Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

6o MOTION STUDY Tools should be of standard size and pattern. Workmen should invariably be made to use a tool that will enable them to make standard-sized outputs instead of using a tool that may seem “handier” to them. You cannot expect a man to comply with standard motions unless he has the standard tool for which his standard instruction card was made out. The customary method in the past for determining the best weight of tool to use was to guess at it, and to use that size of tool which was thought to be the “handiest,” or which it seemed could be used with the least fatigue. Makers of hand tools cater to the whims of the local workmen, and, as a result, hand tools are made of many different designs in different parts of the country. Makers spend and waste great sums of money making experi- ments and conducting selling campaigns of odd or new designs of tools that have no merit from a motion-economy standpoint. There should be a bureau of testing, where the actual value of new shapes, designs, and sizes of tools could be tested and rated in percentages of efficiency from the standpoint of motion study. Critics will say that such a scheme will crowd out new designs, and the benefit of the individual’s inventions will be lost. But it would not; on the contrary, the testing would give great stimulus to inventors, designers, and tool makers, for they could then obtain the immediate atten- tion of the buyers, because they would have the standard