light will be all that is necessary. Sometimes a coating of
dull black paint on some of the working equipment is required; sometimes
the substitution of a dull-finished for a glossy paper. Sometimes dull-
coloured blotting paper can be laid upon the place where the reflected glare
comes. Perhaps a dull finish upon that would not only save the time of your
workers, but also those who are to use the product after it leaves your
hands. The world worked a great many years under the motto, “Give the
public what it wants.” We are beginning to realize to-day that the public
will want just exactly what it is educated to want; also that the public is
easily educated if the arguments that are used are based upon measurement,
and are presented in attractive form. The lighting problem is but a small
element of the problem of eye fatigue. This will, however, be left for later
consideration.

The Heating, Cooling, and Ventilating Problem.

This problem has to do with different aspects of seeing that the worker is
provided with proper air. We are beginning to realize that the air problem is
much more complicated than was formerly thought. Recent investigations

have gone to prove that the temperature of the air is fully as important as
the supply of air, and that humidity is another important element. In this day
no one can feel satisfied with his solution of the air problem who has not
submitted it to an expert, and installed the results of his measured
investigation. In the meantime, safety lies on the side of providing more
fresh air than is necessary. If there is plenty of fresh air, unless the work
itself demands peculiar temperature or humidity conditions, the worker is
fairly safe. The rest periods that are being installed will do much to solve
the air problem, as they furnish an admirable opportunity for giving the
work places a thorough ventilation, if not a complete “airing out.” This is
not in the least to underestimate the importance of proper temperature and
of proper humidity, as will be noted later. All measured records of outputs
should include records of the temperature and the humidity. The
accumulation of this data is daily bringing nearer the time when standards
covering these will be available. In the meantime, give the worker plenty of
fresh air all the time.

Fire Protection.

The average manager to-day realizes fully the necessity for fire
protection. It is not, perhaps, so fully realized that the mere knowledge that
there is adequate fire protection has a considerable effect upon the mental
comfort of many of the workers. Nothing is more fatiguing than worry.
When each worker in the establishment knows that in case of a fire he can
leave the building with speed and perfect safety, he has absolutely no worry
or distraction from the fire standpoint.
Fire protection should include not only seeing that the building and all it
contains are made as fire-proof as possible, and installing all possible
devices for putting out a fire should one start, but also the fire drill. Here the
motto of the Boy Scouts is useful, “Be prepared.” There is nothing so
satisfactory as preparedness. The fire drill is not only a means of handling
the organization during a fire, but it is also a splendid preparation for
meeting an emergency. The great problem that arises in any unexpected
situation is the problem of making a decision. If one can acquire the habit of
making a decision quickly, and can also make habitual certain decisions in
certain situations, the resulting speed and fatigue elimination is remarkable.

Make the response to the fire situation, then, standard. You will be
benefiting your workers not only by teaching them how to act in any fire
anywhere, but also by teaching them how to respond to a signal in a
standard way. These various sets of habits in response to various stimuli
should be formed in the first years of the school life, if not before. They are
being formed at this time to-day to a greater extent than ever before, but
unfortunately the majority of adult workers in the industries have never had
such training as children. It, therefore, becomes the duty of the management
to form such habits as rapidly as possible.

Safety Protection.

Safety protection in its broadest sense covers not only protection from
grave dangers, but from anything that might have a harmful effect upon the
worker’s body or mind. The standard to be set is that everything should be
safe not only when the work is done by experienced adult workers, but even
should it be done by inexperienced, immature or tired workers. We know
how many accidents happen to the inexperienced worker, that would never
happen to the experienced worker. We all know how many children are
hurt, where an older person would see and avoid danger; and we note every
day, more and more clearly, that the exhausted worker is to an enormous
extent more susceptible to accidents than is the rested worker. It is usually
the tired motorman who has the collision. The tired locomotive engineer
passes the stop signal. The exhausted motorist is in the accident. The tired
operator gets his fingers caught in the machine. The overtired sickroom
attendant gives the wrong medicine.
One side of the fatigue elimination question is that fatigue elimination
cuts down accidents. The other side is that cutting out the chance of
accidents eliminates fatigue. Here again the question of worry is an
important element. If one knows that the working conditions are absolutely
safe, he can concentrate his attention upon the work in hand.
It is coming to be understood not only that it is mandatory that working
conditions be made healthful, but also that it is perfectly possible, and, in
most cases, easy to make such conditions healthful.
Look over your conditions, then. Put the proper safety devices on the
machine, the tools, etc. Install the vacuum cleaners that will collect the dust

and lint. Put the goggles or nostril-guard, or other device, on the worker,
that will insure to him clean air and decent working conditions. Make a
scientific attack upon the problem later, but put in a safety device now, even
if you have to change some of it next week. You will gain the immediate
return that will make the investigation pay from every standpoint in the
changed attitude of your workers, if in nothing else. The Museum of Safety
Devices, with its energetic and enthusiastic secretary, will show you what
has been done and what can be done in the line of safety. “Safety First” has
become the slogan of the day. If we make it “Safety First, beginning now,”
we shall have full working directions.

The Work Place.

The working conditions that we have so far discussed have more or less
effect upon all of the workers in a group. We come next to the inspection of
the work place of each individual worker. The first consideration here is
that he have room enough in which to work. There is an enormous amount
of fatigue involved in doing work in an overcrowded work place, yet few
workers or managers realize this. Again, habit is involved here, and the
habit of order demands that the work place be kept in an orderly condition.
Any one who has walked through factories, shops, or any places where
work is going on must have noted the tired appearance of the workers
among what is called “clutter.” The girl selling ribbon, who walks up and
down behind the counter through an accumulation of paper, cardboard
cores, and other odds and ends, has not only the bodily fatigue of pushing
the clutter ahead, or kicking it aside, but also the mental fatigue that comes
from adjusting herself constantly to such conditions. The folder of cloth,
who has barely enough room to move her hands because of the supply of
finished and unfinished materials, is fatigued from the clumsy position,
even though she and no one else realizes this. The office worker, whose
finished and unfinished papers are heaped in confusion before him, expends
not only useless motions in getting at and disposing of what he wishes to
handle, but also mental energy, in constantly adjusting and readjusting
himself to the work. There has been a popular idea that it “looked busy” to
have plenty of work around, that to see work to be done would impress both
managers and workers with the need for applying themselves to the work
more constantly and with considerably more speed. This may be true if the

work is arranged in an orderly fashion, but disorderly work is far more
likely to discourage than to stimulate the worker. As for completed work,
there is no excuse for leaving large quantities of it at the work place one
moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Any encouragement that it
might give the worker could better be given by a record of what he has
done.

The Work-bench or Table.

Few work-benches or tables should be considered as absolutely
satisfactory that do not permit the worker to do his work standing or sitting.
Our ideas as to proper work-benches or tables, and as to the proper placing,
height, etc., of machinery and tools have too often been prescribed to us by
the manufacturers of the articles, who have thought more of what was
convenient to manufacture than of what was least fatiguing to use. Such
manufacturers are not to be blamed in the least for their attitude. They,
naturally, have been guided by what would sell best. They have, as a rule,
shown themselves more than willing to supply any legitimate demand. The
user must demand what will be best for his work. It is no slight, short-time
job to determine the proper height, positioning, and layout of a work-bench,
using this term in a general sense to cover the place of any kind of work
upon which the worker is engaged. As preliminary work, we may, usually,
then, boost everything that can be so lifted to such a height that the worker,
at his option, may stand or sit. If it becomes a case of single choice, that is,
his either standing or sitting, arrange the work so that he does it sitting, and
does the necessary standing or moving about during his rest periods.

Fig. 7
This picture shows the “Gilbreth” table laid down in its lower position.
This table is particularly adapted for a work-bench or table where it is
desired to have two different heights for different kinds of work. The
table and its load can be picked up with a booster truck in either this
position or the higher position simply by operating the lever of the
booster truck and without touching the table at all.

