It is unfortunately true that most of what we may call the new knowledge in physical science of the past decade has had to cross the Atlantic for us. No one knows this better than those Americans who make the most use of it. The fundamental knowledge behind almost every utility which Yankee ingenuity has assisted, grew on older soil than ours. The list is almost discouraging to an American. The encouraging view to take is that we have it within our power to force the future to write different history. It is unfortunately quite safe to predict, for example, that just as most of our technical advances of the past can be traced to early fundamental discoveries in academic fields in Europe, so also we will have to see here future applications of still more modern European scientific thought. A wonderful list of useful results, processes, products, conveniences, cures and economies are sure to be produced by applications of the new knowledge of such things as radium, X-Rays, wireless waves, electrons, crystal structure, atomic numbers, canal rays, none of which were "made in U. S. A."

In physical science there is but little chance that our country will do its full share for years to come. If the wisdom of attempting it, rather than confining attention to short-sighted application of research to pressing commercial problems can be gradually recognized, the future is assured. It is surely the duty of our American research laboratories to contribute effectively in the advance of knowledge, and particularly is this true of those richly endowed with men, new materials and appliances.

And so I return to the cardinal point in any suitable consideration of research in its relation to our industries. Search for new knowledge is the insurance for the future of the industries. Many of them will later be manufacturing things not even conceivable today. The past has proved it. Most of the present products will, like the ox-yoke and flail of our grandfathers, be replaced in our factories by utilities more fitting to our new needs and less exhaustive of our energies and assets. This change is practically continuous. Technical complacency is like the mercuric chloride tablet taken internally-it means a lingering suicide. The incandescent lamp business will serve me for illustration, because I am more familiar with it than with others. I have seen whole factories entirely overhauled a number of times in the past few years, in order to make the newest lamps. Not only have entire floors of com

plicated and expensive machines for making carbon lamps been thrown out and new machinery for making metal filament lamps installed, but before packing cases containing new machines could be opened and unpacked in the factory they have been thrown out as useless, as the advance from squirted metal filaments to drawn wire filaments proved the better way. Before the limit of factory efficiency on vacuum lamps could be reached, the introduction of nitrogen into the lamps brought the factories an entirely new factor, and now, before the consumers have more than commenced to feel the effects of the nitrogen-tungsten lamps, the manufacture of argon and its introduction into the incandescent lamp becomes a reality. If the research laboratories which discovered the means for bringing about these changes, with their corresponding economies, could tax the consuming public a cent for every dollar thus saved to the public, the laboratories would receive over a million dollars a year to spend for further research. This is not written in a spirit of dissatisfaction at all, but rather to point out what is probably true in many fields. The people are the ones most interested in research, though they may not know it. It is easier seen in therapeutic and curative research, but even there the more ignorant fail to realize the great lasting value of such work.

Bacon wrote:

For man, being the minister and interpreter of nature, acts and understands so far as he has observed of the order, the works and mind of nature, and can proceed no further: for no power is able to loose or break the chain of causes, nor is nature to be conquered by submission: whence those twin intentions, human knowledge and human power, are really coincident; and the greatest hindrance to workers is the ignorance of causes.

MOTION STUDY AS AN INCREASE OF NATIONAL

WEALTH

BY FRANK B. GILBRETH,

Providence, R. I.

There is no waste of any kind in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed and ineffective motions, and their resulting unnecessary fatigue. Because this is true, there is no industrial opportunity that offers a richer return than the elimination of needless motions, and the transformation of ill-directed and ineffective motions into efficient activity.

This country has been so rich in human and material resources that it is only recently that the importance of waste elimination has come to be realized. The material element received the first consideration, and in the comparatively few years during which the subject has received attention, an enormous amount has been done to conserve natural resources, to economize in the use of materials, and to utilize the by-products of industiral processes.

The human element is now receiving long-delayed attention. Vocational training, vocational guidance, better placement and better working conditions have become subjects for serious consideration in all parts of this country and of the world. Savings in human energy are resulting from these investigations. But the greatest saving in time, in money and in energy will result when the motions of every individual, no matter what his work may be, have been studied and standardized.

