In considering the placing of materials, we must consider also the manner in which the materials come to the worker and in which they leave him. Our later method study will make so many changes here that only very apparent, necessary, and inexpensive improvements should be made at this stage. Be sure, however, that you are using gravity wherever it can be used to advantage. Often we have found a small belt conveyor to be helpful in cutting down the hand transportation.
The Placing of Tools and Devices.
Gravity and mechanical means can be of use here, especially in carrying working equipment back to the place where it remains when not in use. Many preliminary improvements can also be made by standardizing the place where the tool is to be left when not in use. There is not only the bodily fatigue of bringing the tool from a more distant place than is necessary, there is also the unconscious fatigue of constantly deciding such unimportant questions as where it is to be placed.
The Clothing of the Worker.
In an excellent series of articles on dress, published some years ago, Miss Tarbell laid down the rule that “suitability” is the final test of a costume. It is with this in mind that the clothing worn by the members of the organization while at work should be examined. It must be said, in the first place, that there is no more reason for the common custom of the worker providing his special outer clothing while at work than there is for his providing his other tools and equipment. In other times, the workmen of many trades preferred to provide their own tools, and did so, but in a scientifically managed plant to-day, the workers are provided by the management with standard tools. The management has standardized the best in a tool, and keeps it in the best possible working condition. In the same way, it should be the duty of the management to provide special working clothes, when they have been standardized. This involves, of course, the problem of laundering, which may seem complicated to one who is not acquainted with what has been done in this field.
There has been very little done in most kinds of work to provide a costume, designed to conform to motion economy and least fatigue, that is, at the same time, useful, artistic, and pleasing. Progress has been rendered even slower by the fact that many workers have a prejudice against such garments, feeling that they show a class distinction. All that is necessary is to create a fashion of wearing such garments, like the fashion of wearing atelier or studio clothes. In no place can an example of unsuitable clothing be more clearly seen than in the laundry industry. Much of the work done in the typical laundry is done while standing, and the women who form a majority of the workers wear clothes, and particularly shoes that make the work far more fatiguing than it need be. Yet in this very industry some of the most progressive work to improve conditions is being done. In Europe a shoe with a thick wooden sole and a heavy leather upper over the front part of the foot only is considered the most comfortable and least fatiguing. It is also certainly the cheapest and most durable. But Americans will not wear such a shoe. The shoe furnishes the most difficult feature of the costume problem. Here again the most important thing is that the “fashion” of wearing comfortable and efficient garments shall be set. We have hoped for years that sensible fashions in workers’ clothes might be set by patterning after tennis or other athletic costumes, but the time when this will become general seems as yet far distant, due to the necessity of the worker using his oldest and discarded “dress up” clothes, ultimately for his working clothes. Nevertheless, the great loss in efficiency, due to the general custom of wearing clothes that interfere with comfortable work, and that cause unnecessary fatigue, has caused us to start a campaign for the design and standardization of more suitable clothes. As yet we have had but few designs submitted in answer to our appeal to the worker to study the clothes problem for himself or herself. We are making the same appeal to the management to suggest costumes for the approval of the worker.
In order that there may be no duplication, that we may pass on good ideas, we have started a little museum where typical fatigue-eliminating devices of all sorts may be gathered, and studied by any one interested. We must next describe in some detail what is and what is not as yet there, in order to offer definite suggestions for preliminary fatigue-eliminating designs that can be used from the first day of making changes.
Summary.
Preliminary fatigue elimination consists of improving lighting, heating, ventilation, fire and safety protection. It also consists of improving work places and work tables, of providing and improving chairs, and rearranging materials and tools, and studying the clothing of the worker. It aims to make immediate inexpensive changes before entering into an intensive study of the problem.