Fig. 8
This picture shows the “Gilbreth” table standing in its higher position.

Fig. 9
This is a sample of photographs that are taken to impress upon the
foreman the reasons why certain methods are wrong. For example, this
picture shows two “Gilbreth” tables resting on their long side at their
low height, so fixed that they can be picked up by “booster” trucks. The
in-and-out bins are not the same size. The outward one is considerably
too high to be convenient for the worker, and the worker is provided
with a box instead of a comfortable stool.

The change in industrial conditions has made this problem important.
The question once was, “Can we make it of a quality that will pass?” Since
the day of intensive outputs, the question has become, “How many can we
make of a given quality?” In the first case, any kind of work-bench was
good enough,—the worry being limited to the question of “Can we make
it?” Now it is no trouble to make almost anything; but the worry is “Can we
make enough so that the cost will enable us to pay the required wages and

still compete, or must we give up manufacturing in this location?” This
makes us think of the least fatiguing conditions and of making work-
benches of two levels, etc.

The Chair or Other Fatigue-Eliminating Device.

Closely related with the work place is the work chair. It is distinct from
the rest chair in that it is specially devised to be used during work periods.
The ideal work chair is of such a height that the worker’s elbows will bear
the same relation to the work place when he is sitting as they would if the
work place were properly adjusted for him to do standing work. Types of
chairs that have been designed and that are proving effective in eliminating
fatigue while at work will be described more at length in the next chapter.
The important point to be considered here is to adjust the work to the
worker if possible. Where this is not possible, immediately, adjust the
worker as best you can to the work. Make the relation of his elbows to the
work the deciding point. If at present the work must be done standing, and
the worker is too small, and it is easier to raise the worker than lower the
work-bench or table, provide some sort of a stand or platform that will put
him at the proper level. If he is large, raise the work-bench by lengthening
the legs, or adding a false top, or, in some rare cases, by lowering the
standing place. If the work is seated work, adjusting the chair will probably
be the simplest change to make. Arm rests often afford an immediate and
immense relief, but must fit the particular arm and be adjustable for best
results. A head-rest may also be a valuable first aid, though often a later
improvement in working methods will eliminate so much eye and head
fatigue that the head-rest will not be needed. In other types of work, the
foot-rest will often do the most immediate good. If every manager were
made to sit for a certain number of hours to-day with his feet hanging, there
would be an enormous increase in the number of foot rests in our industrial
plants to-morrow morning.

Fig. 10
Very few people realize that the working girl should be measured for
her working chair in which she spends one-half of the time that she is
awake during her entire working life. For this purpose we have had
testing chairs of varying heights made for the girls to sit in, and then
have made a chair for each girl, particularly adapted to her and her
work. The correct height of chair is determined much quicker and fits
much more accurately than does an adjustable chair.

Fig. 11
This picture shows a worker seated at standing height operating a drill
press. The pieces arrive in his inward box by means of a small belt
conveyor that transports finished pieces from the machine that
performs the previous operation.

Placing the Material Worked On.

In cases where it is difficult to readjust the work place, much fatigue may
often be eliminated by placing the work in a better position. In fact this

aspect of the problem should always be considered along with the
readjustment of the work itself. For example, in folding handkerchiefs, a
folder may be seated at a table, folding directly on the table. The table may
be too low for the work. If she is given a board upon which to fold, this may
not only put her work itself at the proper height, but it is also possible, with
trifling added expense, to provide her with a table in two adjoining sections
at two different heights, and a sloping board that will make the work less
fatiguing, as she can maintain a much better posture. She will also be
enabled to put the finished product at a lower level. This will increase
speed, while at the same time eliminating fatigue, which is, of course, an
ideal condition.
In considering the placing of materials, we must consider also the manner
in which the materials come to the worker and in which they leave him. Our
later method study will make so many changes here that only very apparent,
necessary, and inexpensive improvements should be made at this stage. Be
sure, however, that you are using gravity wherever it can be used to
advantage. Often we have found a small belt conveyor to be helpful in
cutting down the hand transportation.

The Placing of Tools and Devices.

Gravity and mechanical means can be of use here, especially in carrying
working equipment back to the place where it remains when not in use.
Many preliminary improvements can also be made by standardizing the
place where the tool is to be left when not in use. There is not only the
bodily fatigue of bringing the tool from a more distant place than is
necessary, there is also the unconscious fatigue of constantly deciding such
unimportant questions as where it is to be placed.

The Clothing of the Worker.

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. As yet we have had but few
designs submitted in answer to our appeal to the worker to study the clothes

problem for himself or herself. We are making the same appeal to the
management to suggest costumes for the approval of the worker.
In order that there may be no duplication, that we may pass on good
ideas, we have started a little museum where typical fatigue-eliminating
devices of all sorts may be gathered, and studied by any one interested. We
must next describe in some detail what is and what is not as yet there, in
order to offer definite suggestions for preliminary fatigue-eliminating
designs that can be used from the first day of making changes.

Summary.

Preliminary fatigue elimination consists of improving lighting, heating,
ventilation, fire and safety protection. It also consists of improving work
places and work tables, of providing and improving chairs, and rearranging
materials and tools, and studying the clothing of the worker. It aims to make
immediate inexpensive changes before entering into an intensive study of
the problem.

CHAPTER VI

THE FATIGUE MUSEUM: AN OBJECT LESSON

What a Fatigue Museum Is.

A fatigue museum is a collection of devices for and information
concerning the elimination of fatigue, or for affording rest for overcoming
fatigue. Its purpose is to serve as an object lesson as to how the fatigue
problem may be approached practically. It aims primarily not to show
beautiful exhibits, but to show devices which have actually done service.
Many of these bear the marks of clumsy workmanship and hurried and
cheap construction. This is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. It
shows that fatigue elimination does not demand a large expenditure of
money, nor depend upon having at the beck and call highly skilled
mechanics to make the devices. Some of the exhibits have the excellent
finish and the careful workmanship of the perfect product; but no chair or
piece of equipment, photograph, or drawing is too rough or too unfinished
to find a place in the museum, if it contains an idea that actually may be
utilized to eliminate or overcome fatigue.

The Parent Fatigue Museum.

The parent fatigue museum is in Providence, Rhode Island, and was
started by us some years ago with five devices,—three chairs and two
devices for conveying material. It has grown very slowly, and even now
comprises but a dozen devices and a few score of photographs. It is open
every day of the year, free for inspection by visitors. Most of the devices
submitted and exhibited have not been patented. The Fatigue Museum
patents no devices, has no commercial interest at all in the devices
exhibited, but it accepts fatigue eliminating exhibits of any kind from
inventors or managers, and posts, along with the exhibit and the description
of its special features, the name of the inventor and his address; this, that

any one interested may get in touch with the maker of any devices already
in existence. Realizing that few find it possible to visit the museum, we
have taken photographs of the various exhibits, and are glad to send these
with descriptions to any who are interested, and who write to ask for them.
We find that the interest in the museum grows. Branch museums are
springing up in different parts of the country. Every man at the second
session of our Summer School of Measured Functional Management, which
consisted of professors of psychology, engineering, and economics,
volunteered to open a branch at his college. We are glad to have others who
are interested, no matter what their field of activity, start branches also. All
that is necessary to open a branch is to collect photographs, drawings, or
actual examples of fatigue eliminating devices. Some of the college fatigue
museums have consisted, until now, simply of such collections, though one
college in particular has appropriated one hundred dollars, and is providing
space for the exhibition of working models.
The parent museum is called Museum of Devices for Eliminating
Unnecessary Fatigue, Number One, and the branch museums are numbered
chronologically. There is no reason why such museums should not be
started in every factory, as well as in every college, and we are delighted to
co-operate with any one who desires to start such a museum.

What the Fatigue Museum Contains.

