INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19867, 13 August 1926, Page 12

INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY.

. VALUE OF INDIVIDUALITY. Men who have the constructive Imagination necessary for building up modern businesses on a large scale have always bad sufficient Insight to see that the efficiency ot the human factor was always at least as Important. as that of their machines. ’ But opinions have differed widely how this human efficiency could best be gained. At present there are two schools of opinion In the field, and Mr It. M. Fox discusses the issue between them in an article on the-’’Psychology ot the Workshop” in the June number of the Nineteenth Century and After. He claims several years' workshop experience. The older school of efficiency experts believed In Intense specialisation. Bach employee was to be taught one small part of the work. The export taught the workman a series of rapid motions which he had to reproduce without variation. High-speed monotony was the aim. The incoherent objection of the workers soon found scientific support. It was claimed that no two machines of similar pattern would do their best work If treated In precisely similar ways. If machinery has a certain individuality, and is endowed with peculiarities which must be respected, how much more important a factor Is the Individuality of human beings! Mr Fox maintains that while monotony Is preferred by some men, an overdose ot It Is bad for all except perhaps the very dullest: bad not only morally, but Intellectually, but bad also from the standpoint of efficient work. To most it becomes a dull ache and oppression, and any relief Is welcomed. This half-conscious rebellion against monotony Is, he thinks, one of the most powerful causes of Industrial unrest. It is there always to be worked on by some more definite grievance. “No one who has been, as I have. In a workshop where that sense of exaltation, solidarity, power, and expectancy called strike feeling has swept through the works,” says Mr Fox. "can doubt that It Is partly a psychological reaction against the stateness and hpredom of mechanical routine." Henry Ford, the archpriest of the older order, has now found that It pays to install a “change ot work” bureau In his factories, through which the men suffering from staleness can be put on to another part ot the work. Mr Fox says that the loss ot efficiency through readjustment Is not to bo compared, with the gain from Increased interest and vitality. Discipline In the workshop Is also a matter ot much difference of opinion. - During the war It was thought that silent concentration served best. Now there Is a tendency to learn from army experience that a free flow ot cheerfulness-and animal spirits helps to reduce fatigue and carry tho work forward with a swing. "My own opinion," says a chocolate manufacturer, “Is that singing tends to Increase output.” Mr Fox pleads also that the relief of ugliness would be worth while. “Probably not many take conscious notice of ’the hideous rawness of Industrial towns ' and plants, but surely a workroom which Is an eyesore Intensifies monotony and Weariness Some architectural beauty, not so much In the direction of ornament—as in Willalm Morris’s dream of a factory—but of simple fitness, is required. There are workshops that possess the dignity of a Bragwyn drawing: others are Just ramshackle corrugated iron makeshifts or concrete horrors.” Respect for status is also claimed by Mr Pox In the cause ot efficiency. "Upholders of managerial rights refuse to see that the more they depress,the status ot the worker and make of him a being apart, the more Jhqy drive him to lose all interest In the work.” Mr Fox affirms throughout his article that carefully observed experience proves that tho laterals of utility can best be served by methods that develop the individuality of the worker.