Excerpts from the report: This publication is the first of a number of reports setting forth the results of studies to find ways of improving the layout, work methods, equipment, and materials used in the meat departments of retail stores. These studies were made to determine how to reduce the cost of operating the meat department through improved methods of receiving, blocking, and cutting of meat. The application of selected improvements in methods, materials and equipment to the cutting operation in the meat department of one retail store, and to the receiving, blocking, and cutting operations in three other stores, increased the productivity for these operations by 26.6, 36.3, 36.3, and 38.9 percent in the respective stores. These improvements represented a reduction in labor requirements in these four average-size markets of 8.5, 14.1, 16.0, and 28.4 man-hours per week.