Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

All human activity is a matter of motion and decision.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

We're all like tools. Not only like tools, we are tools, tools of Time. We're worn into grooves by Time — by our habits. In the end, these grooves are going to show whether we've been second-rate or champions, each in his way, in dispatching the affairs of every day. By choosing our habits, we determine the grooves into which Time will wear us; and these are grooves that enrich our lives and make for ease of mind, peace, happiness - achievement.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

Time study is the art of recording, analyzing, and synthesizing the time of the elements of any operation, usually a manual operation, but it has also been extended to mental and machinery operations.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

Motion study is the science of eliminating wastefulness resulting from using unnecessary, ill-directed, and inefficient motions. The aim of motion study is to find and perpetuate the scheme of least waste methods of labor.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

There is no waste of any kind in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed and ineffective motions, and their resulting unnecessary fatigue.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

There is no industrial opportunity that offers a richer return than the elimination of needless motions, and the transformation of ill-directed and ineffective motions into efficient activity.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

This country has been so rich in human and material resources that it is only recently that the importance of waste elimination has come to be realized. The material element received the first consideration, and in the comparatively few years during which the subject has received attention, an enormous amount has been done to conserve natural resources, to economize in the use.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

No definite and permanent advance is made in any kind of work, whether with materials or men, until use is made of measurement.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

[A]dvancement of the human factor in industry... varies so much that unless we use measurement and abide by the results, there is no possibility of repeating the process accurately and efficiently at will, or of predicting and controlling the future conditions that assure that advancement.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

Motion Study is a means to permanent and practical waste elimination, — hence a prerequisite to efficient preparedness that shall be adequate, constructive and cumulative.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

The greatest misunderstandings occur as to the aims of scientific management. Its fundamental aim is the elimination of waste, the attainment of worth-while desired results with the least necessary amount of time and effort. Scientific management may, and often does, result in expansion, but its primary aim is conservation and savings, making an adequate use of every ounce of energy of any type that is expended.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

The aim of the process chart is to present information regarding existing and proposed processes in such simple form that such information can become available to and usable by the greatest possible number of people in an organization before any changes whatever are actually made, so that the special knowledge and suggestions of those in positions of minor importance can be fully utilized.

— Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.