CHAPTER XIV
MICRO-MOTION STUDY: HOW INCREASED WORKSHOP EFFICIENCY IS OBTAINABLE WITH MOVING PICTURES
In these days of competition it is obvious that the establishment in which the machinery is most efficient, the workmen most skilful, and the labour most economically expended has the best chance of success in its particular line of business. These are the days of scientific organisation and management, the value of which, developed upon rational lines, cannot be denied.
But it has remained for the cinematograph to indicate the true lines along which such developments should be continued. For instance, there may be two workmen of equal skill and industry, each of whom is given an identical job. One completes his task in less time than the other, although the two men are admittedly of equal ability. They may be checked from stage to stage by the stop-watch, but this will reveal nothing conclusive, as the advantage from stage to stage will fluctuate between the two. It is only in the aggregate that the superiority of the one over the other is seen. The superiority may be so slight as to be almost negligible, but the fact that it exists is sufficient to prove that there is something wrong somewhere.
Where is it? How can it be detected? Hitherto scientific management and stop-watch methods have been found wanting. The riddle can be solved in one way only, as investigations have shown, and that is by moving pictures.
This new phase of scientific management has been evolved and perfected by Mr. Frank B. Gilbreth, of New York, an eminent authority upon the subject of workshop organisation. He has given it the title of "Micro-Motion Study." As the name implies it concerns the investigation of small movements by the ordinary standard cinematograph and the time measurement of each action.
While this particular line of study may not be entirely new, since Marey and his contemporaries in the study of movement indicated such a possible application, yet Mr. Gilbreth is the first to reduce it to a science. Therefore he is justly entitled to the credit of perfecting this most important development of scientific management.
Everything depends upon the timing mechanism. This must be of the simplest type and of unimpeachable accuracy. In a previous chapter I have described the "chronoscope" which was used by Marey. Mr. Gilbreth, for the purposes of his work, has evolved a clock working upon a similar principle. This clock, fitted with one hand, is designed to make one complete revolution in six seconds. The indications on its dial are as follows: The larger divisions represent tenths of a revolution. Each of these is divided into two, thereby showing twentieths of a revolution, and these latter are further sub-divided into fifths, so that the dial is divided into one hundred parts. Each of these divisions represents the thousandth part of a minute, while the clock can be read easily to half-thousandths of a minute.
This clock, together with one of the ordinary type, is used in each investigation. Both are prominently displayed in the image so that the time interval from picture to picture may be determined exactly. The ordinary clock is necessary, as it shows the total time occupied in an operation. The special clock, on the other hand, serves for timing the different stages or motions involved in completing the task.
The principle may be utilised in a variety of ways, as has been proved at the works of the New England Butt Company of Providence, Rhode Island. The manager of this concern, Mr. J. G. Aldrich, was one of the first to recognise the value and possibilities of micro-motion study.