Work Study

Historical background; Work study definition; Role of work study in improving productivity; Ergonomics
and work study.
Work study procedure: selection of jobs; Information collection and recording; Recording techniques
-charts and diagrams; critical analysis; developing better method; installation and follow up of standard
method.

Work Study is the systematic examination of the

methods of carrying on activities so as to
improve the effective use of resources and to set
up standards of performance for the activities
being carried out.

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METHOD STUDY
Method study examines the way a task (changing the clutch on a
car, preparing a flower bed for planting, cleaning a hotel room) is
done. The industrial engineer has an eye on operational
efficiencies and costs, quality of processes, service reliability,
staff safety etc. Method study techniques are applicable from
factory/workshop manufacturing to cabin crew activities on an
international flight and office clerical work.

a collection of techniques used to examine work - what is done

and how it is done - so that there is systematic analysis of all the
elements, factors, resources and relationships affecting the
efficiency and effectiveness of the work being studied.
The Method Study procedure

The basic procedures

1. SELECT the work or area to be studied.

2. RECORD all appropriate and relevant data about the current situation.
3. EXAMINE critically, the recorded data.
4. DEVELOP alternative approaches to making improvements and choose the most
appropriate.
5. INSTALL the new method, to make the required changes to the situation.
6. MAINTAIN that new situation.

The problem with expressing the procedure in such a simple manner is that undertaking a
method study appears to be a simple, linear and mechanistic process. This description in six steps
does however serve to show the underlying simplicity of the concept of method study. In
practice, the procedure consists of a cyclical or iterative process in which each step may be
revisited according to the findings of subsequent steps. For example, collecting data about a
current situation often enables us to discover the reality behind our first perceptions and thus to
refine our selection of what we are addressing. Similarly, when we start to examine data, we
sometimes become aware that data are missing or incomplete and we need to go back and collect
(record) additional data. This cyclic process often begins with a rough first pass, in which
preliminary data are collected and examined, and progresses to a more detailed and thorough
pass which results in the collection of more detailed and more complete data which is the subject
of a more rigorous scrutiny. The method study procedure is thus a convenient representation of
what may be a complex process.

Work Measurement
Work measurement provides management with a means of
measuring the time taken in the performance of an operation or a
series of operations in such a way that ineffective time is shown
up and can be separated from effective time.

Work measurement is the application of techniques designed to

establish the time for a qualified worker to carry out a task at a
defined rate of working.

Work Measurement is a term which covers several different ways of finding out how long a job
or part of a job should take to complete. It can be defined as the systematic determination,
through the use of various techniques, of the amount of effective physical and mental work in
terms of work units in a specified task. The work units usually are given in standard minutes or
standard hours.
Why should we need to know how long a job should take? The answer to this question lies in the
importance of time in our everyday life. We need to know how long it should take to walk to the
train station in the morning, one needs to schedule the day's work and even when to take out the
dinner from the oven.

In the business world these standard times are needed for:

i. planning the work of a workforce,

ii. manning jobs, to decide how many workers it would need to complete certain jobs,
iii. scheduling the tasks allocated to people
iv. costing the work for estimating contract prices and costing the labour content in general
v. calculating the efficiency or productivity of workers - and from this:
vi. providing fair returns on possible incentive bonus payment schemes.

On what are these standard times set? They are set, not on how long a certain individual would
take to complete a task but on how long a trained, experienced worker would take to do the task
at a defined level of pace or performance.

Who sets these standard times? Specially trained and qualified observers set these times, using
the most appropriate methods or techniques for the purpose i.e. "horses for courses".

How it is done depends on circumstances that obtain. The toolkit available to the
comprehensively trained observer is described below.

The reader is invited to search the individual methods on this current Website.

Selecting the most appropriate methods of work measurement

The method chosen for each individual situation to be measured depends on several factors
which include:

a. the length on the job to be measured in time units

b. the precision which is appropriate for the type of work in terms of time units (i.e. should it be in
minutes, hundredths or thousandths of a minute)
c. the general cycle-time of the work, i.e. does it take seconds, minutes or days to complete

The length of time necessary for the completion of the range of jobs can vary from a few seconds
in highly repetitive factory work to several weeks or months for large projects such as major
shutdown maintenance work on an oil refinery. It is quite clear that using a stop-watch, for
example, on the latter work would take several man-years to time to measure! Thus, more
"overall" large-scale methods of timing must be employed.

The precision is an important factor, too. This can vary from setting times of the order of "to the
nearest thousandth of a minute" (e.g. short cycle factory work) to the other end of the scale of "to
the nearest week" (e.g. for large project work).
These are the dominant factors that affect the choice of method of measurement.

The methods

PMTS.

At the "precision" end of the scale is a group of methods known as predetermined motion time
systems that use measurement units in ten thousandths (0.0001) of a minute or hundred-
thousandths of an hour (0.00001 hour). The methods in this group are described in the PMTS
topic in this Website.

The resulting standard times can be used directly, for very short-cycle work of around one
minute total duration such as small assembly work. However, they often are used to generate
regularly used basic tasks such using assembling or disassembling nuts and bolts, using a
screwdriver and similar. Tasks of this type are filed as standard or synthetic data-banks.

Estimating.

At the other end of the scale (long-cycle and project work) we need something which is quick to
use. Such a method is estimating. This can exist in three main forms.

a. Analytical estimating relies on the experience and judgement of the estimator. It is just of case
of weighing up the work content and, using this experience, stating a probable time for
completion, such as "this job will take about eight days to complete".
b. Category estimating. This is a form of range estimating and requires a knowledge of the work.
Estimators may not feel comfortable with overall, analytical estimates upon which may depend
the outlay of a great deal of money. They often prefer giving a range estimate such as "this job
should take between 12 weeks and 14 weeks to complete", which provides a safety net should
things go wrong. Such ranges are not just picked upon at random but are statistically calculated
and based on probability theory.
c. Comparative estimating. This is another example of range estimating. Again, estimators rely on
experience of the work in order to produce estimates. This experience can be augmented by the
provision of each time-range with a few typical, descriptive, jobs that would guide estimators to
the most appropriate range. The estimator would compare the work to be estimated with those
in the various ranges until the most appropriate fit is found.

Timing.

The intermediate method between the two groups above, is timing the work in some way, usually
with a stop-watch or computerised electronic study board. This method is retrospective in that
the job must be seen in action in order to be timed whereas the other methods are prospective
and can be used for timing jobs before they start.

The observer times each element of the work and obtains times that the observed operator takes
to do the elements. Each timing is adjusted (rated) by the pace at which the operator was
working as assessed by the observer. This produces basic times for the elements and hence the
whole job, which are independent of the operator and can be used as the time for a trained,
experienced worker to carry out the same elements. The reader is referred to the Topic on time
study in this Website.

Another method of assessing the work is using activity sampling and rated activity sampling.
This is a method based on the observer making snap observations at random or systematic
sample times, observing what the operator is (or operators are) doing at the times of those
observations (see the appropriate Topic).

Models:

A most useful method for standard or synthetic data-banks of job or element times is using
computer models of the jobs. These are generated as mathematical formulae in which the
observed data are inserted to compile a time for completion of the task or project. It is a useful
method for recycling time standards for elements of basic work over and over again, only
changing the values of the variables to suit each project.