Gilbreth, Inc. was the early

management consulting Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

and

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex process (engineering), processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, kno ...

firm of Frank Bunker Gilbreth and his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth. It was founded as Frank B. Gilbreth, Inc., consulting engineers, in 1911. Lillian renamed it Gilbreth, Inc. after Frank's death in 1924. The firm's methodology focused on efficiency through a "Time and Motion" approach, better known as motion studies. Its analysis and reports included reduction of effort and fatigue, with precursors to ergonomics. The resulting recommendations focused on "one best way," an approach at odds with the later

quality improvement Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only ...

movement. The Gilbreth approach also diverged from

Taylorism Scientific management is a theory of management that Analysis, analyzes and wikt:synthesis#Noun, synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially Workforce productivity, labor productivity. It was one of the ...

, another early business/work efficiency model, primarily in its consideration of human factors. Gilbreth Inc.'s innovations were largely due to the marriage of engineering and industrial psychology reflected from the marriage of its founders, who were respective experts in these fields. In 1904 the firm moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, in 1912 to

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

, and in 1919 to Montclair, New Jersey. The company continued until Lillian Gilbreth's retirement in the 1960s.

References

Consulting firms established in 1895 Companies based in New Jersey 1895 establishments in Massachusetts {{US-company-stub