Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

xviii INTRODUCTION point where the company is ready to start to a fire before it has received the number of the box. The men and horses do their part in less time than the electric telegraph transmits the complete signal. Yet to attain this efficiency has required a period of perhaps thirty years. The subject was not studied in a scientific manner. Turning now to the machine shop, let us see what mo- tion study means there. In an editorial in Industrial Engi- neering, in August, 1910, we said: Before a task can be set intelligently it is necessary to know just what can be accomplished by the best type of workman. This usually involves a time study of the job under consideration. The time study is more than putting a clerk with a stop watch alongside the workman, with instructions to see how long it takes him to do the job. A proper time study requires that a certain piece of work be divided into its component operations and that each operation be studied separately, and also in conjunc- tion with other operations to which it is related. The time of performing these operations is recorded not once, but many times, until a fair average has been determined. The results are then analyzed to see if the time required can be cut down. Usually it will be found that it can. A single instance will suffice for illustration. In a certain shop with which we are familiar a piece had to have several holes of different sizes drilled in it, a jig being provided to locate the holes. The drills and the sockets for them were given to the workman in a tote