Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

DESCRIPTION AND GENERAL OUTLINE 3 can surely be more than doubled. Wherever motion study has been applied, the workman’s output has been doubled. This will mean for every worker either more wages or more leisure. But the most advisable way to utilize this gain is not a question which concerns us now. We have not yet reached the stage where the solving of that problem be- comes a necessity — far from it! Our duty is to study the motions and to reduce them as rapidly as possible to standard sets of least in number, least in fatigue, yet most effective motions. This has not been done perfectly as yet for any branch of the industries. In fact, so far as we know, it has not, before this time, been scientifically attempted. It is this work, and the method of attack for undertaking it, which it is the aim of this book to explain. Place of Motion Study in Scientific Management Motion study as herein shown has a definite place in the evolution of scientific management not wholly appre- ciated by the casual reader. Its value in cost reducing cannot be overestimated, and its usefulness in all three types of management — Military, or driver; Interim, or transitory; and Ultimate, or func- tional — is constant. In increasing output by selecting and teaching each workman the best known method of performing his work, motion economy is all important. Through it, alone, when