Chapter 7

Work Design and

Measurement

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Chapter 7: Learning Objectives
You should be able to:
LO 7.1 Explain the importance of work design
LO 7.2 Compare and contrast the two basic approaches to job design
LO 7.3 Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of specialization
LO 7.4 Describe behavioral approaches to job design
LO 7.5 Discuss the impact of working conditions on job design
LO 7.6 Compare the advantages and disadvantages of time-based and
output-based pay systems
LO 7.7 Explain the purpose of methods analysis and describe how
methods studies are performed
LO 7.8 Describe four commonly used techniques for motion study
LO 7.9 Define a standard time
LO 7.10 Describe and compare time study methods and perform
calculations
LO 7.11 Describe work sampling and perform calculations
LO 7.12 Compare stopwatch time study and work sampling
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Area Cover
1. Job Design
2. Quality of work life
3. Methods analysis
4. Work measurement

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Job Design
 Job design
 The act of specifying the contents and methods of jobs
 What will be done in a job
 Who will do the job
 How the job will be done
 Where the job will be done
 Importance
 Organizations are dependent on human efforts to accomplish
their goals
 Many job design topics are relevant to continuous and
productivity improvement
 Objectives
 Productivity
 Safety
 Quality of work life
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Efficiency vs. Behavioral Job Design
Efficiency School
 Emphasizes a systematic, logical approach to
job design
 A refinement of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s
scientific management concepts
Behavioral School
 Emphasizes satisfaction of needs and wants of
employees
Specialization is a primary issue of
disagreement between the efficiency and
behavioral approaches

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7.2 7-5
Specialization
Specialization
 Work that concentrates on some aspect of a
product or service
Advantages
For management: For employees:
1. Simplifies training 1. Low education and skill
2. High productivity requirements
3. Low wage costs 2. Minimum responsibility
3. Little mental effort needed
Disadvantages
For management: For employees:
1. Difficult to motivate quality 1. Monotonous work
2. Worker dissatisfaction, possibly 2. Limited opportunities for
resulting in absenteeism, high advancement
turnover, disruptive tactics, poor 3. Little control over work
attention to quality 4. Little opportunity for self-
fulfillment
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Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
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

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7.4 7-7
Motivation
Motivation is a key factor in many aspects of
work life
 Influences quality and productivity
 Contributes to the work environment
Trust is an important factor that affects
motivation

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7.4 7-8
Teams
Teams take a variety of forms:
 Short-term team
Formed to collaborate on a topic or solve a
problem
 Long-term teams
Self-directed teams
 Groups empowered to make certain changes in their
work processes

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7.4 7-9
Teams (cont.)
Benefits of teams
 Higher quality
 Higher productivity
 Greater worker satisfaction
Team problems
 Some managers feel threatened
 Conflicts between team members

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7.4 7-10
Requirement for successful team
building
Expert Robert Bacal has a list of
requirements for successful team
building:
1. Clearly stated and commonly held vision and
goals.
2. Talent and skills required to meet goals.
3. Clear understanding of team members’ roles and
functions.
4. Efficient and shared understanding of procedures
& norms.
5. Effective and skilled interpersonal relations.
6. A system of reinforcement and celebration.
7. Clear understanding of the team’s relationship to
LO 7-11
the
7.4 greater organization.
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 Ergonomics
Scientific discipline concerned with the
understanding of human interaction with the
elements of a system. An ergonomically
designed system or part
Increases productivity
Reduces worker’s discomfort and fatigue
Reduces to injuries to the back, neck, arms, etc.

LO 7-12
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7.4
Quality of Work Life
Quality of work life affects not only workers’
overall sense of well-being and contentment,
but also their productivity
Important aspects of quality of work life:
 How a worker gets along with co-workers
 Quality of management
 Working conditions
 Compensation

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7.5 7-13
Compensation
It is important for organizations to develop
suitable compensation plans for their
employees
Compensation approaches
 Time-based systems
 Output-based systems
 Incentive systems
 Knowledge-based systems
 Management compensation

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Compensation Systems
Time-based system
 Compensation based on time an employee has
worked during the pay period
Output-based (incentive) system
 Compensation based on amount of output an
employee produced during the pay period

