It is the function of efficiency engineering to eliminate or at least lessen industrial losses, especially those due to dependent sequence. Efficiency engineering, the accomplishing of results with less materials, less human effort, less equipment, is very old. Jethro, a rank outsider, gave Moses excellent efficiency coun sel: "Thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk and the work they must do. So Moses harkened to the voice of his father in-law and did all that he had Christ constantly both by precept and example showed how to accomplish much with a minimum of effort. Hideyoshi, the great Japanese reformer of the 16th century, originated and put into practice many efficiency engineering methods, reducing the castle fuel cost to one-third; building a wall in three days instead of three weeks, although he abolished overtime and paid a bonus; conquering a strong castle single-handed, although his lord had lost 5,000 men in a previous futile attempt.
Efficiency engineering began to emerge as a distinct branch of science when the doctrines of the correlation of forces and conservation of energy were accepted. It acquired solid footing when Joules experimentally and Meyer deductively established that 774 foot pounds could be converted into a rise of temperature of one degree Fahrenheit in a pound of water, or, vice-versa, that this amount of heat would raise 774 pounds one foot. Yet when either of these feats was attempted experimentally, there was great loss. It became the duty of the efficiency engineer to discover the losses, then to minimize them. The standard had been established, accepted. This was the aim or ideal. The next step was to examine and set forth the actual conditions, so different from the standard. The next step, the peculiar function of efficiency engineering, was so to better actuality, so continuously and intel ligently to remove the friction and other losses, as to force the actual gradually to approximate the ideal. The standard was there. It could be realized to the extent of 30 per cent, 60 per cent, perhaps 99 per cent, an efficiency of 30, of 60, of 99 per cent could be attained.
There are a definite number of heat units in a pound of coal, but how much energy is there in a man? A horse power is convention ally stated as 33,000 foot pounds a minute. The weight of the horse, an all-important item, is not given. Let us assume it as 1,200 pounds. The potential energy of all animals is in pro portion to the daily calories eaten and this again is often proportional to the weight. A man weighing 120 pounds is capable of deliver ing 3,300 foot pounds a minute or one-tenth of a horse power. Can a man climb a moun tain 5,000 feet high in three hours? He can. Could he do more? By studying heart beats, respiration, muscle fatigue, it was ascertained that without undue strain a man could for any period up to 12 hours do about one-half of the maximum attained for the same period. The reasons for short hours are not that the man will wear out from overstrain or fatigue, but to give him time for other than working interests. There are outputs of energy so severe that they can be endured but a few seconds a day, as running 100 yards in 10 seconds. There are other occupations so quiescent, as that of a watchman at a gate, that even 16 hours a day would not exhaust nor brutalize. It is one of the thief functions of the efficiency engineer to set physiological and physical standards, also with due con sideration of the psychological. A man .can do more when he is interested, when he is stimu lated, when he is well, when he is skilled, when be works in form.
The efficiency engineer is the opposite of the accountant. The accountant is concerned with authority, with allotment of charges and credits and with accuracy. No one can open
an account in a bank until authority has been granted. The deposits must be most carefully credited to the right account and similarly all checks must be charged to the right account. Finally by long tradition and correct practice both deposits and withdrawals must be most accurately summed up. The accountant is much concerned when the two sides of his statement do not balance to a cent. The effi ciency engineer is very little concerned with either authority, allotment or accuracy. He wants to know the aim. It may be to obtain a horse power from one pound of coal, an aim much below what is theoretically possible. In establishing this aim he uses not theory but common sense. The aim may have been already attained, sometime, somewhere. It may al most have been attained under conditions that could be bettered. He next wants to know the actual state of the art which may be using five pounds of coal. The actuality is subjected in its every step to close and intelligent investi gation. All along the line from coal in mine to ash pile and escaping smoke, through all the dependent sequences of faulty equipment, transportation, furnace, boilers, piping, engine, transmission members, there are a series of little wastes. By patient elimination or at least improvement of the successive steps wastes are cut down to such an extent that the aim is realized. The first question should, however, always be — Is the aim worth while? Should power be produced? The Eskimo who floated up the estuary on the incoming tide, who crossed by means of a sail and who came down on the ebb utilized in succession moon; sun and earth as his motive powers and neither of his prime movers could be improved in efficiency. The white man, too impatient to wait for tide and wind, uses coal, utilizes at best only one-fifth of its power.
The efficiency engineer regards all results as made up of material contributions, personal contributions and equipment contributions. These three different elements are subject to very different laws and cannot be treated in the same manner. Materials require storage and careful use. Equipment requires storage, careful use, and in addition continuous, high-grade maintenance. Personnel requires housing, direction, high-Fade maintenance, but in addition a far-reaching psychological con trol. Everyone owning a motor car knows that the fuel, the car and the chauffeur are differ ent problems.
In the subclass United States railroads of the larger division of transportation, the rela tion of materials, personnel and equipment charges are 3:5:7. In the packing industry materials (cattle, hogs) are overwhelmingly important, personnel comes next and equipment last. Because of these differences railroads turn over their capital once in five years, have to operate at low ratio, 60 per cent to 75 per cent, and are lucky to pay 5 per cent or 6 per cent dividends, while the big packing in dustry turns over its capital five to six times a year, operates on a margin between cost and sales of 2 per cent or 3 per cent and can pay 20 per cent dividends. In these combinations of material, personnel, equipment, any one or more may be high in efficiency, any one or more may be low. A first class man may be running a very poor machine or vice-versa. To a good furnace poor coal may be fed or good coal may be fed under a poor boiler. But the combination to be controlled and regulated is not only of materials, personnel and equip ment, it is as to each a further combination of quantity and quality, each with its own efficiencies. This leads to the universal formula for production, a formula that equally applies to all the battling hosts of Europe, or to the operations of all the railroads or to the making of a pia.