Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-04-06
DEWSES SHORT CUTS
IN LAYING BRICKS
New Principles of Scientific
Management Applied to Sim
plest Building Operations.

"
American Magazine by Frederick w.
Taylor, the originator of the new
principles that are attracting the at
tention of the business world. The
April number of this magazine con
tains the second of the articles on the
subject and in it Mr.. Taylor describes
how much the application of the new
theories had improved the
art of laying bricks. He says:
IF any trade had reached a point at
which motion study would be non
productive. one would therefore eX-
hect to IND the bricklaying trade in
mat condition.. because 1000 years of
work, with thousand of men working
at 1t throughout the world should
certainly have evolved a good system
of bricklaying. Some four years ago
Frank B.. Gilbreth became interested in
During his youth Mr.. Gilbreth made a
very close and accurate study of brick
laying, and he said to himself that if
there was anything in the new idea
or motion study it ought to be as use
fui in bricklaying as it was in any,
thing else.
He therefore made an intensely in
teresting analysis and time study of
each movement of the bricklayer. He
placed himself on a scaffold with a
pile of bricks IN the floor and the
mortar board alongside him-a brick
motion made by a bricklayer was to
take a step to the right. Was h
step really necessary? Next, after
taking the step to the right, the brick
layer stopped down to the floor. dis
ngage a brick from the pile of
either to full height or to partial
height. Was it really necessary for the
bricklayer to lower his body, weighing
from $50 to 240 pounds. to the tioor in
order to raise an S-pound brick 2A
feet?
Devises scaffold.
TO eliminate these waste motions,
Mr.. Gilbreth, after q great deal of
work. devised an adjustable scaffold
upon which the bricks were placed at
the same level with the wall. 1t was
a scaffOld on which the man stood in
one place, while a little table was
placed alongside him on which the
bricks and mortar rested. It was so
very simple an invention that one
wonders why 1t was not thought of
1000 years ago. The bricks were
placed on this supplementary platform
at just h right height. so that the
bricklayer merely turned round, picked
up a brick with a rotary motion of the
body and put it IN the wall.
MIR. Gilbreth next found that every
b~ricklayer. as he raised the brick up,
threw it over in his hand at least once,
sometimes twice. sometimes three
times. This. was lone for the purpose
OF examining the brick so tnat no
Clipped of imperfect brick should be
placed on the outside of the wall
where it would show. Mr.. Gilbreth
asked: Is this act of throwing up the
brick for examination absolutely essen
tial, or - it wholly wasteful? After a
great deal of though he devised the
following plan for doing away with all
OF these notions: AS the bricks were
unloaded from the car or from a team.
a laborer was stationed at a suitable
bench, where the brick were examined
by him, and placed right side up with
the proper edge and the proper end on
a wooden frame about three feet long,
called a packet. This frame held
about 80 pounds of bricks. and was so
constructed that the bricklayer's hand
went right into 1t M seized the brick
without having to disengage it from a
tangle on the floor. He took a brick
out in the a position in which it
was to be laid in the wall, without
any throwing.
Further Simplicity.
"Mr. Gilbreth next found that the
at a time. Why? Because the brick
pile bling or the floor and the mortar
board some distance from it. they were
too far apart for the man to take a
dip of the mortar and pick up a brick
at the same time; it took two motions.
BY building the scaffold by the method
described, and by placing the bricks
and the mortar close together, using
deep mortar box instead of a mortar
board, brick pile and mortar box
were brought within the range Of the
bricklayer's eyes at the same time, so
that he picked up a brick with the
left hand, took a dip Of mortar with
the right hand with a single move
ment and then turned around, spread
the mortar, Inc laid the brick in the
wall.
All b%ricklayers, after they set a
brick, tap it down in order to get the
Joint the right thickness. From his
experience In his youth, Mr.. Gilbreth
knew that IL the mortar was properly
tempered 1t was possible to place the
brick at the right height with a pres
sure Of the hand. The mortar was
therefore carefully tempered, SO that
the bricklayer could readily bed the
brick with pressure from the hand and
thus save the time taken in tapping.
.Through this minute study of the
motions to be made by the bricklayer
in laying bricks under all standard
conditions, Mr.. Gilbreth has reduced
his movements from Is to q brick to
fye. and even in one case to as low as
two motions per brick"
Good Disposition.
The section foreman was labori0usly
alline out q report covering the killing OF
: COW by second section of No "a.
The fussy claim agent certainly required
an unreasonable amount Of information,