The Relation of Fatigue Study to Measured Functional Management.
Fatigue study is founded on measurement. This makes it an integral part of measured functional management. This is management that acts in accordance with standards. These standards are derived by actually measuring accurately what is happening. Standards contain the results of the measurement combined into new working methods. These standards are maintained only until they can be improved, when the new ones are in turn measured and maintained. Such accurate measurement demands that the problem of management be divided into measurable units. These units are made as small as possible, and constantly smaller as time goes on. It was the great work of Doctor Taylor to divide an operation, that is, a piece of work to be measured, into units for timing with a stop watch, and to separate rest units from work units.
From its beginning, Scientific Management has recognized the importance of the part played by fatigue. This recognition helps to obtain that co-operation and permanent beneficial efficiency that are the underlying ideas and the maintaining forces in this type of management. But fatigue study has only recently been acknowledged as fundamental to the most efficient management. Any one can attack the fatigue problem in its present condition in the industries successfully. He has simply to apply measurement. He can do this without regarding the investigations and results of others, if he chooses, but he will progress faster and farther if he uses results already at hand, and improves on “the best that has been known and thought in the world.”