The fatigue museum contains, at the present time, types of chairs, types
of devices which hold working material in a convenient position, several
assembly devices, several transportation devices, a work apron, and various
drawings and photographs. It emphasizes, particularly, the chairs, as we feel
that these are needed immediately and pressingly in all industries. A
detailed description of the chairs will, perhaps, prove of most interest.

What the Museum Does Not Contain.

The museum contains, as yet, few exhibits, though we are expecting
more in the near future. We are constantly impressed with the fact that it
contains so few exhibits; this, in spite of the fact that we have sent out
appeals since 1913, that have reached large numbers of people.

A short time ago we realized that the average manufacturer had never
thought of his work in terms of fatigue. We could, therefore, expect no
fatigue eliminating devices, as he either had none to offer, or as he did not
realize what he had. Again and again, a manager will say, in effect, “I am
much interested in your museum, and should like to send you something,
but we have never given much thought to the subject of fatigue elimination,
and therefore, unfortunately, we have nothing that we can send.” In many
such cases, if we go through the plant, or the factory, or the store, we find
fatigue eliminating devices, and immediately say, “There, that is just what
we want.” Whereupon the manager replies, “Oh, that. Sure enough it does
eliminate fatigue. I had never thought of it in that light. We have always had
that.” Within the next few days we add a specimen to our collection.
We have, perhaps, not sufficiently emphasized the fact that eliminating
fatigue means not only that we know the things that we lack, but also that
we appreciate and fully utilize the things that we have. It is good practice to
use what is on hand before laying in new devices. There is waiting space,
then, in the museum for any sort of device, old or new, well-known or not
known at all, that does, or will, or may eliminate or overcome fatigue.
There is an especially warm welcome awaiting any such type of stool or
chair. The older and more worn it is the better, if it is still in working
condition. There is a chance to be a pioneer by exhibiting clothing that is
artistic, inexpensive, and appropriate for doing any type of work with less
fatigue.

Types of Chairs and Their Uses.

We are fortunate in that, of the nine chairs exhibited, each represents
quite a different type. This illustrates the large field for chairs.
Chair No. 1 is designed for work to be done standing or sitting. This is
the ideal fatigue eliminating chair, as it allows of the most scientific
distribution of work and rest periods, and for the greatest variation in
working periods. The work for which this chair was devised was the folding
of handkerchiefs, work that had always been done sitting. This chair is the
result of accurate measurement, and is of exactly that height that will permit
the girl’s elbows to be at the same distance from the work table when she is
seated as when she is standing. The back of the chair, like the backs of all

chairs designed for eliminating fatigue while working, is designed for work
and not for rest. The chair is provided with dome casters, which allow of its
being pushed away, or drawn back into position with the least amount of
time and effort possible. The worker on this chair has a foot-rest which is a
part of the working table.

Fig. 12
This chair is of type one, devised for doing work that has always been
considered sitting work, either standing or sitting. In this case an
ordinary chair has been boosted so that a worker can sit at a work-
bench made exactly the right height for standing work. The chair is
provided with ball-bearing casters, so that it can be pushed out of the
way or pulled into position with little effort. This device helped make it
possible to divide each hour into work periods and rest periods; and at
the same time into standing and sitting periods,—thus not only
eliminating unnecessary fatigue, but providing an efficient means for
recovery from necessary fatigue.

Fig. 13
This chair is of type two, devised for doing work that has always been
considered standing work, either standing or sitting. By its use, heavy
filing can be done with greater ease and with the same speed and
efficiency. The chair is inexpensive and easy to construct, and is of such
a height as best suits the individual worker.

Fig. 14
Another view of the chair as shown in Fig. 13. The projecting foot-rest

on this chair enables a man to push the file as efficiently and more
comfortably seated than standing.

Chair No. 2 is devised in order that a kind of work which has always
been done standing may be done sitting. The work is heavy filing done at a
vise, and the chair is provided with a projecting foot-rest. The work-bench
is of such a height that the man may work either standing or sitting. In
actual practice the filer works half of the time sitting, and half of the time
standing.
Chair No. 3 is designed to eliminate vibration of floors that carry much
high-speed machinery. An ordinary chair is provided with springs, that
relieve the operator of one hundred per cent. of the vibration of the floor.
This chair was designed for work at a machine, and the operator is provided
with a foot-rest, which rests on felt to kill the vibration. Note also the
verandas on two sides of the chair for foot-rests.
The fourth type of chair is also a shock absorbing chair, which is more
complicated in its construction.
The fifth type of chair is designed for school work, and has a rest for the
right arm that may be lowered or put in place.
The sixth type of chair is a modification of a chair already in use. A chair
which was once, perhaps, fairly comfortable has become worn off from
years of use. This is rectified by boring holes in four small blocks of wood,
and fitting them to the legs of the chair, which brings the chair back to its
originally desired height. A well-known Middle West manufacturer used
iron piping for the same purpose as the four blocks of wood. This is, in
some cases, easier to secure, although not so good for the shop flooring.
A seventh type of chair is an adjustable, telescopic stool, which the
inventor claims is adaptable to both factory and office work. This is
admirable in that it allows of the chair being adapted to some degree to its
user at the expenditure of little time or money.

Fig. 15
A worker using the filer’s chair, shown in figures 13 and 14.

Fig. 16
This chair is of type three, designed to eliminate fatigue from
surrounding conditions. An ordinary chair, which was fairly useful and
comfortable, was provided with springs that relieved the operator of
100 per cent. of the vibration of the floor. It is to be noted that the
device attached to the chair is extremely simple and inexpensive, while
at the same time it solves a problem that has always been rated as most
difficult.

The eighth type of chair is devised for rest periods. We have two
examples of this. One is a small folding stool contributed by a local
drygoods merchant, much interested in fatigue elimination, who, as a result
of our fatigue eliminating campaign, has installed many of these stools in
his large store. The other is a more complicated chair with adjustable seat
and back. This is designed not only for causing least possible fatigue, but
also in the interests of correct posture of the user.
Four of the chairs show particularly what can be done with little
expenditure of time or money. Only the filing chair is a “new” chair, in the
sense of the entire chair having been made especially with the idea of

fatigue elimination. The other three chairs consist of chairs already in use,
supplied with cheap adjustments, made of material already at hand. These
may impress the reader as extremely inartistic. This they undoubtedly are,
but these are chairs of the transitional period, made to better working
conditions immediately, and to be used until standard methods are
introduced, and new standard fatigue eliminating devices substituted. It
must also be noted that three out of the four chairs are provided with what
are practically footstools, although only one is shown in the picture, as only
one is attached to the chair itself. The fourth chair allows of the feet being
placed comfortably on the floor.

Other Fatigue Eliminating Devices.

The other fatigue eliminating devices exhibited are useful more as
suggestions than as object lessons. There are various types of packets upon
which materials are so placed as to be most handy to the worker. These
packets are filled by unskilled, that is to say, young, or inexperienced,
learning or unskilled workers in such a way that the material can be
removed from the packet by the high-priced man with the least amount of
effort possible. Filling the assembly packet is an excellent training to the
unskilled worker, as will be shown later. One of these packets is contributed
by a local manufacturer of cotton cloth.
The other devices for holding materials in position consist of two devices
for holding motion picture films in position so that they may be studied
with the least amount of effort possible.

Fig. 17
These chairs are of type four, devised to relieve fatigue caused by
vibration. Besides the chairs, foot-rests were devised to hold the feet
without any vibration from the floor; and, also, special treadles.

Fig. 18
This chair is of type six, which modifies a device already in use, so that
it will become a more efficient device for eliminating fatigue. The chair
shown was, ordinarily, fairly comfortable, but the legs had become
worn with time. It has, as shown, been raised to that height which is
most comfortable for the worker. The work-bench, in this case, could
not be raised so that the work could be done either standing or sitting.
The problem was to have the sitting work done with the least
unnecessary fatigue possible.

The transportation devices illustrate the principle of gravity, and also the
principle of constant and careful adjustment of the transportation to the
worker.

How to Use the Devices.

