Work and Method Study

by
Parag Sen
 Introduction
• Work and method study/job design is the most powerful tool to
improve productivity to improve effective use of resources, to
reduce time, and to set up standard of performance. It is the
systematic examinations of the methods of carrying on
activity.
• Work study also aims at the following:
 Simplifies or modifies the methods of operation
 Reduces unnecessary or excess work
 Contributes to industrial safety by identifying hazardous work
and developing safer methods
 Cuts down the time of performing a certain activity
• Motion and time study are the two most important components
of work study.
• Frederick Winslow Taylor combined the methods of work
study and time study.
• Motion study is designated to determine the best way to
complete a repetitive job. It involves the analysis of the basic
hand, arm, and body movements of workers as they perform
work.
• Time study measures how long it takes an average worker to
complete a task at a normal pace.
• Time and motion study is carried out along with flow process
chart and worker-machine chart.
• Flow process chart is used to examine the overall sequence of
an operation by focusing on movements of the operator or
flow of materials.
• Worker-machine chart used to determine portions of a work
cycle during which an operator and equipment are busy or idle.
• Job design involves the methods and motions used to perform
a task. It includes the workplace layout, environment, tooling
and equipments (e.g., work holders, fixtures, hand tools,
portable power tools, and machine tools). The following
questions are answered in job design:
 What will be done?
 Who will do the job?
 How the job will be done?
 Where the job will be done? (incorporating the human factors
in the design of the workplace)
• While job design some other factors (e.g. safety, tiring,
unpleasant, noisy etc.) should be considered.
 Terminologies
• Total time in a job: The time taken by a worker or a machine
to carry out an operation to produce a given quantity of certain
product.
• Work content: It means the amount of work contained in a
given job/work/product/process. It is measured by one of the
following:
 Man-hours/work-hours: The labor of one person for one
hour.
 Machine hour: Running of the machine or plant for one hour.
• Basic work content: The basic irreducible minimum time
theoretically required to produce one unit output. This is a
perfect condition which is not achieved in most of the cases as
it also includes excess work content.
 Procedures of Work Study
• Analyze the job with flow process chart and worker-machine
chart.
• Conduct motion study (picture/video recording).
• Conduct time study (picture/video recording).
 Procedures of Method Study: SREDIM
• Select: The job or operation that needs improvement.
• Record: All facts, how work is done by chart methods.
• Examine: Every aspect of the job by asking; what, why,
where, when, who and how.
• Develop: Review ideas, eliminate, simplify, combine, re-
arrange, make new method which more safe, chart new
method, submit for approval.
• Install: The new method, consider best time to introduce,
convince all, train users.
• Maintain: Check frequently, match results, correct deviations.
 Motion Study: Basic Motion Elements
• Any manual task is composed of work elements, and the work
elements can be further subdivided into basic motion elements.
• Frank Gilbreth was the first to catalog (list) the basic motion
elements.
• Therbligs are the basic building blocks of virtually all manual
work performed at a single workplace and consisting primarily
of hand motions.
• A list of Gilbreth’s 17 therbligs is presented along with the
letter symbol used for each as well as a brief description. With
some modification, these basic motion elements are used
today.
 Job Design: Behavioral Approaches
• Job Enlargement: Giving a worker a larger portion of the
total task by horizontal loading
• Job Rotation: Workers periodically exchange jobs
• Job Enrichment: Increasing responsibility for planning and
coordination tasks, by vertical loading
THANK YOU