"Patrick, what are you doing back here? I thought we had gotten rid of you.""Well, sir, I'll tell you how it was.When we got out there Jimmy and I were put on to a car with eight other men.We started to shovel the ore out just the same as we do here.After about half an hour I saw a little devil alongside of me doing pretty near nothing, so I said to him, 'Why don't you go to work? Unless we get the ore out of this car we won't get any money on pay-day.' He turned to me and said, 'Who in -- -- -- are you?' 'Well,' I said, 'that's none of your business'; and the little devil stood up to me and said, 'You'll be minding your own business, or I'll throw you off this car!' 'Well, I could have spit on him and drowned him, but the rest of the men put down their shovels and looked as if they were going to back him up; so I went round to Jimmy and said (so that the whole gang could hear it), 'Now, Jimmy, you and I will throw a shovelful whenever this little devil throws one, and not another shovelful.' So we watched him, and only shoveled when he shoveled.-- When pay-day came around, though, we had less money than we got here at Bethlehem.After that Jimmy and I went in to the boss, and asked him for a car to ourselves, the same as we got at Bethlehem, but he told us to mind our own business.And when another pay-day came around we had less money than we got here at Bethlehem, so Jimmy and I got the gang together and brought them all back here to work again."When working each man for himself, these men were able to earn higher wages at 3 2/10 cents a ton than they could earn when they were paid 4 9/10 cents a ton on gang work; and this again shows the great gain which results from working according to even the most elementary of scientific principles.But it also shows that in the application of the most elementary principles it is necessary for the management to do their share of the work in cooperating with the workmen.The Pittsburg managers knew just how the results had been attained at Bethlehem, but they were unwilling to go to the small trouble and expense required to plan ahead and assign a separate car to each shoveler, and then keep an individual record of each man's work, and pay him just what he had earned.
Bricklaying is one of the oldest of our trades.For hundreds of years there has been little or no improvement made in the implements and materials used in this trade, nor in fact in the method of laying bricks.In spite of the millions of men who have practised this trade, no great improvement has been evolved for many generations.Here, then, at least, one would expect to find but little gain possible through scientific analysis and study.Mr Frank B.Gilbreth, a member of our Society, who had himself studied bricklaying in his youth, became interested in the principles of scientific management, and decided to apply them to the art of bricklaying.He made an intensely interesting analysis and study of each movement of the bricklayer, and one after another eliminated all unnecessary movements and substituted fast for slow motions.He experimented with every minute element which in any way affects the speed and the tiring of the bricklayer.
He developed the exact position which each of the feet of the bricklayer should occupy with relation to the wall, the mortar box, and the pile of bricks, and so made it unnecessary for him to take a step or two toward the pile of bricks and back again each time a brick is laid.
He studied the best height for the mortar box and brick pile, and then designed a scaffold, with a table on it, upon which all of the materials are placed, so as to keep the bricks, the mortar, the man, and the wall in their proper relative positions.These scaffolds are adjusted, as the wall grows in height, for all of the bricklayers by a laborer especially detailed for this purpose, and by this means the bricklayer is saved the exertion of stooping down to the level of his feet for each brick and each trowelful of mortar and then straightening up again.Think of the waste of effort that has gone on through all these years, with each bricklayer lowering his body, weighing, say, 150 pounds, down two feet and raising it up again every time a brick (weighing about 5 pounds) is laid in the wall! And this each bricklayer did about one thousand times a day.
As a result of further study, after the bricks are unloaded from the cars, and before bringing them to the bricklayer, they are carefully sorted by a laborer, and placed with their best edge up on a simple wooden frame, constructed so as to enable him to take hold of each brick in the quickest time and in the most advantageous position.In this way the bricklayer avoids either having to turn the brick over or end for end to examine it before laying it, and he saves, also, the time taken in deciding which is the best edge and end to place on the outside of the wall.In most eases, also, he saves the time taken in disentangling the brick from a disorderly pile on the scaffold.This "pack" of bricks (as Mr Gilbreth calls his loaded wooden frames) is placed by the helper in its proper position on the adjustable scaffold close to the mortar box.
We have all been used to seeing bricklayers tap each brick after it is placed on its bed of mortar several times with the end of the handle of the trowel so as to secure the right thickness for the joint.Mr Gilbreth found that by tempering the mortar just right, the bricks could be readily bedded to the proper depth by a downward pressure of the hand with which they are laid.He insisted that his mortar mixers should give special attention to tempering the mortar, and so save the time consumed in tapping the brick.
