1. The owner of the plant. He will have the most vital interest in the resulting fatigue elimination. No matter who else makes a survey, the owner should examine it closely, or should make one for himself. We have found that, if the owner can be persuaded to take one day of his time to make even a most rapid and superficial fatigue survey of his plant, the result is always of enormous benefit to the work; but, while his interest may be enlisted with a walk through his plant, his zeal will not be obtained until he has actually sat in the various seats and chairs, and actually, personally, tried out the various work places.
2. The survey may be made by some other member of the organization, who is an amateur at the work. The benefits of having a survey maker who is a member of the organization is that he “understands the peculiar and local conditions” thoroughly, and that those who are observed may therefore have more confidence in his work and perhaps may be less apt to resent being observed. The disadvantages are that he will be so well acquainted with and accustomed to seeing the conditions that he will not be apt to note many apparently unimportant details. These may really be important, when one comes to make changes.
3. The survey may be made by an amateur not a member of the organization. The advantage of this is that the observer will be disinterested. The disadvantages are the usual disadvantages of lack of training. There may, also, be some delay in the observed worker’s co-operating with the observer. This is not apt to occur if the survey maker is properly instructed before he begins his work.
4. The survey may be made by an expert. It makes little difference, in this case, whether the expert is, or is not, a member of the organization. In actual practice he seldom is a member of the organization.
There is much saving in time in having an expert survey maker, who will be, in the industries, preferably a motion study expert. From extensive practice he will be able to see possible improvements at the same time that he sees existing conditions. However, he must not let his plans for improvement affect the exactness of his records of the present. On the contrary, these plans will insure that he makes his records of the present detailed and accurate, in order that the progress may be apparent.
Whatever may be the preparation of the survey maker, his chief qualification should be a keen interest and enthusiasm for this work. If a man really wants to eliminate fatigue, and is willing to learn how to do it, he can become a survey maker.
What to Look For.
There are three chief groups of things to look for:
1. The characteristics of the worker, or, as we have called them, “variables of the worker.”
2. The characteristics of the working conditions,—“the variables of the surroundings, equipments, and tools.”