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GILBRETH, Frank B.
Bricklaying System.
Publisher: New York & Chicago: The Myron C. Clark Publishing Co. 1909
Stock code: 59370
Price: £750 Currency Conversion
First edition of one of the pioneer works in time and motion studies, preceding by two years Frederick Winslow Taylor's better-known The Principles of Scientific Management (PMM 403). "Gilbreth takes his place with Taylor and Gantt as the third point in the triangular foundation on which the full science of management was built" (Urwick & Brech, Scientific Management, p. 126). Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924) and his wife Lilian were important promoters of Taylor and his circle, though Gilbreth had already been an innovative building contractor for 12 years before his first meeting with Taylor in 1907. Gilbreth developed improved cement mixers, techniques for driving concrete foundation piles swiftly, and an adjustable scaffold to keep the masons level with the wall they were building. He employed Stanford Thompson, Taylor's time study expert, to introduce time study for piece rate setting on his building sites, while he himself undertook systematic motion study experiments on bricklayers and claimed to have reduced their motions from as many as eighteen down to four. Taylor used Gilbreth's bricklaying achievements in his own work to illustrate the efficacy of the stopwatch technique he called the "keystone" of scientific management.
Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt and with two-line gilt rules at head and tail, covers with two-line border blocked in blind. Illustrated throughout the text with 171 photo illustrations and 73 line drawings. Extremities a little rubbed, an excellent copy.
