What is Job Design?
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Job design is the function of specifying
the work activities of an individual or
group in an organizational setting.
The objective of job design is to
develop jobs that meet the requirements
of the organization and its technology and
that satisfy the jobholder’s personal and
individual requirements.
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Decisions in Job Design
Who
Mental and
physical
characteristics
of the
work force
What
Tasks to be
performed
Where
Geographic
locale of the
organization;
location of
work areas
When
Why
How
Time of day;
time of
occurrence in
the work flow
Organizational
rationale for
the job; objectives and motivation of the
worker
Method of
performance
and
motivation
Ultimate
Job
Structure
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Trends in Job Design
1. Quality control as part of the worker's job
2. Cross-training workers to perform multiskilled jobs
3. Employee involvement and team approaches to
designing and organizing work
4. "Informating" ordinary workers through
telecommunication networks and computers
5. Extensive use of temporary workers
6. Automation of heavy manual work
7. Organizational commitment to providing meaningful
and rewarding jobs for all employees
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Behavioral Considerations in
Job Design
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Degree of Specialization
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Job Enrichment (vs. Enlargement)
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Sociotechnical Systems
Process
Technology
Needs
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Skill Variety
Feedback
Task Identity
Task Autonomy
Worker/
Group
Needs
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Physical Considerations
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Attitude isn’t everything
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Can a worker perform physically?
Work Physiology
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Sets work-rest cycles based on energy
expenditure
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Work Methods
A Production
Process
Workers Interacting
with Other Workers
Ultimate
Job
Design
Worker at a Fixed
Workplace
Worker Interacting
with Equipment
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Work Measurement:
Why do We Need to Set Work Standards?
1. To schedule work and allocate capacity
2. To provide an objective basis for motivating
the workforce and measuring their
performance
3. To bid for new contracts and to evaluate
performance on existing ones
4. To provide benchmarks for improvement
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Operations Strategy/Process
Analysis
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Time Study:
The Search for Measurable Job Elements
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Short in duration--but long enough to time
Separate worker actions from machine
actions
Define any delays by the operator or
equipment into separate elements
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Determining Standard Times
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Calculate them yourself
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Use elemental standard-time data
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Use pre-determined motion-time data
systems
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Time Study Example Problem
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You want to determine the standard time for a job.
The employee selected for the time study has
produced 20 units of product in 8 working hours.
Your observations made the employee nervous and
you estimate that the employee worked about 10
percent faster than what is a normal pace for the
job. Allowances for the job represent 25 percent of
the normal time.
Question: What are the normal and standard
times for this job?
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Work Sampling
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Use inference to make statements about
work activity based on a sample of the
activity.
Output of Work Sampling:
Performance Measurement
 Time Standards
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Advantage of Work Sampling over
Time Study
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Several work sampling studies may be conducted
simultaneously by one observer.
The study may be temporarily delayed at any time.
The observer need not be a trained analyst unless
determining a time standard.
No timing devices are required.
Work of a long cycle time may be studied with a fewer
observer hours.
Minimizes effects of short-period variations and
influence by the operator or worker.
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Basic Compensation Systems

Hourly Pay

Straight Salary
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Piece Rate

Commissions
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Financial Incentive Plans

Individual and Small-Group Plans
Output measures
 Quality measures
 Pay for knowledge
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Organization-wide Plans
Profit sharing
 Gainsharing

 Bonus
based on controllable costs or units of
output
 May be part of participative management
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Scanlon Plan
Basic Elements

The ratio
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Total labor cost
Ratio =
Sales value of production
Standard for judging business performance
The bonus

Depends on reduction in costs below the preset
ratio
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The production committee
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The screening committee
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Levi’s Jeans Case
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Moved away from piece rates.
Team concept put in place in their factories.
Brought in consultants to “reengineer”
team process.
Questions
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What went wrong with the team process?
What should have been done differently?
Was the final result inevitable?
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Business Process
Reengineering

“Reengineering is the fundamental
rethinking and radical redesign of
business processes to achieve
dramatic improvements in critical,
contemporary measures of
performance such as cost, quality,
service, and speed.”
Source: Hammer, Michael and James Champy (1993) Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for
Business Revolution. New York: Harper
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Key Words
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Fundamental
 Why do we do what we do?
Radical
 Business reinvention vs. business improvement
Dramatic


Reengineering should be brought in “when a need
exists for heavy blasting.”
Business Process

a collection of activities that takes inputs and
creates an output that is of value to a customer.
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Business Process Reengineering
Continuous
Improvement
Or
Reengineering?
Senior
Management
Decide What Business
We Are In
Middle
Management
Eliminate An
Existing Process
Supervisory
Management
Replace An
Existing Process
Workers
Improve An
Existing Process
Principles of Reengineering
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Organize around outcomes, not tasks
Put the decision point where the work is
performed, and build control into the process
Merge information-processing work into the
work that produces the information
Treat geographically dispersed resources as
though they were centralized
Link parallel activities instead of integrating their
results
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The Reengineering Process (1 of 2)
1. State a Case for Action
2. Identify the Process for Reengineering
3. Evaluate Enablers of Reengineering
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The Reengineering Process (2 of 2)
4. Create a New Process Design
5. Understand the Current Process
(high level only)
6. Implement the Reengineered Process
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Reengineering & Continuous Improvement
Reengineering
Continuous Improvement
Similarities
Basis of analysis
Performance measurement
Organizational change
Behavioral change
Time investment
Process
Rigorous
Significant
Significant
Substantial
Process
Rigorous
Significant
Significant
Substantial
Differences
Level of change
Starting point
Participation
Typical scope
Risk
Primary enabler
Type of change
Radical
Clean slate
Top-down
Broad, cross-functional
High
Information technology
Cultural and Structural
Incremental
Existing process
Bottom-up
Narrow, within functions
Moderate
Statistical control
Cultural
Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press from Process Innovation
Reengineering Work Through Information Technology by Thomas H. Davenport. Boston: 1993
p. 51. Copyright 1993 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
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Integrating Reengineering and
Continuous Improvement
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Sequence Change Initiatives
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Create a Portfolio of Process Change Programs
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Limit the Scope of Work Design
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Undertake Improvement through Innovation
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A System of Process Improvement:
Continuous Improvement & Reengineering
Productivity
time
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Re-engineering:
Current Situation
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E
Specialization
Lots of handoffs
(“white space”)
D
F
C
G
Lots of opportunity
for defects
A
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B
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The Re-engineered Process
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Ownership
Reduced
handoffs
Reduced cycle
time and
defects
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B
G
C
A
D
E
F
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The Reengineering Process
Why is it that we accept a 4 week
wait to see a doctor, but in the
mortgage business, the consumer
dictates the closing dates to the
mortgage company?
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Six Sigma: DMAIC vs. DMADV
Define
Measure
Analyze
Continuous Improvement
Reengineering
Improve
Design
Control
Validate
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