INDUSTRIAL 

 EFFICIENCY AND FATIGUE 



At the present time we are offered a unique oppor- 

 tunity for investigating problems of industrial effi- 

 ciency and fatigue. And this for several reasons. 

 The country is full of munition factories where huge 

 numbers of men and women are labouring day and 

 night to produce their maximum output. Now, if 

 ever, the large majority of them are exerting the 

 greatest effort of which they are physically capable, 

 and are in no way subjecting their output to artificial 

 restrictions and limitations. Moreover, most of these 

 munition workers are engaged on repetition work, or 

 they are manufacturing exactly the same article on 

 the same machines day after day, month after month, 

 and year after year. Hence it sometimes happens 

 that the conditions of production remain constant for 

 months and years, with the exception of some altera- 

 tion of hours. By studying the output of these 

 workers systematically we are therefore enabled to 

 obtain invaluable evidence as to the effect of various 

 lengths of working hours upon the hourly output and 

 the total output. Our object is the practical one of 

 finding the conditions which result in the greatest 

 possible output. We do not want a spurt in output 

 lasting a few days or weeks, but a steady maximum 

 lasting for months and years. That is to say, we 

 want to get all we can out of our munition workers, 



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