Investigation shows that in most industrial plants at least three-quarters of the men are badly placed, which does not in the least mean that the men are undesirable. An intelli gent readjustment and reassignment of positions without discharge may improve the efficiency of a plant 30% to 40%.
Efficiency tests and analyses, tests of operation, not of or ganization, always show, among the day wage-earners in the same plant, individual variations between 30% and 120%; the extremes of actual test on a whole month's work being 7% and 210%. The 210% man was evidently, by accident or choice, extremely well-fitted to his work; the 7% man was equally, by accident or choice, extremely poorly fitted to his work. Operation can gradually, in the course of months and years, eliminate men of low efficiency, and by experiment and test and successive discharges replace them with men of higher efficiency. In this way it is possible in the course of three or four years to bring the efficiency of operation up from 50% to 100%, but as an element in organization it is possible by predetermination of aptitudes to curtail the time very greatly and in the end secure a better personnel? 3, Period,s of rest and relaxation.—While it is true that experiments have shown that a man-power is equivalent to about of a there are elements in labor power that do not need to be considered in determining mechanical efficiency. A man is spending his own energy, first for himself, and then indirectly for the benefit of the manager. When a man reaches the fatigue point, the consequences of continued labor are something more than slackened production; he is robbing himself of his health—the storage battery of his working power. It is at this point that employers of labor need more knowledge of the relationship which should exist between the pe riods of rest and relaxation for "different volumes of load" carried by the laborers. They should be able to see how to adjust these periods in the predetermina tion of industrial operations so as to obtain the maxi mum of work without exceeding the "elastic limit" of the employe. It was along this line that Mr. F. W. Taylor conducted some of his most important investi gations. He not only recognized that the working time units must be separated from the resting-time units, but he was the first to point out that the differ ent kinds of work require different percentages of rest, according to the kind and nature of the work done.
Altho little work has as yet been done along this line, there are evidences of much interest in the deter mination of a fair day's work. Time studies, fatigue studies, work records, etc., are growing quite common, and their results all bear on the determination of a fair day's work.
4. A fair day's pay.—Closely associated with the problem of a fair day's work is the question. of a fair day's pay. They are the two sides of the same shield. The employer sees one side ; the employe the other. It will, however, be a comparatively simple thing to determine a fair wage when we know how to estimate the labor involved. Yet there are other elements to be considered besides the amount of energy expended by the laborer, and the rate per day that he is paid by the manager. These are (1) steadiness of employ ment, (2) permanency of employment and (3) future prospects.
Altho American business men proved to the world that high wages do not necessarily mean high costs of production, it seems difficult for many employers to see the application of this principle when they are brought face to face with the question of labor costs in their own store or factory. They see the "wages paid" but forget the "output." "Wages paid" are high or low, according to the size of the output ; "wages received" are high or low, in proportion to the time which the laborer takes to do the work. The combina tion of low wages given with high wages received would prove to be ideal.
5. Illustrations.—CAsE I: Assume that a work man turns out ten units of a given product, for which he is paid $3 a day. The upkeep, interest and de preciation of his machine amount to $6 a day. The factory overhead cost, distributed to either the man or the machine, is $1.50 a day. The material required for the ten units costs $7.50. While this is purely a supposition, the proportions are typical. The cost is WO for each piece. In the form of a simple equa tion the results work out as follows: This equals a piece-rate of 30 cents of wages to the workman. If the employe can be induced to increase his output, the more he makes the cheaper becomes the cost.