Industrial Hygiene as a Factor in Production

T was not always a pleasant duty during the war period to show credentials to a plant manager and to announce the unpopular task of plant inspection. Government inspectors were constantly coming and going until the managers often begged for a respite that they might have time to attend to their work. Occasionally, however, managers welcomed inspectors. At times when the inspectors were specialists in their field, they were eagerly sought. It fell to the lot of the office to which the writer was attached to receive requests to assist plants where either the raw materials, intermediates or finished products constituted a health hazard. The management at such times was puzzled as to how to check high sick rate, absenteeism and decreased production in certain departments. Often, despite strenuous efforts to recruit employees, despite a constant force of new employees being hired and in the face of a persistent demand to increase output, the working force decreased. Impressions received while on such duties have fully confirmed the writer's opinions concerning the close relationship which, under other circumstances, he has observed between safe working conditions and a normal output. It is, among those who have followed scientific production, a demonstrated fact that working conditions have a determinable relationship to output. When these working conditions are insanitary, output diminishes; when they conform to hygienic laws, output approximates its maximum, other things being normal. WORKING CONDITIONS RETARDING PRODUCTION

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