Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

FATIGUE-STUDY IOI as much ease of body as possible. To rest just when told to is perhaps not easy to most temperaments, but if the plan is obviously successful it will no doubt be accepted on its merits in each case. Mr. Gilbreth urges in his “ Fatigue Study ” the provision of quite generous rest allowances even before there has been any attempt to determine by scientific methods what rest is necessary. He believes in the practice of general maxims of this kind : Give rest wherever there seems need. Pro- vide a resting-chair for every worker without exception. It is the worker’s duty to take rest. And so on. In the well-known instance of the amazing im- provement made by Mr. Sanford B. Thompson in the work done by girls inspecting bicycle balls, the girls’ hours per day were gradually decreased from io| to 8j, and recesses of ten minutes were given in the middle of the morning and the middle of the afternoon. The shorter hours and the prescribed rests certainly increased the girls’ power of working in a marked degree. Finally, 35 girls did the work of 120, and the accuracy of their inspection was meanwhile notably increased. The 35 girls were, however, the picked ones of the whole set, and doubtless had special physical qualifications which made for quick and unerring judgment. They practically doubled their former wages ; and there is no doubt that the psychological effect of their all- round success was good, and tended somewhat even to decrease fatigue, of the nervous kind.