Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

go MOTION STUDY This chart, together with a plan showing the workman where he should put the stock and where he should place his feet (Fig. 14), and with pictures showing how he should lay the brick, etc., proved most successful for instruction as well as for recording. At first glance this chart, and the others like it, which we used at that time, seem very crude. In fact, compared to what has since been done to standardize operations, they are crude. But they mark a distinct phase of motion study. They show plainly, as careful reading will prove, that an earnest study of motions will automatically pro- mote the growth of the study. For example, study of column 4 in the sample chart given led to the invention of the packet scaffold, the packet, the fountain trowel, and several other of the best devices, and the “ packet-on-the-wall ” method now used in brickwork. These inventions in their turn necessitated an entirely new set of motions to perform the operation of laying a brick. So, likewise, the progression also went on before the days of conscious motion study: observation, explanation, invention, elimination, and again observation, in an upward helix of progress. The great point to be observed is this: Once the vari- ables of motions are determined, and the laws of underly- ing motions and their efficiency deduced, conformity to these laws will result in standard motions, standard tools,