The devices of the fatigue museum are useful rather as suggesting
devices than as object lessons. If your problem is to enable seated work to
be done standing, raise your work-bench to the standing level, and put your
work chair on stilts with casters, provided the work is not of a kind that
requires a chair against which one can push. If your problem is to enable
work that has been done standing to be done sitting, construct a chair that
will bring the worker to the desired height. If your problem is to reduce
vibration, put springs under the four legs of your chair. If your problem is
simply to make sitting work more comfortable, be sure that the chair is of
the proper height; that the seat slopes right and has a rounded front edge;
and that, if it has a back, it is one that does not interfere with work. If the
chair is too high, saw off the legs; if too low, add wooden blocks. Chairs of
this type, as actually used by the workers, will usually offer suggestions as
to what needs to be done.
In many factories one is astounded to find books, cardboard, cloth,
blocks of wood, almost anything heaped in the seat of a chair to make the
chair higher. Wherever workers are seated at a work-bench that is not
adjustable, look for trouble with the chairs; that is, a tall girl crouching in a
kindergarten chair fit only for a child or a dwarf, a short girl balanced on a
high stool at a high table, without a proper place to rest the feet. No matter
what the height of the table or the chairs, if many workers are seated at the
same table, and the chairs are not adjustable, there is field for study. If
workers vary much as to height, they should be sorted for height, and sent
to tables with adjustable height legs; or, if workers cannot be sorted, the
short ones should be provided with platforms to bring their elbows to the
right height to fit the table, which should be adjusted to fit the tall workers.
If your problem is to make standing work more comfortable, and a chair
seems impracticable with the methods used, perhaps a chair or some kind of
seat could be provided for rest periods.

Starting Your Own Fatigue Museum.

We advise every employer to set aside a small space and assemble at
least one example of each type of fatigue eliminating device actually in use,
or that may suggest a device to be used. In the absence of a regular motion
study man assigned for the purpose, the ideal state of affairs would be to
have every member of the management walk through the factory once and
look at present fatigue conditions in order to see what improvements could
be made. This, however, is almost too Utopian to hope for.
It is the exception where the worker in any large plant knows intimately
any part of the plant except the few little work places where he has toiled. A
girl who had worked for years in a cotton mill, and who finally went into
household work, begged to be taken on a visit of inspection to the factory.
“But,” said the woman who was to make the inspection, “I thought you
worked there. Surely, you must know about the factory.” “No, indeed,” said
the girl, “I never went anywhere except to get into the room where the
machine was that I tended.” Even in one excellently managed plant where
welfare, or betterment, is a prime consideration, a girl in the office
department had never once been out into the plant itself. There is an
enormous amount of educational work, that is also fatigue eliminating
work, to be done in putting each member of the organization in touch with
the entire working plant. There is not time or space, however, for an
extended discussion of this problem here.
Therefore, until the workers can be taken to see the fatigue eliminating
devices in actual operation, collect such devices, or photographs of them,
and put them all in one place. Start a little fatigue museum of your own,
even if it is limited to a properly labelled scrap-book of pictures always
ready for inspection, and observe the effect upon management, workers,
and invention in general. This effect will be reflected in the suggestion box,
which in itself provides a unit of measurement of the progress of the fatigue
eliminating campaign. When fatigue elimination has progressed to this
stage, when actual devices are being installed, when the entire organization
has come, as it will, to think in terms of fatigue elimination, the problem
may be attacked scientifically. This, the scientific elimination of
unnecessary fatigue, is the subject for discussion in the next chapters.

Summary.

A fatigue museum is a collection of devices for eliminating or
overcoming fatigue. The parent museum in Providence aims to exhibit such
devices as object lessons, and to encourage the spread of fatigue study by
sending photographs with descriptions to all who are interested enough to
start museums or even a scrap-book for pictures of devices for the
elimination of unnecessary fatigue in the industries. Our fatigue museum
specializes on chairs, but welcomes devices of any kind. It advocates the
establishment of similar museums in colleges, or other institutions, and also
in industrial plants and work places of all kinds.

CHAPTER VII

FATIGUE MEASUREMENT AND FATIGUE
ELIMINATION: HOW TO ATTACK THE PROBLEM
SCIENTIFICALLY

History of Fatigue Measurement.

Accurate fatigue measurement is in its infancy as applied to the
industries. Such measurement can take place only where there is complete
co-operation between the man measured and the man making the
measurements. With the co-operation, that is the natural result of measured
functional management, comes the possibility of making accurate
measurements of fatigue under either laboratory or shop conditions. It is as
easy to pretend to be tired as to pretend to be working. There is little or no
profit in measuring pretended states. Under the scientific form of
management there is no incentive to pretend anything. The incentive is,
rather, to show exactly what one is doing and how one feels, in order that
accurate records may be made, and that the offered rewards may be
received. We have, then, at this stage, where every member of the
organization realizes that co-operation is necessary for the good of all, the
opportunity to measure fatigue with considerable accuracy.
We have also the means. The psychologists and physiologists who have
measured fatigue rely almost solely upon output as the unit of
measurement. Decrease in output in a comparable unit of time, and all other
working conditions remaining the same, is taken as indicative of being the
result of fatigue. The observed man who is measured may add
introspections, he may tell how he feels while working and at the close of
work; but this testimony of his, while interesting and worthy to be recorded
with the other data, cannot be submitted to the accurate measurement of the
observer. In applying fatigue measurement to the industries in the same way
that we measure activity and what it produces, we try to discover at the

same time the condition of the worker by his own accounts as to how he
feels. We have not only conditions under which scientific observations can
be made and a method of making them, we have also devices for measuring
both activity and output and relative rate of output.

Fatigue, a Test of Efficient Activity.

As for the relation between fatigue and activity, practically all of our
knowledge of fatigue is derived from our knowledge of the activity that
produces it. We measure the activity itself, and its product. We then
measure the interval of time that elapses before the organism has gained
enough activity to perform the same work in the same amount of time and
with the same results. A study such as this cannot extend over a short space
of time only. It must be carried on until any fatigue that is accumulated
shows itself; but it is simply a question of extending the time over which
the experiment stretches, and of varying the length of rest periods until the
desired information is recorded in the data. As we come to compare various
activities and their results, we find that the fatigue is a measurement of the
efficiency of the activity. If two methods of doing the same piece of work
take the same amount of time and produce the same amount of output, and
if the interval needed to recover from the second is longer than that needed
to recover from the first, then, other conditions being equal, the first method
is the more efficient. A close study of the variables that affect the two
methods will be necessary to show exactly why the first method is more
efficient than the second, but the excess fatigue certainly shows that it is
more efficient.
Fatigue can, then, be looked at in two ways:
1. As a product of doing work.
2. As a test of efficiency in doing work.
The amount of work done and the product are affected by various
elements which affect the activity.

The Activity.

The activity is affected by the amount of practice that one has had. It is
affected by the extent to which the action has become a habit. It is affected
by the degree with which one has got into the swing of the work. This may
be an individual difference. Some workers find it possible to start at work at
very much the pace that they will use when they are well into it. A large
number of our records shows that most workers never get into the swing at
the beginning of a work period. Not only the hour of the workday, but the
time in the work period will have a strong effect upon the amount of work
turned out. Again we have the question of spurt, when for some reason or
other the activity is being performed at a pace that is above the normal pace.
The effect of all these elements of the activity upon the fatigue itself
depends upon the relation between mental fatigue and bodily fatigue. This
relationship must be worked out by psychologists and physiologists. It is for
the observer who measures fatigue in the industries to attempt to discover,
as far as he can, what fatigue exists, and why it exists, and then to make
both physical and mental conditions under which the activity is carried on
as favorable to efficient activity as possible.

Motion Study, Micromotion Study, the Cyclegraph, and the
Chronocyclegraph Method as Measurers of Activity.

We measure activity in two ways:
1. By motion study, which records in great detail the methods
used in doing the work.
2. By records of outputs when using the various methods.

