大学英语精读听力第一册 unit6

[00:00.00]College English Intensive Reading　　  Book  1
[00:10.42]Unit Six Text
[00:13.27]Sam set out to improve efficiency at the shirt factory
[00:18.13]but,as we find out later in this unit,
[00:21.21]his plans turned out not quite as he had expected.
[00:25.63]SAM ADAMS,INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER
[00:29.20]If you ask my mother how I happened to become an industrial engineer,
[00:34.95]she'll tell you that I have always been one.
[00:38.40]She means that I /have always wanted everything to be well organized and neat.
[00:44.46]When I was still in elementary school,
[00:44.53]I liked to keep my socks in the upper left-hand drawer of my bureau,
[00:49.26]my underwear in the upper right drawer,
[00:52.79]shirts in the middle drawer,
[00:54.93]and pants,neatly folded,in the bottom drawer.
[00:59.27]In fact,I was the efficiency expert for the whole family.
[01:04.83]I used to organize my father's tools,
[01:08.49]my mother's kitchen utensils,my sister's boyfriends.
[01:13.35]I needed to be efficient.
[01:16.27]I wanted to be well organized.
[01:19.12]For me,there was a place for everything
[01:22.28]and everything was always in its place.
[01:25.44]These qualities gave me a good foundation for a career in industrial engineering.
[01:32.23]Unfortunately,
[01:35.08]I was also a bit bossy and I wasn't a very good listener.
[01:39.15]You'll see what I mean when I tell you about the first project I ever did
[01:44.59]after I finished my bachelor's degree at the university.
[01:44.66]After graduation I returned home to my small town in Indiana.
[01:51.11]I didn't have a job yet.
[01:53.88]Mr.Hobbs,a friend of my father's,owned a small shirt factory in town.
[02:01.22]Within the past five years it had grown from twenty to eighty workers.
[02:02.45]Mr.Hobbs was worried that his plant was getting too big and inefficient,
[02:08.71]so he asked me to come in on a short-term basis as a consultant.
[02:14.17]I went to the plant and spent about a week looking around and making notes.
[02:19.71]I was really amazed at what I saw.
[02:23.21]Most curious of all,
[02:25.96]there was no quality control whatsoever.
[02:29.22]No one inspected the final product of the factory.
[02:33.56]As a result some of the shirts that were put in boxes for shipment
[02:38.78]were missing one or two buttons,
[02:41.34]the collar,even a sleeve sometimes!
[02:45.50]The working conditions were poor.
[02:48.94]The tables where the  workers sat were very high and uncomfortable.
[02:54.48]Except for a half hour at lunchtime,
[02:57.83]there were no breaks in the day to relieve the boring work.
[03:02.19]There was no music.
[03:04.88]The walls of the workrooms were a dull gray color.
[03:09.08]I was amazed that the workers hadn't gone on strike.
[03:13.86]Furthermore,the work flow was irregular.
[03:18.33]There was one especially absent-minded young man
[03:22.64]in the assembly line who sewed on buttons.
[03:25.67]After a while I recognized him as "Big Jim,"
[03:30.24]who used to sit behind me in math class in high school.
[03:33.67]He was very slow
[03:35.86]and all the shirts were held up at his position.
[03:38.94]Workers beyond him in line on his shift had to wait with nothing to do:
[03:44.53]therefore,a great deal of time and efficiency were lost
[03:48.63]as Big Jim daydreamed while he worked.
[03:51.79]All week I wondered why he wasn't fired.
[03:55.76]After I made observations for a week,
[03:59.66]Mr.Hobbs asked me for an oral report of my findings.
[04:01.46]I covered my major points by telling him the following:
[04:05.74]"If you have a quality control inspection,
[04:08.93]you will greatly improve your finished product."
[04:11.96]"If the assembly line is redesigned,
[04:15.20]a smooth work flow can be achieved and time and energy can be saved."
[04:19.98]"If you decrease the height of the worktables,
[04:23.40]the machine operators will work more comfortably."
[04:26.87]"If the management provides pleasant background music and beautifies the dull setting
[04:32.93]the factory will be much more productive." 
[04:35.83]"If the workers have a fifteen-minute coffee break in the morning and afternoon,
[04:41.89]they will be more efficient."
[04:44.25]"If excellent work results in frequent pay increases or promotions,
[04:49.63]the workers will have greater incentive to produce."
[04:53.07]Mr.Hobbs thanked me for this report
[04:56.89]and told me he would talk over my suggestions with his brother,
[05:00.75]the co-owner and manager of the factory.
[05:01.98]"We're interested in progress here," he said.
[05:05.56]"We want to keep up with the times."
[05:08.72]He also gave me a check for $100
[05:12.56]and a box of shirts with his compliments.