But whatever the method he made available for the girl's use, the illustration still serves to indicate that the manager's responsibility does not end when he turns a job over to a subordinate. It remains his care to see that the job is done by the most effective method—not necessarily the speediest, but the one which gets the best results for the effort involved.
To find this "one best" method, industry has evolved a complete technique of time and motion study. And merely to hint at what may be accomplished by breaking down an operation into its elementary operations and observing the time required to perform them, becomes part of our task in setting down the ways and means of organizing.
First we shall find that any job, simple or complex, may be divided into three parts: make ready, do and put away.
Shaving, for example. First we get everything ready—razor, brush, shaving cream, hot water. Then comes the actual operation of shaving. And last, cleaning up—rinsing the brush, wiping the razor, and putting things back where they belong.
Perhaps you're in the same boat as the old farmer who, approached by the subscription salesman of an agricultural magazine, allowed he wa'nt farmin' now half as good as he knew how.
Or perhaps you already hold speed records at giving your face the once-over. But, you see, the whole point in studying the job is not aimed at faster shaving, but at simplifying the "make ready" and "put away" phases of the operation.
For example, the next time you shave, try picking up the tube of shaving cream with one hand and unscrewing the cap while you're wetting your brush with the other. It will be awkward as the dickens the first time you try it. But try it again and again and again. It won't be long before you'll be an expert at doing the job that way. Finish up that part of the operation by screwing the cap back on while you are lathering your face with the right hand. Does it require a stop watch to point out the saving in time that you've made? Oh, it won't be easy the first few times, but before you know it, you'll have taught yourself good work habits.
Take a simple job like the assembly of a license bracket in an automobile factory. An analysis of this operation (see "Micromotion Technique," by F. J. Van Poppelen, Factory and Industrial Management, Nov., 1930) showed that the right hand was busy all the time, while the left did nothing most of the time except hold the piece.
At the risk of getting too technical—for after all we are interested, not so much in the details, as in certain broad principles of organizing the work—let us see how the operation was performed.
First the operator assembled a number of screws and leather washers by picking up a screw with the left hand, a washer with the right, putting them together and laying the assembly aside. Then he picked up a bracket with the left hand and a screw and washer assembly with the right, placing the screw through a slot in the bracket—continuing to hold assembled pieces in his left hand while the right was picking up a flat washer and assembling it to the screw; picking up lock washer, assembling it to the screw; picking up acorn nut and starting it on the screw; and finally picking up an open-end wrench and tightening the nut. Then he assembled screw, washers and nut to the other side of the bracket, whereupon wrench and bracket were laid aside, completing the cycle.