Fig. 19
This picture shows the examination of the original micromotion films at
the motion study laboratory of the New England Butt Company.

Motion study consists of dividing the activity into the smallest units
possible, measuring the variables of these units, studying the data, and
deducing methods by which the activity may express itself more efficiently.
Motion study, whatever its type, implies time study, in that the time the
motion occupies is one test of the efficiency of the motion.
Micromotion study is the name we have given to our method of
recording motions and their surrounding conditions by means of a
cinematograph and one of our special clocks which registers extremely
small intervals of time, smaller than the elapsed time between any two

pictures of the cinematograph film. The micromotion method enables us to
record easily motions down to less than a ten-thousandth of a minute. This
gives us all the information we could desire for purposes of time study, and
the record is absolutely free from the errors in time due to the personal
element. Although many of the various elements, or units, that comprise the
path of a complete motion, or cycle of activity, appear on different pictures
in the film, it is difficult to visualize or measure the orbit or exact path of
the motions by means of the film.
The cyclegraph method permits us to record, measure, and see this orbit
or exact path of a motion or cycle of motions. Small electric lights are
attached to the hands, or any other members of the body involved in the
motion. A photographic plate or film is then exposed while the motion is
made, with the result that a path of light, which resembles a white wire, is
seen upon the developed plate, representing the path of the motion. The
effect is best gained by a stereoscopic photograph, which shows this path in
three dimensions.
The chronocyclegraph method enables us not only to see the path of the
motion, but also its directions, and the duration of the entire motion and of
its elements. These chronocyclegraphs are made by attaching lights to the
moving parts of the body, or machine, as in the cyclegraph, and by
introducing a properly timed, pulsating interrupter in the circuit, which may
be adjusted not only to record the time and duration, but also to record these
with different graphs, representing the paths of each of several motions
made by various parts of the body and their exact distances, exact times,
relative times, exact speeds, relative speeds, and directions.

Fig. 20
This picture shows a lamp attached to the hand for the purpose of
taking cyclegraphs or chronocyclegraphs of motions in connection with
obtaining motions of least fatigue.

Fig. 21
This picture shows an experiment that was carried on by us some time
ago for determining the laws pertaining to the times and fatigue of
motions of different lengths.
The operation studied is that of moving a seven pound weight. The
times are divided into three parts: Length of time from starting to
picking up weight; length of time from picking up weight to depositing;
and length of time of recovery to standing position from depositing.

The experiment proved that the time of motions of different lengths is
practically the same unless those of the same length are consecutively
repeated. The quantity of work that can be done in a day is, of course,
much less with long motions than with short ones, due to extra time
needed to overcome the fatigue of the long motions.

By means of the “penetrating screen,” it is possible to pass a cross-
sectioned plane in any direction through any desired plane, or through any
number of planes in the cubic space under observation. This makes it
possible to record the data with great accuracy in three dimensions, and to
read the information from the data easily.
These various types of motion study supplement rather than supplant one
another. Motion study is primarily for the purpose of observing the
variables that affect such study, and for arousing such co-operation between
observed and observer, as will make possible the testing of the differences
of the effects of the variables. Micromotion study provides for an accurate
record of what happened, with all such attending circumstances as appeal to
the eye. It is the greatest aid in transference of skill and experience from a
worker who has it to one who does not possess such skill and experience.
The cyclegraph is useful in providing a simple, easily understood record of
the path that any activity followed. The chronocyclegraph is most valuable
when the activity is complicated, and when the time and direction of the
elements of the motion must be visualized continuously in order to analyze,
measure, synthesize, and standardize the process. The penetrating screen,
finally, is useful in recording the three dimensional paths and speeds of
even the smallest unit of activity.
These methods of applying motion study have been patented, but have
been for years freely at the disposal of the colleges, which have begun to
use them as means for recording accurately scientific data of various kinds.
They have justified themselves as more accurate than ordinary records of
activity, and have within recent times been put on a basis which makes their
cost compare favourably with less accurate methods of measurement. What
is more, we have discovered in our data, especially in the
chronocyclegraphs, direct records of fatigue, that we believe are the first
records of fatigue ever made under industrial conditions. The micromotion

films also show breaks in well established habits of several motions that are
undoubtedly due to fatigue, but the irregularities in the orbit line, that
appear in the cyclegraphs, and that must, because of close control of the
variables, be due to the fatigue alone, are more impressive from the
physiological viewpoint.

Fig. 22
Typical chronocyclegraph of the motion and fatigue study of a
bricklayer, laying three bricks in the old method.

Fig. 23
Typical cyclegraph of motion and fatigue study on a drill press,

showing cyclegraph of path of motions of the left hand.

Fig. 24
Typical chronocyclegraph of compositor setting type by hand.

Testing the Work by Motions Required.

It is for motion study to explain the methods of deducing standard
methods by using activity records obtained through the various types of
motion study data. Many such standards have been derived. We have in our
motion study data many elementary motions with records of the space they
cover and the amount of time they require. With these we can test the given
work to see which of these motions it includes. Having tabulated this, we
can make an intensive study of the motions that remain. When this study
has been made, we can combine the resulting elementary motions that have

proven themselves most efficient into the working method, and classify the
work as work of a type requiring a certain set combination of motions.

Testing Workers by Motion Capabilities.

In the same way we may test a worker by motion learning capabilities,
before assigning him to any kind of work. Having reduced activities to their
motions, we can test the worker’s physical capability; his mental capability
we can test by determining his learning curve. To these results we add a
record of his interest in various types of work. From the resulting three
types of records, we can make placements that, we believe, are far in
advance of any that have been made up to the present time.

The Use of Activity Records as Data for Eliminating Fatigue.

The fact that activity records are made of extremely small elements
moving through a short path in a small amount of time means that the
fatigue records cover the same short periods. This is a great help in making
fatigue study. A new combination of elements of activity will also mean a
combination of concurrent, or included, elements of fatigue. The
combination may have some effect on the activity. If so, it will also affect
the fatigue, but at the present state of the art the most accurate and
satisfying work can be done by making use of activity records to eliminate
unnecessary fatigue, without waiting for some hypothetical, direct records
of fatigue, that may be worked out in the future. In other words, if you have
accurate records of fatigue included in your activity records, use these
immediately, without attempting to make separate records of the fatigue,
that, while valuable, will mean delaying fatigue elimination, perhaps
indefinitely.

The Time Element.

Too much credit can never be given to Dr. Taylor for his emphasis on the
laws of the time element. He was the first to call to our attention the fact
that operations should be divided into the smallest possible, timable units
for setting tasks. In this way it is possible for timed elements to be used in
many combinations, thus eliminating an enormous amount of unnecessary

work. Dr. Taylor also recommended that work periods should be timed
separately from the rest periods. Our new measuring devices for time study
make it possible to record much shorter intervals of time than were
heretofore known, and now the limiting factor in the problem is no longer
the quickness with which we can use a stop-watch.
Our methods and devices have been criticised as being specially adapted
to problems involving the minutia of motions, but too expensive for the
general time study purposes. A moment’s consideration will show that the
turning of the crank of the cinematograph may be done as slowly as the
requirements of the particular case of time study demand. In fact we have
films that were taken at the rate of one picture every ten minutes. With the
sixteen pictures to the foot, a foot will last one hundred and sixty minutes,
or two hours and forty minutes, at a total maximum cost of six cents. If
desired, the speed of the crank can be instantly changed to any desired
speed to enable one to take pictures too quickly to be seen with the eye, and
more accurately than the highest-priced time study man can take by means
of a stop-watch.
Our methods, devices, and records of activity and of output fulfil every
requirement, and are now perfectly satisfactory. Fatigue still remains the
elusive factor. Nothing but long-continued observation, absolute accuracy
and co-operation between all interested will reduce fatigue study to the
science which motion study has become.

The Standardization of Work and Rest.

