METHODS, STANDARDS,
AND WORK DESIGN
Chapter 1
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The fundamental tools that result in increased
productivity are: methods, time study standards, and
work design.
All aspects of a business or industry - sales, finance,
production, engineering, cost, maintenance, and
management - provide fertile areas for the application
of methods, standards, and work design.
Since the production area within manufacturing
industries utilizes the greatest number of engineers in
methods, standards, and work design efforts.
In the production department for example, materials are
requested and controlled; the sequence of operations,
inspections, and methods is determined; tools are
ordered; time values are assigned; work is scheduled,
dispatched, and followed up; and customers are kept
satisfied with quality products delivered on time.
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If the production department is considered the heart of
an industrial enterprise, the methods, standards, and
work design activity is the heart of the production
group.
They use initiative and creativity to develop efficient
tooling, worker and machine relationships, and
workstations on new jobs in advance of production.
Also, they are creative in improving existing methods
and products to help the company attain leadership in
its product line. In this activity, good labor relations may
be maintained through establishing fair labor
standards.
Methods, standards, and work design offer real
challenges. Industries with competent engineers,
business administrators, industrial relations personnel,
specially trained supervisors, and psychologists all
using methods, standards, and work design techniques
are certainly better able to meet competition and better
equipped to operate profitably. For example,
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The objective of the manufacturing manager is to produce
a quality product, on schedule, at the lowest possible cost,
with a minimum of capital investment and a maximum of
employee satisfaction.
The focus of the reliability and quality control manager is to
maintain engineering specifications and satisfy customers
with the product’s quality level and reliability over its
expected life.
The production control manager is principally interested in
establishing and maintaining production schedules.
The manager of methods, standards, and work design is
mostly concerned with combining the lowest possible
production cost with maximum employee satisfaction
without sacrificing workplace safety.
The maintenance manager is primarily concerned with
minimizing facility downtime due to unscheduled
breakdowns and repairs.
Figure illustrates the relationship of the manager of the
methods, standards, and work design department to the
staff and line departments under the general manager.
A—Cost is largely determined by manufacturing methods.
B—Time standards are the bases of standard costs.
C—Standards (direct and indirect) provide the bases for
measuring the performance of production departments
D—Time is a common denominator for comparing
competitive equipment and supplies.
E—Good labor relations are maintained with equitable
standards and a safe work environment.
F—Methods work design and processes strongly influence
product designs.
G—Standards provide the bases for preventive maintenance.
H—Standards enforce quality.
METHODS AND STANDARDS SCOPE
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Methods engineering includes designing, creating, and
selecting the best manufacturing methods, processes
tools, equipment, and skills to manufacture a product
based on the working drawings that have been
developed by the product engineering section.
When the best method interfaces with the best skills, an
efficient worker-machine relationship exists. Once the
complete method has been established, the responsibility
for determining the standard time required to produce the
product falls within the scope of this work through
(a) Predetermined Standards are met;
(b) Workers are adequately compensated for their
output, skills, responsibilities, and experience; and
(c) Workers have a feeling of satisfaction from the
work that they do.
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The overall procedure includes: defining the
problem; breaking the job down into operations;
analyzing each operation to determine the most
economical manufacturing procedures for the
quantity involved, with due regard for operator
safety and job interest; applying proper time
values; and then assuring that the prescribed
method is put into operation.
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Figure illustrates the opportunities for reducing
manufacturing time through the application of
methods engineering and time study.
METHODS ENGINEERING
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The terms operation analysis, work design and
simplification, and methods engineering and
corporate re-engineering are frequently used
synonymously.
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The methods engineer is
first responsible for designing and developing the
various work centers where the product will be
produced.
Second, that engineer must continually re-study
the work centers to find a better way to produce
the product and to improve its quality.
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Methods engineering implies the utilization of
technological capability.
Methods engineers use a systematic procedure to
develop a work center, produce a product, or provide
a service.
Select the project. Typically, the projects selected represent either new
products or existing products that have a high cost of manufacture and a
low profit, experiencing difficulties in maintaining quality and are having
problems meeting competition are projects for methods engineering.
Get and present the data. Assemble all the important facts relating to the
product or service. These include drawings and specifications, quantity
requirements, delivery requirements.
Analyze the data. Utilize the primary approaches to operations analysis to
decide which alternative will result in the best product or service. These
primary approaches include: purpose of operation, design of part,
tolerances and specifications, materials, process of manufacture, setup
and tools, working conditions, material handling, plant layout, and work
design.
Develop the ideal method. Select the best procedure for each operation,
inspection, and transportation by considering various constraints
associated with each alternative, including productivity, ergonomics, and
health and safety implications.
Present and install the method. Explain the proposed method in
detail to those responsible for its operation and maintenance.
Consider all details of the work center, to insure that the
proposed method will provide the results anticipated.
Develop a job analysis. Conduct a job analysis of the installed
method to insure that the operators are adequately selected,
trained, and rewarded.
Establish time standards. Establish a fair and equitable standard
for the installed method.
