Three rare papers by Frank Gilbreth and (the second) Gilbreth and his wife, Lillian .M. Gilbreth (Ph.D.). The three papers: $800
First paper:
Frank B. Gilbreth, "Scientific management in the hospital." ("Delivered at the American Hospital Association, St. Paul, Minnesota"). 1914 (Scott Goodwin, in Mapping the Path to 21st Century Healthcare: The Ten Transitions Workbook, notes this paper as being published in 1914), 9.75 x 6.5" , 10pp, paginated (1)-10. Original self-wrappers , with no "cover" per se. Condition: There are two very old horizontal folds in the pamphlet, the indentation from which are almost indiscernible. Provenance: Library of Congress, with their 6mm "LC" perforated stamp on the front page, and the LC surplus/duplicate rubber stamp on the rear page. here is also a very faint and small rubber stamp on the bottom of page 2 stipulating "Gift/Author/[illegible]/191(6?) There is no indication as to who published this paper, though I suspect it was by the Transactions of the American Hospital Association, vol. 16, for their Sixteenth Annual Conference, and printed on pp 483-492. This offprint version is mostly the same as the version that would be printed in the journal, except that the journal version has an organizational chart, and this paper does not. Overall, near-Very Good. Scarce.
Frank Gilbreth was a pioneer in scientific management--some think of him (and later, Gilbreth and his wife) along similar lines as F.W. Taylor, though the major difference that I can see is that Taylor would measure efficiency differently, using his methods to make the worker more effective by controlling his action; Gilbreth looked more at the methods and materials, and tried to achieve more or less the same results in efficiency though in a more worker-friendly attitude.
In this paper, Gilbreth makes a very very wide statement on how U.S. hospitals could benefit from his motion and materials analysis. His assertion was sort of remarkable, made in the closing sentences of the paper:
"Scientific Management will cause elimination not only of waste of materials, but of waste of human effort, which is, in the final analysis, the most pitiful waste of all.
When your management becomes a science, there will result greater efficiency in you as individuals, and in the great work of the hospitals to which you all devote your lives."
"We have been very fortunate in obtaining the attention and interest of such well-known leaders as your President, Dr. Howell, and some of the other leading surgeons of this and other countries; but we have not, as yet, been able to obtain any action to amount to anything, because of the fact that the entire structure upon which hospital management is built is wrong. As the incentive, so will the result be, sooner or later. The incentive necessary to adopt the best from the industries does not exist at present."
Also from the Gilbreth paper:
- ‘There are several concessions you must make at the outset before you can expect to do any valuable work in introducing the science of management into the hospitals. The first is you must submit to having accurate measurement applied to your present methods and practices. The second concession that must be made is the willingness to allow a man not trained in surgery to apply the measurement and determine the resulting standard. We can show you pictures which illustrate plainly the fact that standardization such as used under scientific management is today practically unknown…especially in the operating room."
- ‘When your management becomes a science there will result greater efficiency in you as individuals and in the great work of the hospitals to which you devote your lives’’.
"The Gilbreths’ primary focus was on work performance and worker satisfaction. They conducted pioneering research in the fields of time and motion study. This covered the livelong search for ‘‘The One Best Way’’ in organising and executing work flows and processes..." See: Frank and Lillian Gilbreth: scientific management in the operating room A Baumgart,1 D Neuhauser2 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1023.2409&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Second Paper:
Frank B. Gilbreth and L.M. Gilbreth, "Chronocyclegraph Motion devices for Measuring Achievement" ("A Paper presented at the Second Pan-American Congress at Washington, D.C.m January 3, 1916"). 9.75 x 6.5", 14pp. Original self wraps (as above). This paper was written with Gilbreth's wife, Lillian, who had just been awarded a doctorate in psychology and who was also one of the first women to practice in the U.S. with a doctorate in that field.) Condition: There are two very old horizontal folds in the pamphlet, the indentation from which are almost indiscernible. Provenance: Library of Congress, with their 6mm "LC" perforated stamp on the front page, and the LC surplus/duplicate rubber stamp on the rear page. here is also a very faint and small rubber stamp on the bottom of page 2 stipulating "Gift/Author/[illegible]/1916".
- “In the early 20th century, efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth used still and motion-picture cameras in place of a stopwatch to try to improve the efficiency, and thereby the effectiveness, of surgery.
- “ One of its key figures was the industrial efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth (who) employed still and motion-picture cameras in his measurements, and he expanded his visual efficiency services -- dubbed "motion study" -- from industrial settings to the medical profession in the early 1910s. When he gained access to hospitals, Gilbreth transformed their operating rooms into efficiency laboratories, covering all available surfaces with gridded lines, and requiring the masked surgeons and nurses to don numbered or lettered caps to aid in his analysis of their movements across the axes of the surgical space...”
- “Surgeons saw in motion-based efficiency study the potential to reduce, through faster operating procedures, their patients' exposure to what was at the time a leading cause of patient deaths: ether. Furthermore, they found in the process both the challenge and assurance that the outcome of a surgical intervention lay quite literally in their hands. Improving the efficiency and precision of the surgeon was as important as ensuring the quality of the tools he held.”
- Quotes from: Gainty, Caitjan, "Mr. Gilbreth's Motion Pictures -- The Evolution of Medical Efficiency".The New England Journal of Medicine; Boston Vol. 374, Iss. 2, (Jan 14, 2016): 109-111.
Third paper:
Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth, "Motion Study and Time Study Instruments of Precision". 9x6", with 11 illustrations of the equipment and film samples. Printed 1915. Provenance: Library of Congress, with their 6mm "LC" perforated stamp on the front page, and the LC surplus/duplicate rubber stamp on the rear page. here is also a very faint and small rubber stamp on the bottom of page 2 stipulating "Gift/Author/[illegible]/1916".
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