Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were a husband and wife team of management consultants. They influenced the development of scientific management. Frank Gilbreth pioneered the concept of “motion study and ergonomics”. Lillian Gilbreth was a pioneer in psychology to the problems of management. Frank Bunker Gilbreth was born on July 7, 1868, in Fairfield, Maine. He died in Montclair, New Jersey, on 14 June 1924. When he was three, his father died and the family moved to Boston. After completing school, he passed his entrance examinations for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, he decided to study mechanics in a more practical way and took a job with Whidden and Company Constructions as an apprentice bricklayer. During his term there, he observed that other bricklayers were using different methods to lay brick. These observations were the beginning to Gilberth’s work in motion study. He was granted his first patent for what he called “non-stopping scaffold”. The scaffold not only improved efficiency of bricks laid from 125 to 350 per hour, it also helped reduce the amount of stress and fatigue on the worker’s back. Gilbreth promoted quickly and was made chief superintendent of the company by the age of twenty-seven. In 1895, he set up his own company, based in Boston. By 1900, he was running a very successful business with branches throughout USA. Lillian Moller was born in Oakland, California on 24 May 1878, the daughter of a German-born sugar refiner. She died on 2 January 1972, in Phoenix, Arizona. She was intellectually gifted, receiving her bachelors and masters degree in English literature from the University of California at Berkeley in 1900 and 1903 respectively. This was despite the objection from their parents who felt that girls should not attend college. After getting her master’sdegree, she traveled to Europe on vacation. In 1903, she met Frank Gilbreth in Boston who was already a successful owner of a construction company. They got married on October 19 1904. Starting at 1912, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth formed a partnership, first a business; Gilbreth Consulting, Incorporated and later to develop jointly a new system of management. Lillian Gilbreth began to change her focus of academic interest and did a research on her thesis, “_The Psychology of Management_”. Extending Motion & Fatigue Study After Frank read Fredrick W.Taylor’s book on “_shop management__”_, it inspired the Gilbreths to write their first books: Field System (1908a), Concrete System (1908b) and Bricklaying system (1909). In justifying their work, he stated in his 1909 book on bricklaying that motion study: … Will cut down production costs and increase the efficiency and wages of the workman… To be pre-eminently successful: (a) a mechanic must know his trade; (b) he must be quick motioned; and (c) he must use the fewest possible motions to accomplish the desired results. 1 When Lillian was working on her doctorate, Frank turned his attention away from construction and extended his focus of motion studies to manufacturing. In order to aid in the study of movements during the manufacturing process, Gilbreth developed two techniques to overcome this deficiency: a chart of seventeen basic motions, each called a theblig and the use of motion picture cameras and lights. This was the beginning of micromotion study. The methods used to study motion were later improved when he invented the cyclegraph and chronocyclegraph. Frank Gilbreth published a book Motion Study (1911) that states his believe that there was a one best way to do work which would tackle the common aspect of workers’ commonalities; fatigue. In their book Fatigue Study (1916), the Gilbreths addressed the need to just eliminate all fatigues and work simplification. This lead to the two advances of lasting impact. First was the discovery that the design of workspace was often as important as the human effort required in producing fatigue. The Gilbreths went on to design workstations for workers and the disabled eventually. Later, Lillian Gilbreth would use ergonomics principles in designing kitchens and other domestic workspaces leading to a new development, home economics. *The Psychology of* Management Lillian Gilbert bought a human factor to scientific management. She defined it as “the effect of the mind that is directing work upon that work which is directed”. Gilbreth was one of the first to make a direct link between metal states and subsequent action by managers as well as workers. She often wrote on the topic of job satisfaction, that different type of work can be found satisfying to different types of individuals to the type of work that fit their natural attributes. This was a view that recognized the need to improve the work experience in many jobs so that no worker was expected to waste his/her talent and skills. After Frank Gilbreth died, she found herself on her own. She set about achieving two major goals. First, she had to generate a living which would not only keep the family together but also see them attend through university. Second, she wanted to see her husband received proper credit to his work. Both, she managed to do very well. Her legacy continued to the woman’s world which she was a role model to the thousands of woman. This is mainly due to her ability to juggle work and family as well as her efforts to design kitchens and other accommodations domestically. References Morgen Witzel 2001, ‘_Biographical Dictionary of Management’ pp 371-378_ Morgen Witzel 2003 ‘_Fifty key figures in Management’ pp 142-148_ Gerald Cole 2004 6th edn ‘Management_ Theory & Practice’ pp 19-20_ Daniel A.Wern & Ronald G.Greenwood 1998 ‘The_ people & Ideas that have shaped modern business’ pp140-148_ Daniel A.Wern ‘The Evolution of Management Thought’ Price, B 1990, 'Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and the motion study controversy, 1907-1930', in D Nelson ed., A Mental Revolution: Scientific management since Taylor, Ohio State University Press, Columbus, pp. 58-76.