Follow up the methods. At regular intervals, audit the installed
method to determine if the anticipated productivity and quality
are being realized, whether costs were correctly projected, and
whether further improvements can be made.
WORK DESIGN
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As part of developing or maintaining the new method, the
principles of work design must be used to fit the task and
workstation ergonomically to the human operator.
STANDARDS
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Standards are the end result of time study or work
measurement. This technique establishes a time standard
allowed to perform a given task, based on measurements of
the work content ( that is time taken to manufacture the
product or to perform the operation if the design or
specification of product or service provided were perfect)
of the prescribed method, with due consideration for fatigue
and for personal and unavoidable delays.
Time study analysts use several techniques to establish a
standard: a stopwatch time study, computerized data collection,
standard data, predetermined time systems, work sampling,
and estimates based on historical data.
The resulting standards are used to implement a wage
payment scheme. In many companies, particularly in smaller
enterprises, the wage payment activity is performed by the
same group responsible for the methods and standards work.
Production control, plant layout, purchasing, cost accounting
and control, and process and product design are additional
areas closely related to both the methods and standards
functions.
OBJECTIVES OF METHODS, STANDARDS, AND WORK DESIGN
The principal objectives of methods, standards, and work design are:
(a) to increase productivity and product reliability safely
(b) to lower unit cost
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS
FREDERICK W. TAYLOR
Frederick W. Taylor is known as the father of scientific management and
industrial engineering.
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He is the first person to use a stopwatch to study work content.
Many years later, he established his four Principles of Scientific
Management:
1.
Develop a science for each element of a person’s work.
2.
Select the best worker for each task and train that worker in the
prescribed method.
3.
Develop a spirit of cooperation between management and labor in
carrying out the prescribed methods.
4.
Divide the work into almost equal shares between management
and labor, each doing what they do best.
FRANK AND LILLIAN GILBRETH
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Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were the founders of the modern motion
study technique, which may be defined as the study of the body
motions used in performing an operation, to improve the operation by
eliminating unnecessary motions, simplifying necessary motions, and
then establishing the most favorable motion sequence for maximum
efficiency.
They developed theories of efficient motions through defining
terminology of the entire range of manual motions. These 17
elementary subdivisions of motion, later engineers named a short
word, therblig.
HENRY LAURENCE GANTT
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Henry Laurence Gantt invented the task and bonus system or earnedhour plan. Rather than penalizing the less proficient worker as Taylor
did with his multiple piecework plans, Gantt advocated a livable wage
with a sizable bonus for performance over 100%.
While Taylor emphasized the analytical and organizational aspects of
work, Gantt was more interested in operator selection, training, and
motivation.
RALPH M. BARNES
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Dr. Barnes was one of the first and best-known professors of
engineering in the field of work measurement. His achievements
included writing the longest published text on work measurement,
a thorough description of the Gilbreths’ micro-motion study, time
study, and the procedure for work sampling.
He conducted numerous methods studies of activities with motion
picture cameras and developed rating films for training time study
technologists.
EMERGENCE OF WORK DESIGN
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Work design is a relatively new science that deals with designing
the task, work station, and working environment to fit the human
operator better.
In the United States, it is more typically known as human factors,
while internationally it is better known as ergonomics, which is
derived from the Greek words for work (erg) and laws (nomos).
Obviously, the growth of computers and technology will keep
human factors specialists and ergonomists busy designing better
workplaces and products and improving the quality of life and work
for many years to come.
ORGANIZATIONS
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Technical organizations have contributed much toward bringing
the science of time study, work design, and methods engineering
up to present-day standards.
The Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) was founded in 1948 with
the purposes of:
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maintaining the practice of industrial engineering on a professional
level;
fostering a high degree of integrity among the members of the
industrial engineering profession;
encouraging and assisting education and research in areas of interest
to industrial engineers;
promoting the interchange of ideas and in formation among members
of the industrial engineering profession (e.g., publishing the journal IIE
Transactions);
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In the area of work design, the first professional organization, the
Ergonomics Research Society, was founded in the United Kingdom in
1949. It started the first professional journal, Ergonomics, in 1957.
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Currently, there are well over 5,000 members organized in 20 different
technical groups.
PRESENT TRENDS
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Practitioners of methods, standards, and work design have
come to realize that such factors as age, health and well-being,
physical size and strength, training attitudes, job satisfaction,
and motivation response have a direct bearing on productivity.
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Today’s practitioners must use the “humane” approach. They must be
well versed in the study of human behavior and accomplished in the art
of communication. They must also be good listeners, respecting the
ideas and thinking of others, particularly the worker at the bench.
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Today, there is a greater intrusion by the government in the regulation
of methods, standards, and work design. For example, military
equipment contractors and subcontractors are under increased
pressure to document direct labor standards as a result of MIL-STD
1567A
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Similarly, in the area of work design, Congress passed the OSH Act
establishing the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH), are search agency for developing guidelines and standards
for worker health and safety, and the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) an enforcement agency to maintain these
standards.