MEN AND MACHINES

Evening Star, Issue 19618, 26 July 1927, Page 5

MEN AND MACHINES

ELIMINATION OF FATIGUE SOME ASTONISHING EXPERIMENTS THE OVERTIME FALLACY. [Special to the 1 Siah.’] CHRISTCHURCH, July 26. Instructive details concerning the success width has attended the application of practical psychology to organisation of industry, especially iu giant industrial concerns, were given by Dr C. E. Beeby to a ‘ Press 1 representative. Dr Beeby has just returned to Canterbury College after two years’ research work iu experimental psychology in London and Manchester Universities. He also had an opportunity of observing the trend of., psychological research on the Continent. Speaking of the work of the Institute of Industrial Research m England, which is run by the Government with no motive of monetary gain, Dr Beeby showed how one of its activities was to try to increase the efficiency of the worker. One of the main avenues. explored. was , the cliniintaion of iatiguo m the worker by means of rest pauses. Trials, he said, had been made in such big industrial concerns as Rowntree’s chocolate factory, where there was much mechanical work in handling chocolates. By the elimination of unnecessary movements, increased efficiency had been obtained with less expenditure of effort on the part of the worker. Again, iu such a job as the shifting of pig iron, an experiment was made whereby the men worked lor 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 to have tea minutes’ rest. It was found that one man, instead of shifting twelve and a-lialf tons per day, shifted fortv-soveu and a-lmlf tons.

Tlicso experiments weio. 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, and engineers who had been expending their brains for years in perfecting machinery to eliminate all waste and obtain the highest possible efficiency only now were beginning to realise that they must consider, the man as much as the machine, with a view to making him efficient.