Now the act of shoveling
was approached with the carefulness with which a scholar turns to any
subtle process in his laboratory. The brilliant originator of the
scientific management movement, who carried out these investigations[28]
in the great Bethlehem Steel Works, where hundreds of laborers had to
shovel heavy iron ore or light ashes, found that the usual chance
methods involve an absurd economic waste. The burden was sometimes so
heavy that rapid fatigue developed and the movements became too slow,
or the lifted mass was so light that the larger part of the laborer's
energies remained unused. In either case the final result of the day's
work must be anti-economic. He therefore tested with carefully graded
experiments what weight ensured the most favorable achievement by a
strong healthy workingman. The aim was to find the weight which would
secure with well-arranged pauses the maximum product in one day
without over-fatigue. As soon as this weight was determined, a
special set of shovels had to be constructed for every particular kind
of material. The laborers were now obliged to operate with 10
different kinds of shovels, each of such a size that the burden always
remained an average of 21 pounds for any kind of material. The
following step was an exact determination of the most favorable
rapidity and the most perfect movement of shoveling, the best
distribution of pauses, and so on, and the final outcome was that only
140 men were needed where on the basis of the old plan about 500
laborers had been engaged.
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