Meantime, in standardizing work and rest periods, it is customary and
proper to make a larger allowance for fatigue than the records show to be
necessary. We cite as an example a case of folding handkerchiefs. The old
method of folding was to have the workers seated at low tables in chairs of
ordinary height, working throughout the entire day, with the only rest
periods an hour at noon and such ceasing from folding as took place when
the workers went for supplies, or took back finished product to be checked,
or other rest periods that they took at will, as the work was piece work.
After an intensive study of the problem, made not only to increase their
output but to better their working conditions and allow them to earn more

money with less fatigue, the following schedule of work and rest periods
was adopted.
Each hour was divided into ten periods. The work was placed on a work
table of the proper height. The handkerchiefs already folded, those being
folded, and those to be folded were arranged in the most convenient and
efficient manner. All variables of the work had been studied, and the results
of the study standardized. The first four periods, that is, the first twenty-four
minutes, the girl remained seated. She worked five minutes and rested one;
again worked five minutes and rested one. That is to say, she had four
minutes’ rest out of the twenty-four, and spent this rest seated so that she
might lose no time in getting back to the work. The next two periods, that is
for twelve minutes, the girl was standing. Again she worked five minutes
and rested one minute, and for the second time worked five minutes and
rested one minute. That is, she rested two out of the twelve minutes in the
same position in which she worked. The third group, a space of eighteen
minutes, she spent either sitting or standing, as she pleased. Here also she
worked five minutes, rested one minute; worked five minutes, rested one
minute; worked five minutes, and rested one minute in the position, either
standing or sitting, which she herself had chosen. The last period, which
consisted also of six minutes, was spent by the girl walking about and
talking, or amusing herself as she otherwise chose. With this might be
combined the last rest minute or period No. 9, which thus gave her seven
consecutive minutes for unrestricted rest activity.
This was the schedule for all hours of the day except the hour before
noon and the hour before closing time at night. In these hours the first nine
periods resembled the first nine periods of the other hours; but the tenth
period was spent in work, as a long rest period was to follow.
At the end of the day’s work under these conditions the girls
accomplished more than three times the amount of their previous best work,
with a greater amount of interest and with no more fatigue. It may be stated
here that the primary aim in this investigation was not to eliminate fatigue,
but to increase the wages of the girls by raising the output. The operators
had not seemed overfatigued at the start. They maintained that they were
less tired at the close of the day when using the new method, and certainly
the amount of fatigue caused by producing an amount of output such as was

made under the old method was reduced to an enormous extent. With
further practice these preliminary results will be further improved.
It is of fundamental importance in making an investigation of this type
that the allowance for fatigue be greater than the physical condition of the
worker at the end of the day seems to indicate necessary. It is also
fundamental that the results of the investigation be at once incorporated into
actual shop practice. If each member of the organization is at once placed
under such working conditions that he can enjoy the rest periods along with
the high pay that comes from a large product, he will co-operate most fully
in the progressive work of fatigue elimination. It is a fundamental rule of
scientific management that the rate once set must never be cut. It should
also be a fundamental principle of our management that rest periods once
established should not be abolished or shortened. Let the error, if error there
is, always result to the advantage of the worker, never to that of the
employer. If you have not allowed enough rest, make the allowance larger,
then reinvestigate. If you have allowed too much rest, let the job stand as
one to be given for special merit, and attack some other problem. The result
will be an increased co-operation which will more than compensate for the
occasional over allowance for fatigue.

Summary.

Fatigue measurement, as applied to the industries, is a new science. It is
being developed through a study of the data of activity. The methods of
measurement of activity are motion study, micromotion study, the
cyclegraph, the chronocyclegraph, and the penetrating screen. Through the
data derived by these, we standardize motion paths, motion habits, and all
other motion variables. These enable us to test and classify, select and
place, both work and workers, and to eliminate unnecessary fatigue.
Through the time element we compare our various data, and finally arrive at
results that enable us to standardize work and rest periods. Any errors in
length of rest periods must result to the advantage of the worker.

CHAPTER VIII

MAKING ADJUSTMENTS: HOW PRESENT PRACTICE IS
DEVELOPED INTO STANDARD PRACTICE

A Concrete Example of Making Adjustments.

In order to make plain exactly how changes are made and take place from
the condition before analysis, measurement, and synthesis are made to the
standard method of doing the work, we shall take a concrete example and
consider it from every phase. This concrete example will be the assembly of
a braider or machine for manufacturing braid, which is a standard product
of the New England Butt Company. With the co-operation of Mr. John G.
Aldrich, who has since become president of the company, the problem of
assembling a braider was studied, both in the laboratory and in the shop.
It is not generally recognized that ultimate standards can best be derived
in the research room and laboratory. The standard practice in the plant will
be the result of the laboratory practice. If the finer measurements are made
in the shop during the general working operations, much time will be lost,
as shop conditions cannot be controlled as laboratory conditions can. It has
been said that laboratory experimentation is not directly available in shop
practice, because laboratory conditions differ from shop conditions. They
certainly do differ, but so do the ultimate shop conditions that must be
introduced with the new standard method. The ultimate conditions in the
shop are far nearer the laboratory conditions than are the shop conditions
prior to installation of the new methods.

Former Method of Assembly.

The method of assembly in use before the motion study and fatigue study
were applied was as follows: The base of the braider was placed on an
ordinary low bench, and the various parts were kept in tote boxes or on the

floor. The worker selected such parts as he wished, and put the braider
together according to any traditional method that he had learned, together
with such changes as his whims dictated.

How the New Practice was Derived.

All of the previous assembly methods had been determined by the usual
practice of putting braider parts together. In the present case the braider was
taken apart; that is, handled in the reverse order of assembly, in order to
determine from a new viewpoint the best method of putting the various
parts together. The parts were laid out on a table in the sequence in which
they were disassembled. This allowed the various members of the braider
divisions, groups, and sub-groups to be studied in relation to one another
and also separately.

The Two Factors to Be Considered.

The problem resolved itself into two parts:
1. To make the table of the most convenient height and shape to
hold tools and the base group as it grew, while being assembled.
2. To provide the most convenient, temporary, resting place for
the tools and the various parts, before they were carried to the final
position of assembly.
The two parts were so closely related that any modification in one
demanded a modification in the other.

Fig. 25
Easel for simplifying motions and reducing fatigue from work of
assembly. The obvious sequence in our packet method eliminates the
delay and fatigue of the decision of choice.

Fig. 26
The rigging on a typical Gilbreth packet, as used for the assembly of
braiders and cord machines at the New England Butt Company. This
picture shows only the supporting devices. The length of the supporting
devices is determined by what is to be held upon them. The right
quantity of each kind, therefore, can be put on without counting. These
devices are standardized and are but few in number. They are specially
designed and arranged for picking up parts with both hands,
simultaneously, in an obvious sequence with shortest motions and least
fatigue.

Outline of the Changes to Be Made.

It became apparent, as the work progressed, that the determining
elements were (1) to shorten, as far as possible, the distance for transporting
the arms and hands while loaded; (2) to arrange the parts so that their
sequence of use would be obvious; (3) to position each piece so that it could
be grasped, transported, and released in the shortest time with the least
expenditure of effort and with the least resulting fatigue. This meant that the
parts should be arranged on some sort of a holder, or packet, that would
shorten the transporting distance, and that the base group should be placed
upon a table that would carry it as near this packet as possible.

The Solution of the Problem.

