The average workingman who had previously
shoveled 16 tons of material, now managed 59 tons without greater
fatigue. The wages were raised by two thirds and the expenses for
shoveling a ton of material were decreased one half This calculation
of expenses included, of course, a consideration of the increased cost
for tools and for the salaries of the scientific managers.
Whoever visits factories in which the new system has been introduced
by real specialists must be surprised, indeed, by the great effects
which often result from the better psychophysical adaptation of the
simplest and apparently most indifferent tools and means. As far as
the complicated machines are concerned, we are accustomed to a steady
improvement by the efforts of the technicians and we notice it rather
little if the changes in them are introduced for psychological instead
of the usual physical reasons. But the fact that even the least
complicated and most indifferent devices can undergo most influential
improvements, as soon as they are seriously studied from a
psychological point of view, remains really a source for surprise.
Sometimes no more is needed than a change in the windows or in the
electric lamps, by which the light can fall on the work in a
psychologically satisfactory way; sometimes long series of experiments
have to be made with a simple hammer or knife or table. Often
everything must be arranged against the wishes of the workingmen, who
feel any deviation from the accustomed conditions as a disturbance
which is to be regarded with suspicion.
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