Such studies have already been made in many trades, and have resulted in actual savings that prove that the results of the practice confirm the theory. In laying brick, the motions used in laying a single brick were reduced from eighteen to five, with an increase in output of from one hundred and twenty bricks an hour to three hundred and fifty an hour. In folding cotton cloth, twenty to thirty motions were reduced to ten or twelve, with the result that instead of one hundred and fifty dozen pieces of cloth, four hundred dozen were folded, with no added fatigue. The motions of a girl putting paper on boxes of shoe polish were studied. Her methods were changed only slightly, and where she had been doing twentyfour boxes in forty seconds, she did twenty-four in twenty seconds,

with less effort. Similar studies have cut down the motions not only of men and women in other trades but also of surgeons, of nurses, of office workers; in fact, of workers in every type of work studied.

Motion study consists of dividing work into the most fundamental elements possible; studying these elements separately and in relation to one another; and from these studied elements, when timed, building methods of least waste.

To cite a specific example: The assembly of a machine is the piece of work under consideration. The existing method of assembling the machine is recorded in the minutest detail. Each element of the assembly is then tested-the method used in handling the element being compared with other possible methods. In this way, the most efficient elements of an assembly are determined; and these elements are combined into a method of assembly that, because it is the result of actual measurement, is worthy to become a standard. Such an assembly is that of the braider, manufactured by the New England Butt Company. As a result of motion studies made upon this, where eighteen braiders had been assembled by one man in a day, it now becomes possible to assemble sixty-six braiders per man per day, with no increase in fatigue.

The accurate measurement involved in getting results like this includes three elements. We must determine: first, the units to be measured; second, the methods to be used; and, third, the devices to be used.

The unit of measurement must be one that of itself will reduce cost, and should be as small as the time and money that can be devoted to the investigation warrants. The smaller the unit, the more intensive the study required. The methods and devices to be used are also determined largely by the question of cost. Naturally, those methods and devices are preferable which provide least possibility of errors of observation. Such errors have been classified as of two kinds: first, errors due to instruments; and, second, errors due to the personal bias of the observer. The newer methods of making motion studies and time studies by the use of the micromotion method and the chronocyclegraph method exclude such errors. Fortunately, through an improvement and cheapening of the devices, it is now possible to make accurate records of motions, even when no great outlay for the study can be afforded.

The micro-motion method of making motion studies consists of recording motions by means of a motion picture camera, a clock that will record different times of day in each picture of a motion picture film, a cross-sectioned background, and other devices for assisting in measuring the relative efficiency and wastefulness of motions. Suppose the process of assembly before cited is being micro-motion studied: The assembler is placed before the crosssectioned background; the micro-motion clock is placed where it will record in the picture, yet not disturb the worker; near it is another clock which serves as a check on the accuracy of the special clock. The assembler, who has been rated a skilled worker under the old method, naturally does the best work possible, since a record is being made of his performance. The observer operates the motion picture camera, which, however, allows him freedom to observe the assembly process continually, and to note possibilities for improvement. From the data on the film and the observations of the observer, an improved method can be formulated. The standard method is seldom derived from the work of one observed worker only. It has been noted that the ideal method seldom lies in the consecutive acts of any one individual; therefore, many workers are observed before the final standard is deduced.

These micro-motion records give all the data required except the continuous path of a cycle of motions. This lack is supplied by the chronocyclegraph method. The chronocyclegraph method of making motion study consists of fastening tiny electric-light bulbs to the fingers of the operator, or to any part of the operator or of the material whose motion path it is desired to study. If it is merely the orbit of the motion that is to be observed, a photograph is made of the moving part to which the light is attached, during the time that this part is performing the operation. If the direction, relative time, and relative speed are to be noted, the path of light, through controlled interruption of the circuit, is made to consist of dots or dashes, or a combination of the two, with pointed ends, the point showing the direction.

Through the micro-motion studies and the chronocyclegraph studies, then, the expert formulates the standard method. It is important to note the changes which the installation of a standard method implies. This method consists of improved motions, and