A packet, which was practically a table with its top extending vertically,
was placed near the table supporting the base group, and removable wire
rods of the right length were placed in it to support the various pieces in the
best position for grasping. This also considered the shortest distance for
transporting the arms and hands, whether empty or loaded. These table
packets were then modified, following closely the principles of the design
of the brick packet, especially the hand-hole feature for firm grasping with
one motion and for quick counting of the number of pieces. The packets
now consist of strips of wood two inches apart, horizontally, and two inches
apart, vertically, with holes for pins, interchangeable wire rods, forked
hooks, and other hangers, including interchangeable platforms, shelves, and
vertical supports, extended and positioned for still shorter reach, and
holding in turn such devices as pins to permit the best position for handful
grasping without disturbing the motions of the hand or the wrist from the
natural position, or, that is, the position most resembling that of normal rest.
The right position for grasping anything with least fatigue is that position
that will permit grasping without turning, twisting, or holding the wrist at
all from its natural resting position, that is, with muscles in natural balance.
It is but natural that this should be the best way, for it cuts out the
positioning motions of the hand prior to grasping.
Two reasons that the strips of wood were made two inches apart,
horizontally, and two inches apart, vertically, were:

1. Because we desired to get standard data at the same time
comparable with our other standard data. We might also use it for
checking, by means of motions in another trade, the underlying laws
of motions, which we had already deduced in several other trades.
2. Because we desired to have the motions in very nearly the
same places every time, in order to get the extra efficiency and the
lesser fatigue that come from the habit that is formed in this
reaching and grasping.
Many of these laws have since been re-checked and used in methods of
least waste for the transference of skill from one trade to another. Habits
have been formed that permit a much greater amount of output with less
fatigue.
This latticed packet gives us the same dimensions as our cross-sectioned
background. We use four inches in our American work, and ten centimetres
in our European work for these distances—the difference between ten
centimetres and four inches being almost exactly one-sixteenth of an inch,
or so small a difference as to be practically negligible in work on motion
study.
This cross-sectioned packet has, therefore, not only many mechanical
benefits, such as forming supports, either horizontally or vertically for
hangers, but it is also cheap to build, light in weight, and forms an
excellent, relative scale for measurement and for “recording the
surrounding conditions” of a case of micromotion study.
In fatigue study, as in all other work of investigation, it is difficult to
obtain assistants who can “observe what they can see.” Of those observers
who observe what they can see, few will write down what they observe. Of
those rare ones who can observe and will always write down, few have the
habit of maintaining the standard conditions in a long series of
observations. We therefore cross-section the background, make our devices,
when possible, multiples of four inches, and record the conditions by means
of photography, that gives us the key to causes of deviation from class
results.
The modification of the table consisted of making it of such a design that
it could be turned over on its side to form a low table for tall or double-deck

braiders, that would permit motions of less fatigue.

Fig. 27 and 28

This picture shows the arrangement of parts for the base group of the
braider. It will be noticed that there are three adjustable shelves, two
vertical and one horizontal, for the support in a more convenient
position of certain parts that have to be picked up, for least fatigue, by
handfuls at a time. The various kinds of shelves, clamps, and tables for
different sizes or kinds of machines can be removed or attached to the
packet with one motion of the hand.

Note that the top plate is in position and that the tools are at the right
side of this top plate before the assembler is sent to the job at all. These
parts are arranged in an obvious sequence, and a photograph similar to
this is given to the boy whose duty it is to arrange these parts.

Final Adjustment.

In its final form the method consisted of having the parts of the braider
placed on the packet by an unskilled laborer or boy, putting large tacks on
the floor, which located the table at the most convenient point possible in
relation to the packet, which was made fast to the wall or of easel type, on
casters, as the position where it must stand demanded. In addition, a small
gravity, Johnson-Littlefield packet was attached to the table. This conveyed
certain parts, by their own weight, to a yet more convenient position.[6]

Changes in Type of Work Demanded.

Through this adjustment the assembler used only his most skilled
motions in doing his work. Meantime, the less skilled worker, or apprentice,
who was loading the packet, was learning the assembly principle, and
receiving an apprenticeship in assembly itself.

Change in Mental Attitude.

The effect of the adjustment was to establish easily and quickly a new set
of efficient habits. The parts being arranged on the packet in an obvious
sequence, and the tools being arranged on the table in the standard position,
the worker necessarily performed the work according to the standard
method, which was the quickest and least fatiguing method, every time that
he did it. The result improved his working method, and acted as an
incentive to him to do the largest quantity of work of the best quality that
could be done with a reasonable amount of fatigue.

Value of This Example.

This example is even more valuable as a method of attack in the
adjustment problem than it is as a specific illustration of a successful and
rapid installation. The workers enjoyed the changes and accepted them in
the best spirit of co-operation. Before using the method, eighteen braider
base groups had been a large day’s work, per man. With the new method,
sixty-six, per man, per day, were assembled with no added fatigue. The
resulting saving pleased every one concerned, and has assured the
maintenance of the method. Like all other methods, old or new, it must be
submitted to certain definite tests. These it has passed with credit. The
outlining of such tests is our next problem.

Fig. 29
This picture shows a Littlefield-Johnson carrier packet. In this carrier
packet the carriers by their own weight travel downward to a standard
position at the bottom for grasping without looking at them, as fast as
they are individually removed. This packet was invented by two men in
the New England Butt Company, after they had seen our method of
attack, and had begun to think of their work in the terms of elementary
and least fatiguing motions.

Fig. 30

This picture shows a Gilbreth packet and a Gilbreth bench, arranged
with the carrier packet shown in Fig. 29 for the assembly of a 13-strand
braider.

Summary.

The problem of adjustment and its solution can best be illustrated by a
concrete example. This is of changes made in assembling the base group of
a braider. This example is valuable not only as an incidence of successful
application, but as an outline of an efficient working method.

FOOTNOTES:
[6] The Johnson-Littlefield packet is a splendid example of the types of
fatigue saving devices that are suggested by employees after they have been
taught the underlying principles of motion study.

CHAPTER IX

THE OUTCOME: HOW FAR HAVE WE ATTAINED OUR
AIM?

The Tests of General Health.

We will now assume that the reader has attacked the fatigue problem in
his particular plant, and has applied either preliminary or more permanent
fatigue elimination. There are various general measurement tests which he
may apply to the results, in order to see how much better the working
condition of his organization actually is than it was when he started in upon
his fatigue-eliminating work.
The first of these is the test of general health. It is, of course, perfectly
possible that an individual worker’s general health may go down under far
better working conditions; this, because of some home influence, or
something in his general condition or his life away from work, which pulls
down his health. It would not be fair to blame the work for any illness
easily traceable to home conditions, to an epidemic prevalent, or to some
certain outside source; but, if conditions away from work have remained
fixed, there is every reason to expect that general health should improve
with fatigue elimination. This we find in actual practice is the case. Even
where fatigue is not materially cut down during working hours, because
measurement shows that the worker is not getting over-fatigued, the general
health is apt to improve because of greater regularity in habits of work, and
because of better physical and mental habits, while doing the work. The
path along this line is a continuous, never-ending, upward spiral. Fatigue is
eliminated by establishing proper habits. Proper habits improve health. The
improved health allows of more work with less fatigue, etc.

The Test of Prolonged Activity.

In order to be thoroughly satisfactory, observations of the effect of the
changes upon the worker must be made during a long period. The worker’s
greatest asset is his ability to work. In order to prove its value, fatigue
eliminating work must actually show results in prolonging the years that he
is able to devote to his life work. This in practice it does. Not only does the
average worker remain physically able to work more years than where no
fatigue elimination has taken place, but also through the fatigue study, and
motion study, which he has co-operated to make, he learns to be able to
teach that thing, or those things, at which he is most skilled, and thus to
prolong his years of economic value. You must note how many of your
workers are beyond the usual working age, and are still at work. Some of
these will be working at the work itself; that is, in the performing
department. Others will be planning or teaching the work in some way. The
number of these and their condition will form an admirable unit of
measurement of the success of your work.

The Test of Posture.

The third test is that of posture. Take another walk through your plant,
and look at those workers to whom fatigue elimination work has been
applied, and note how they are sitting, or standing, or walking.

Fig. 31
A. Set of experiments in fatigue study for proving that times of motions
have little close relation to lengths of motions unless the same length of
motion is repeated consecutively many times. (See Fig. 21.)
B. Micromotion of workman reaching with both hands for pieces of a
machine which is being assembled. The microchronometer in the
foreground registers divisions of time to the half a thousandth of a
minute, and therefore gives us much data relating to time study, motion
study, and fatigue study.
C. Penetrating screen in the plane of the motions for the purpose of
registering exactly the distance of motions in fatigue study experiments.

