The Timaru Hearld TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1944. German Industrial Efficiency

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23013, 3 October 1944, Page 4

The Timaru Hearld TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1944. German Industrial Efficiency

W ITH the idea of increasing efficiency in the war industries German industrial workers are paid according to individual or group efficiency on the basis of wage schedules devised by time-study engineers. The German Labour Front is responsible for most of this work. Between 1933 and 1943 the Front trained 50,000 of these engineers. But reports indicate that the result has not been an increase in production or general individual efficiency. There has been a gradual loss in efficiency only partly compensated for by longer working hours, the employment, where possible, of more workers and the simplification of production processes and working methods. The loss of efficiency has been a steady and cumulative process. Investigations in one factory, conducted over a long period, revealed that the war objective was to increase output up to 25 per cent, by the simple process of increasing working hours by per cent. The actual increase, however, was found to be only 5 per cent.

“The idea that a war-economy increases productivity is, in general, an uncritical one,” states the Economist. “It is usually overlooked that the extreme standardisation and rationalisation ,which make it possible to dispense with the high percentages of very skilled workers do not result in an actually higher output per manhour —though they do, of course, result in considerable increases in output per unskilled manhour. Rationalisation and standardisation are devices which enable industry to employ unskilled labour. There is in all countries at war a considerable increase in faulty material and rejects. The cause may be bad raw material, unskilful use of machinery, inexperience, carelessness in checking or the wrong assembly of parts. And the absence of competition tends to prevent this increase in faulty material from reducing profits the incentive to good work and organisation is reduced.’ There are special factors in Germany which must inevitably contribute to loss of efficiency. Foreign workers, for example, are not likely to co-operate enthusiastically with the enemy. The large-scale employment of unskilled female labour must also hold down factory output. Somewhat childish psychological methods have apparently been adopted to stimulate production. To cope with absenteeism, blackboards are. set on which each absentee is named. Efficiency competitions, medals, decorations and facilities for holidays are used to replace the normal incentive of higher wages. Foreign workers are given the chance to attend special classes from which they may emerge foremen or skilled workers. These methods are not very effective. Other devices are provided by the Institute for Labour Physiology. These Institutes have been busy for at least two decades studying the relations between working hours, fatigue and individual output. The fact that individual efficiency varies in degree during the day and during the week has been rediscovered by Nazis. The most recent “discovery” is that longer working hours produce greater fatigue if there are only one or two long breaks. Consequently the normal 10-hours day has now been broken up by a greater number of short breaks. It is asserted that after the introduction of more and shorter breaks output increases considerably. Since no country can fight a modern war without the maximum backing from industry, Germany is forced to exert an utmost effort to maintain production under extraordinarily difficult conditions. The continuous Allied air offensive has compelled dispersion of factories, a fact which does not make for the greatest efficiency. The workers have also been worn down by the air assault. A break on the industrial front can be just as important as decisive routs on the battlefield, and the Nazi leaders have an equal chance of meeting both as the Allied ring tightens round the Reich.