Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

VARIABLES OF THE SURROUNDINGS 61 stamp of merit that comes from the record of a test that excelled previous standards. We have testing stations for everything else. Think what the societies for testing materials have done for the progress of the world! Their records are usable forever, in any part of the world, once they are made. When machines have to be tended, two separate sets of motions must be provided for: i. The set that the worker uses when he is tending the machine. 2. The set that the worker uses to prepare tools and material for the machine while it does not require his attention. All machines have to be tended more or less. Even automatic machinery has to have attention, and it is most important here to have motion study, because of the earn- ing value of the machine being lost while it is shut down. One sees occasionally a machine that can have any and every lever operated without the operator taking a single step, but comparatively few machines are constructed with this in mind. Machines requiring constant starting and stopping and hand feeding or adjusting should have their various levers so positioned that the “laws of least effort of simultaneous motions” are complied with. These laws will be discussed under “ Variables of the Motion.” It is only necessary to say here that motions should be similar on each side of a fore and aft vertical