PSYCHOLOGY IN INDUSTRY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19062, 26 July 1927, Page 8

PSYCHOLOGY IN INDUSTRY.

ELIMINATING WASTE.

GREATER EFFICIENCY, LESS WORK.

Instructive details concerning the success which has attended the application of practical psychology to the organisation of industry, especially in giant industrial coiieorns, were given by Dr. 0. E. Beeby to a Press representative yesterday.

Dr. Beeby has just returned to Canterbury College after two years' research work in experimental psychology in the London and Manchester Universities. He took his doctorate at Manchester. Dr. Beeby has also had an opportunity of observing the trend of psychological research on the Continent.

Speaking of tho work of the Institute of Industrial Kesearch in England, which was run by the Government with no motive of monetary gain, Dr. Beeby showed how one of its activities was io try to increase the efficiency of the worker. One of the main avenues explored was the elimination of fatigue in the worker by means of rest pauses. Trials had been made in such big industrial concerns as Rowntree'a chocolate factory, where there was much mechanical work in the handling of the chocolates. By the elimination of unnecessary movements increased efficiency had been obtained with less expenditure of effort on the part of the worker. Again in such a job as the shifting of pig-iron an experiment was made whereby the men worked only 40 per cent, of the time and the output In consequence was increased by 300 per cent. The men were made to work for seven minutes and then have ten minutes' rest. It was found that one man, instead of shifting twelve and a half tons per day shifted forty-seven and a half tons.

The experiments were typical of the research that was going on in Europe and America into the psychological side of industry. Employers had found that overtime did not pay. "Engineers have been expending their brains for years in perfecting machinery to eliminate all waßte and obtain the highest possible efficiency, and they are only now beginning to realise that they must consider the man as much as the machine with a view to making him efficient," concluded Dr. Baebv.