The Gilbreths

Frank (1888-1924) and Lilian (1878-1972) were a husband and wife team who also contributed to scientific management. Lilian focused her studies on ways of promoting the welfare of the individual worker. To her, scientific management has one ultimate aim: to help workers reach their full potential as human beings. Lilian also assisted Frank in the areas of time and motion studies and industrial efficiency and was an earlier contributor to personnel management. Frank who began his work as an apprentice bricklayer, developed a technique that tripled the amount of work a bricklayer could do in a day. He studied motion and fatigue and said that they were intertwined. Every motion that was eliminated also reduced fatigue. Both Gilbreths argued that motion study would raise morale because of its obvious physical benefits. They developed a three position plan of promotion that was intended to serve as an employee development program as well as a morale booster. According to this plan a worker would do his or her present job, prepare for the next one and train his or her successor all at the same time. Thus every worker would always be a doer, a learner and trainer and hence workers would look forward to new opportunities.