270 
Efficiency  in  Drug  Stores. 
{ Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
\     June,  1914. 
corn  cures,  epsom  salts,  seidlitz  powders,  etc.  You  can  only  afford 
to  spend  energy  on  larger  sales. 
This  capacity  to  assign  yourself,  subordinates,  material,  etc.,  is 
calculated  as  efficiency  of  assignment.  Consult  your  records,  find 
the  most  profitable  hour  of  employment.  This  is  your  standard 
worth  for  an  hour.  For  example,  suppose  that  for  a  given  hour 
your  efficiency  of  supply  was  91.7  per  cent.;  in  other  words,  that 
you  profitably  employed  forty-five  minutes  out  of  the  sixty  in  that 
hour.  Your  efficiency  of  use  was  85  per  cent. ;  in  other  words,  you 
folded,  labelled  and  packed  eighty-five  seidlitz  powders  during  that 
hour,  where  your  standard  number  for  that  hour  should  have  been 
one  hundred.  The  end  efficiency  of  supply  and  use,  therefore,  was 
eighty-hundredths  of  91.7  per  cent.,  or  about  78  per  cent.  Since  a 
girl  might  have  folded,  labelled  and  packed  those  eighty-five  powders 
in  forty-five  minutes,  and  her  wages  for  the  forty-five  minutes  would 
have  been  twenty  cents,  the  actual  commercial  value  of  what  you 
accomplished  during  that  hour  was  twenty  cents.  For  the  purpose 
of  illustration,  let  us  fix  your  standard  worth  at  $1.00  for  the  hour. 
Twenty  cents  is  20  per  cent,  of  $1.00;  this  is  your  efficiency  of 
assignment  for  that  hour.  Your  end  efficiency  for  supply,  use,  and 
assignment  is  therefore  85  x  91.7  x  20  per  cent.,  or  15.5  per  cent. 
Efficiency  of  assignment  is  measured  by  the  ratio  between  actual 
value  of  what  is  accomplished  or  produced  in  a  given  time  or  from 
a  given  material  or  a  given  equipment  and  the  standard  value  of 
production  for  such  time,  material  or  equipment. 
All  the  work  in  learning  and  applying  the  first  five  practical  prin- 
ciples of  efficiency  has  been  not  only  leading  up  to  the  sixth  prin- 
ciple, but  actually  compelling  you  to  apply  it. 
The  sixth  principle  is  standardized  operations. 
It  is  obvious  that  there  is  only  one  best,  easiest  and  quickest  way 
to  do  any  given  thing. 
There  may  be  one  hundred  different  ways  of  doing  a  thing.  This 
brings  the  case  under  the  mathematical  law  of  probability.  The 
chance  that  you  may  happen  upon  the  one  best,  easiest  and  quickest 
way  is  only  one  in  a  hundred.  To  show  how  slight  are  the  chances 
of  happening  to  choose  the  right  operation,  Mr.  Emerson  cites  the 
case  of  an  executive  whose  work  he  was  called  upon  to  study.  This 
man's  working  day  was  fifteen  hours,  and  he  was  always  "  terribly 
busy."  As  he  did  not  plan  his  work,  but  simply  turned  feverishly 
from  one  task  to  another  as  they  presented  themselves,  he  wasted 