The American Posture League, with headquarters at 30 Church Street,
New York City, will gladly furnish standards for proper posture in various
positions. It will be impossible, of course, to eradicate wrong habits of
posture in a short time, no matter how radical the change may be, but you
should note improvements. At least each worker should be so placed that he
could work in the proper posture if he chose, and so that the proper posture
will be the easiest for him. If the chairs, benches, levers, or devices force
him to assume the proper posture, so much the better. Consideration of the
devices shows, unfortunately, that few are designed for operation with least
fatigue; more being designed to use the least quantity of material.
In the case of young workers, especially, it is surprising how quickly the
proper devices will induce the correct posture, especially if the betterment
staff co-operate to explain the correct posture, and its effect upon health.
Where no betterment staff exists, the posters of the Posture League will
serve as desirable examples and object lessons. Here again, as in so many
other places, “fashion of work” is a most important element. Let correct
posture become the fashion, and let the devices make the posture possible,
and astonishing results will follow.
It is, of course, always a great aid to make anything that one desires the
easiest thing to do. The proper chairs and work places make correct posture
the easiest posture to hold. This is a great force towards maintaining it.

The Test of Behaviour and Implied Mental Attitude.

The fourth test is to observe the behaviour of the workers. Do their
actions, their resulting work, and whole attitude towards the work indicate
that the fatigue eliminating work has been effective? There should be better
“habits of work” than have ever existed before. More work should be turned
over to the habit processes, and the formation and maintenance of good
habits should become a part of the day’s work. It should be noted just
exactly what seems to be the kind and amount of incentive that keeps the
workers at the work. If the fatigue elimination has done what it should
along its line, the reason for doing the work as it is being done will be the
belief that this way is the best way yet found, a belief that one is safe in
following the method, since proper allowance for fatigue has been made.
There should also be present a desire to contribute to the welfare of all by
looking for easy ways, as well as scientifically-derived ways, to eliminate
fatigue, while at the same time following the best method as yet available.
The question of motivation is one demanding understanding and serious
consideration in every field of activity to-day. This is true in education. It is
also true in the industries. The motive of getting all that one can for one’s
work must always exist, and is a perfectly justifiable motive, but the
fatigue-eliminating work cannot be considered successfully, unless this
motive of self interest has also with it the motive of interest in the welfare
of others, and in cutting out all fatigue that can effect any member of the
group in any way. This feeling should express itself in a social attitude,
which is another behaviour test. If every member of the organization stands
ready to endorse the fatigue elimination, and to co-operate in further fatigue
elimination for the good of all, the social attitude shows that the work that
has been done is worth while.

The Test of Transference of Skill.

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.

Fig. 32

Fig. 33
These pictures are of meetings of the Foreman’s Club at the New
England Butt Co. examining films of methods of least fatigue, proposed
for standardization.

Social “Happiness Minutes” will consist of the sum of the individual
“Happiness Minutes” plus that intangible thing called “social spirit.” It is
exemplified in a case like this: A certain group of workers had been studied
from the motion study and the fatigue standpoint. The result of the work

had been incorporated in their daily practice, and they had been working for
a period of many months under the readjusted working conditions and with
the new methods. At the end of this time they were gathered at a foremen’s
meeting, where a micromotion film, showing the development of the
methods which they used, was presented. In discussing the film the speaker
took the occasion to say that on observing the work in the plant he felt that
some lapses from the method prescribed were in existence. The next
morning, when he walked through the plant, he was stopped by a worker,
who said, “See here! I don’t believe we are falling away from that method a
bit. If we are, just show us where, and we will go straight back to it. We
want to play the game right.” This is the test of the outcome. Is the
organization lined up as one man back of the work? If so, the problem of
maintenance and of automatic improvement is solved.

Summary.

At any stage in the process of fatigue elimination the results may be
tested. The general health of the worker, his prolonged activity, his posture,
his behaviour act as such tests. To these may be added the amount of skill
transferred and being transferred, and the effect, in particular, on
“Happiness Minutes.” If the organization endorses the work and co-operates
in it, the work may be rated successful.

CHAPTER X

THE FUTURE: WHAT EACH ONE OF US CAN DO

The Work of the Colleges.

It should be the work of the colleges to gather together what has been
done in fatigue elimination, and to put it at the disposal of all interested.
Each college should start a fatigue museum, and should invite its graduates
first, and all those in its vicinity second, to co-operate and to send exhibits
or pictures of exhibits to its museum. The colleges are recognized as not
interested in any particular industry, as fair and impartial, and as standing
for uplift in the community. It is, therefore, their duty to act as repositories
for the data, at least until such times as the national government takes over
the leadership in the entire fatigue question, and becomes the custodian of
the data.
The colleges can help in a second way by making fatigue study a subject
in the curriculum. It is not necessary that this be a new subject. It should
rather be a new aspect in which the old subjects are presented. Especially in
the colleges of engineering and business administration great emphasis
should be laid upon fatigue study, both the theory and the practice. It is not
essential that the students be sent out into the shops for actual practice in
such study, although anything like the half-time plan is to be commended.
The student may well apply fatigue study to his own activities. This will
present an admirable field and a splendid incentive. After such a study the
fatigue problem will never again seem remote or vague to the student. Also
the student may well be sent, or taken, on tours of inspection through
neighbouring industries, or may be allowed to co-operate in preliminary
fatigue surveys. They should learn the general principle of fatigue study,
and should become finger-wise. This preparation is identical to that for
making motion study, and, in fact, is prerequisite or first step for greatest
success in any managerial work.

But the college should not confine its activity in fatigue elimination to
the museum, and to training the student who expects to enter the field. They
should themselves become examples of successful fatigue elimination. In
this way they can do most to cut down waste, and to train our young people
to take an active part later in the waste elimination campaign being waged
in the world’s work.

The Work of the Manager.

The fatigue study and the installation which must follow it to be done by
the manager have been outlined in this book. The manager who has put his
own plant at such a stage of improvement that unnecessary fatigue is cut out
to a great extent, and that recovery from necessary fatigue is provided for,
has contributed greatly to the cause, but his work should not end here. He
should educate those with whom he comes in contact on the subject of
fatigue elimination. He should co-operate with those in his own
neighbourhood, and also with those in his own trade towards solving the
fatigue problem peculiar to the locality or the trade.
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.
The workers of the country have long recognized the need for fatigue
elimination; the employers are coming to a realization that they are paying a
large price for fatigue. Many employers have resolved that, so far as their
plants are concerned, needless fatigue must be eliminated. They have
resolved that the day is coming when every worker shall go home from
work happy in what he has done, with the least amount of unnecessary
fatigue, and prepared to go back in perfect condition on the morrow. How
soon this much desired time will arrive depends upon the co-operation of
the public, upon the public sentiment that can be aroused.
There is no reader of this book who does not belong to at least two
groups that should be interested in fatigue elimination. Decide at once, then,

in which group you belong, and set to work. Be you teacher, manager,
worker, or simply a member of the great public to which we all belong,
begin to work for fatigue elimination, and begin now.
The good in your life consists of the quantity of “Happiness Minutes”
that you have created or caused. Increase your own record by eliminating
unnecessary fatigue of the workers.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious errors in punctuation have been fixed.
Page 29: “indentical surroundings” changed to “identical surroundings”
Page 57: “of the organiaztion” changed to “of the organization”
Page 68: “old mgazines” changed to “old magazines”
Page 97: “loss in efficency” changed to “loss in efficiency”
Page 114: “FATIGUE ELIMINANATION” changed to “FATIGUE ELIMINATION”
Page 141: The caption referring to the “carrier packet shown in Fig. 31” was fixed to
refer to Fig. 29.
Page 144: The paragraph for caption 31 was missing the label for A. and had it out of
order. This has been fixed.

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