Economy of Motion

Leaving the issue of grooming room location in a pet care facility behind, let us take a much closer look at setting up a dog grooming business in general. Regardless of whether you are beginning a standalone grooming business or adding grooming to an existing business the fundamentals and challenges will be the same. 

As stated previously gone are the days of back room grooming, today's customers expect more in terms of pet comfort and ambiance. This is where the battle between form and function begins. Although both play a role, when it comes to grooming salon design, practical and functional considerations outweigh the aesthetic or stylistic considerations. A grooming salon or grooming room has but one key purpose, to provide the business the ability to safely and efficiently provide grooming services to clients pets in order to create a profit. It is important that you keep this in mind when designing your grooming business.

Most individuals new to the business tend to favor one extreme or the other and will fail to find a balance that appeals to the customer while also providing the functionality to be effective. While it is important in terms of customer impression to have a beautiful salon, if it isn’t functional, it defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. However, if you go toward the other extreme and focus purely on function and aren’t willing to spend on aesthetics, customers will be unimpressed and perhaps a little leery about leaving their pets with you. 

Lets first cover the functional elements of an effective grooming room, the most important being overall layout. The overall layout should be one that promotes the principles of motion economy as originally put forth by Frank Gilbreth. 

In short the principles of motion economy form a set of rules and suggestions to improve manual work and reduce fatigue and unnecessary movements by the worker, which can lead to reduced production and excessive fatigue. Specifically the grooming room should be laid out and arranged so that: 

• There is a definite and fixed place for all tools and materials
• Tools, materials, and controls are located close in and directly in front of the operator.
• Materials and tools are located so as to permit the best sequence of motions.
• Arrange the height of the workplace and chair for alternate sitting and standing, when possible.
• Combine tools whenever possible.
• Tools and materials are prepositioned for ease of use.
• Momentum can be used to help the worker in doing their task not to increase their task.
• Momentum can be employed to assist the worker whenever possible, and reduced to a minimum if it must be overcome by muscular effort.

It takes a substantial amount of space and a large variety of specialized tools and fixtures to effectively groom dogs in a highly productive manner. The most basic of those tools being a grooming tub, grooming table, dryers and small hand tools like clippers, scissors, combs and brushes. In applying the principles of motion economy the grooming table and tub should be located in relation to each other so that the groomer or bather can simply move the dog laterally from the tub to the table or vice versa without having to bend down or lift the animal while traversing from one to the other. There should be adequate space around tools and fixtures so that your groomers can lead or carry animals from one location to another without having to go around, under or over obstructions. Hand tools should be located so as to be conveniently accessible and easily storable without creating the need for groomers to search for tools or move out of their work space to place them down when not in use.

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