Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

34 MOTION STUDY called “welfare” department as that department can show itself able to make of the man a more valuable economic unit to himself and to the community. If the welfare department makes an efficient workman the product of its work, the philanthropic by-products will take care of themselves. The work itself should be laid out in such a way that its performance will add to and not subtract from health. A proper study and determination of the variables that affect the surroundings and the motion will go far to insure this. Moreover, standardized work will transform the workman. Henry L. Gantt, in a most stimulating paper on “Train- ing the Workmen in Habits of Industry and Cooperation,” read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, December, 1908, says of workmen: “As they become more skilled, they form better habits of work, lose less time, and become more reliable. Their health improves, and the improvement in their general ap- pearance is very marked. This improvement in health seems to be due to a more regular and active life, com- bined with a greater interest in their work; for it is a well- known fact that work in which we are interested and which holds our attention without any effort on our part, tires us much less than that we have to force ourselves to do.” This Mr. Gantt says in speaking of the benefits of the “task and bonus” system; but the same thing is undoubt- edly true of men working under standards derived from motion study.