1. Where does new knowledge come from?
Efficiency & Learning
Where does new knowledge come from?

2. “The study or theory of the origin, nature and limits of knowledge”
epistemology
“The study or theory of the origin, nature and limits of knowledge”

3. learning Tabula Rasa- Innate Knowledge?Or
Innate Knowledge?
Does Efficiency increase by Analysis
by Imitation?

4. “Efficiency Experts:”
Frank & Lillian Gilbreth

5. Therbligs – 17 Elemental Motions
Search
Select
Grasp
Hold
Transport
Release
“Think”
Insomniac
Agnostic
Dyslexic
Stayed up all night wondering if there is a dog.

6. Motion Study Principles
Eliminate
Combine/ Coordinate
Reduce Fatigue
Arrange workplace
Improve tools and equipment
“Find the ‘one best way’ to do a piece of work.”
Find the laziest worker and study his approach.

7. Learning improves efficiency
By both
Analysis and
Imitation

8. Frank Gilbreth Invented Time & Motion Study Typewriter design changes
Foot levers on garbage cans
Military rifle disassembly blindfolded
Surgery assistant procedures
Use of Movies for T & M study
Increased the rate of bricklaying two fold!

9. Frank Gilbreth
With his wife Lillian
Had twelve children

10. Improve efficiency Study a task that is performed frequently
Identify repetitive or unnecessary motions
Eliminate
Combine
Improve

11. Coffeepot setup Component task cumulative time
Get pot, funnel 10 seconds
Fill pot, pour 40
Coffee open, place filter 104
Three scoops (12 sec) 116
Assemble,put away 129
Approx 2 minutes total

12. A Larger scoop would save:
8 seconds
For 350 days
For 30 years
84,000 Seconds
0.75 Applied Factor
60 sec./minute
60 min./hour
31 hours per lifetime
Two Days wasted!
Larger scoop 49 cents

13. Alternative Process--wife
Component task cumulative time
Start water in pot 4 seconds
Scoop 3, turn off water 25
Pour water, assemble 41
Put away coffee 53
Less than one minute total
I save 444 hours in a lifetime ~ one month!
“One best way to do work”

14. People who exercise regularly live Longer
WSJ--Life expectancy has two more years
365 days per year
16 hours per day
11,680 hours of extra life
3 workouts per week
2 hours
50 weeks
40 years
12,000 hours spent working out.

15. Do everything you do for its own sake.
Yesterday is a bucket of ashes that won’t burn again
Tomorrow is a dream you may never see.
Life isn’t a destination, It’s a journey…
And every day -- as good or as bad as it might seem --
is the best of all possible days.
Where does new knowledge come from? ...

17. People create new knowledge:
Analysis AND synthesis
Discovery...
“Seeing what others have seen and thinking what no one has thought.”
Seeing the world from new directions and understanding a new dimension...

18. “There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
“The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance

19. Some Core Course Concepts:
Statistics=objective evidence, not “proof”
Expand planning horizons-Think long-term
The “golden rule” is ethical because it works. Rational self-interest is a virtue
Drive out fear to avoid minimax regret
Reward Process rather than short-term results
Rational Laziness is a virtue
Unemployment is the goal