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He insisted that his mortar mixers should give special attention to tempering the mortar, and so save the time consumed in tapping the brick. Through all of this minute study of the motions to be made by the bricklayer in laying bricks under standard conditions, Mr. Gilbreth has reduced his movements from eighteen motions per brick to five, and even in one case to as low as two motions per brick.
Some writers, for example Gilbreth, see in this movement a great advance. It is a way of giving equal opportunity to all. Economy becomes a factor in freedom, since it helps to eliminate the drudgery and depression of toil. Plainly, then, economy or thrift has a much wider meaning than mere saving. It is many-sided, and the study of economy in the use of essentials is but a part of it.
Gilbreth watched her for a little while and found that she was able to manage 24 boxes in 40 seconds. Then he told the young girl that she was doing it wrongly, and that she ought to try a new way which he showed her. At the first attempt, she disposed of 24 boxes in 26 seconds and at the second trial in 20 seconds.
Gilbreth reports that a few months ago, in a large brick building which he erected, he demonstrated on a commercial scale the great gain which is possible from practically applying his scientific study.
Gilbreth in reducing the motions of his bricklayers from eighteen to five shows that this improvement has been made in three different ways: First. He has entirely dispensed with certain movements which the bricklayers in the past believed were necessary, but which a careful study and trial on his part have shown to be useless. Second.
Whoever has once schooled his eye to observe the limitless waste of human motions and psychophysical efforts in social life has really no difficulty in perceiving all this at every step. This ability to recognize possible savings of impulse may be brought to a certain virtuosity. Gilbreth, one of the leaders of the new movement, seems to be such a virtuoso.
His bricklayers were taught his new method of bricklaying by their foreman. With a view to individualizing his workmen and stimulating each man to do his best, Mr. Gilbreth also developed an ingenious method for measuring and recording the number of bricks laid by each man, and for telling each workman at frequent intervals how many bricks he had succeeded in laying.
He teaches his bricklayers to make simple motions with both hands at the same time, where before they completed a motion with the right hand and followed it later with one from the left hand. For example, Mr. Gilbreth teaches his brick-layer to pick up a brick in the left hand at the same instant that he takes a trowel full of mortar with the right hand.
A very brilliant and extended investigation concerning the elimination of waste of human energy and labor by motion-study has been made independently of Mr. Taylor by Mr. Frank Gilbreth, whose discoveries in the field have already cut down the effort of the labor of bricklaying two-thirds.
When Gilbreth began to reform the labor of the mason after scientific principles, he gave his chief interest to the men's motions. Every muscle contraction which was needed to move the brick from the pile in the yard to the final position in the wall was measured with reference to space-and time-relations and the necessary effort.
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