ABSTRACT
The origins of Human Factors are often quoted as residing in a study of shovel design carried out in the late 1890s. The study was conducted by the Quaker engineer Frederick W.Taylor, who is primarily remembered for his principles of scientific management (see biographies by Kakar, 1970; Nelson, 1980; Zalesnik, 1966). In 1878 Taylor began work as a foreman at Bethlehem Steel Works in the US eventually becoming promoted to chief engineer. During this time, he had begun to take a keen interest in the best way to do a job in order to ensure the workers’ productivity (see Taylor, 1911). Taylor studied the actions of the workers, their use of equipment and their rest periods, and related this to levels of productivity. He began by collecting baseline data, i.e. information about the workers, their tools and the materials (iron ore and steel) to be moved. Anywhere between 400 and 600 full-time workers brought their own shovels to work and used them to shift different types of material. Shovel loads varied from 3.5 pounds for coal to 38 pounds for iron ore-pounds being the imperial measure in use at
this time-equivalent to 1.6 kilograms for coal to 17.2 kilograms for iron ore. Taylor’s optimal shovel load was 9 kilograms; this is in the middle of the range of 5-11 kilograms specified by Frievalds (1986) in a review of the ergonomics of spade design and shovelling. Once Taylor had collected his baseline information, he began the second phase of his study. This was an experimental investigation in which two men moved materials with an array of shovels that decreased in size. Taylor concluded that the best shovel load was one weighing around 21 pounds (9.5 kilograms), and that different sized shovels would be needed to shift the various materials. He used this information to persuade the management at the steel works to purchase a range of shovels for different people and various shovelling tasks. Moreover, he kept records of individual worker productivity and provided training for those who were not meeting targets. Over a 3-year period, the costs of shovelling fell by a half. However, this was probably in part due to the fact that the number of shovellers fell to 140. Taylor’s now well-known shovelling study comprised one of the first ‘time and motion’ studies (Taylor, 1903). He found that through these time and motion studies he could break jobs down into smaller, well-defined tasks and then devise a better, more efficient way to perform the same jobs, i.e. increase the worker’s productivity. Taylor also generalised from one situation to another. For example, he carried out about 40,000 experiments to find the best ways of cutting metal (Taylor, 1907). Although Taylor’s early work at the Midvale Steel Company focused on how workers managed their jobs, i.e. the time and motion studies, his later interest concerned managing workers. He was particularly interested in the piecework method of production and payment. The principles of scientific management for which Taylor is probably best remembered emanated primarily from this later work. Taylor’s primary interest was in increasing productivity and, because of this, it has been argued that Taylor’s motives were not entirely for the benefit of the workers, i.e. human-centred (Ryan and Smith, 1954). Hence, many workers considered ‘Taylorism’ to be a form of exploitation and, in 1912, Taylor’s system of shop management was investigated by the US House of Representatives (Taylor, 1947). In his defence, Taylor did denounce the exploitation of workers at a public forum in 1916 (Berry and Houston, 1993).