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Comparing Compensation
Approaches
Management Worker
TIME-BASED
Advantages • Stable labor costs • Stable pay
• Easy to administer • Less pressure to
• Simple to compute pay produce than under
• Stable output output system
Disadvantages • No incentive for workers • Extra efforts not
to increase output rewarded
OUTPUT-
BASED • Lower cost per unit • Pay related to efforts
Advantages • Greater output • Opportunity to earn
more
Disadvantages • Wage computation more • Pay fluctuates
difficult • Workers may be
• Need to measure output penalized because of
• Quality may suffer factors beyond their
• Difficult to incorporate control (e.g., machine
wage increases breakdown)
• Increased problems with
scheduling
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7.6 7-16
Individual and Group Incentive
Plans
 Individual incentive plans
 Straight piecework
 Worker’s pay is a direct linear function of his or her
output
 Minimum wage legislation has reduced their
popularity
 Base rate + bonus
 Worker is guaranteed a base rate, tied to an output
standard, that serves as a minimum
 A bonus is paid for output above the standard
 Group incentive plans
 Tend to stress sharing of productivity gains with
employees
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Knowledge-Based Pay Systems
 Knowledge-based pay
 A pay system used by organizations to reward workers
who undergo training that increases their skills
 Three dimensions:
 Horizontal skills
 Reflect the variety of tasks the worker is capable of
performing
 Vertical skills
 Reflect the managerial skills the worker is capable of
 Depth skills
 Reflect quality and productivity results

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Management Compensation
 Many organizations used to reward managers
based on output
 New emphasis is being placed on other factors of
performance
 Customer service
 Quality
 Executive pay is increasingly being tied to the
success of the company or division for which the
executive is responsible

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Methods Analysis
Methods Analysis
 Analyzing how a job gets done
It begins with an analysis of the overall operation
It then moves from general to specific details of the
job concentrating on
 Workplace arrangement
 Movement of workers and/or materials

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The Need for Methods Analysis
The need for methods analysis can arise from
a variety of sources
1. Changes in tools and equipment
2. Changes in product design or introduction of
new products
3. Changes in materials and procedures
4. Government regulations or contractual
agreements
5. Accidents or quality problems

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7.7 7-21
Methods Analysis Procedure
1. Identify the operation to be studied, and gather
relevant data
2. Discuss the job with the operator and supervisor to
get their input
3. Study and document the present methods
4. Analyze the job
5. Propose new methods
6. Install the new methods
7. Follow up implementation to assure improvements
have been achieved

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Guidelines for Selecting a Job to
Study
Consider jobs that:
1. Have a high labor content
2. Are done frequently
3. Are unsafe, tiring, unpleasant, and/or noisy
4. Are designated as problems
Quality problems
Processing bottlenecks
etc.

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7.7 7-23
Analyzing the Job: Flow Process
Charts
 Flow process chart
 Chart used to examine the overall sequence of an
operation by focusing on movements of the operator or
flow of materials

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Analyzing the Job: Worker-Machine
Chart
 Worker machine chart
 Chart used to determine portions of a work cycle during
which an operator and equipment are busy or idle

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Motion Study
 Motion study
 Systematic study of the human motions used to perform
an operation
 Motion Study Techniques
 Motion study principles – guidelines for designing
motion-efficient work procedures
 Analysis of therbligs – basic elemental motions into
which a job can be broken down
 Micromotion study – use of motion pictures and slow
motion to study motions that otherwise would be too
rapid to analyze
 Charts – activity or process charts, simo charts
(simultaneous motions)
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7.8 7-26
Developing Work Methods
In developing work methods that are motion
efficient, the analyst attempts to
 Eliminate unnecessary motions
 Combine activities
 Reduce fatigue
 Improve the arrangement of the workplace
 Improve the design of tools and equipment

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7.8 7-27
Work Measurement
Work measurement is concerned with how
long it should take to complete a job.
It is not concerned with either job content
or how the job is to be completed since these
are considered a given when considering
work measurement.

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7.9 7-28
Work Measurement (cont.)
 Standard time
 The amount of time it should take a qualified worker to
complete a specified task, working at a sustainable rate,
using given methods, tools and equipment, raw material
inputs, and workplace arrangement.
 Commonly used work measurement
techniques
 Stopwatch time study
 Historical times
 Predetermined data
 Work sampling

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7.9 7-29
Work Measurement Techniques
 Stopwatch Time Study
 Used to develop a time standard based on observations
of one worker taken over a number of cycles.
 Standard Elemental Times
 Derived from a firm’s own historical time study data.
 Predetermined time standards
 Involve the use of published data on standard elemental
times.
 Work sampling
 A technique for estimating the proportion of time that a
worker or machine spends on various activities and idle
time.

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7.10 7-30
Stopwatch Time Study
 Used to develop a time standard based on
observations of one worker taken over a number
of cycles.
 Basic steps in a time study:
1. Define the task to be studied and inform the worker
who will be studied
2. Determine the number of cycles to observe
3. Time the job, and rate the worker’s performance
4. Compute the standard time

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7.10 7-31
Number of Cycles to Observe
 The number of observations to collect is a
function of
 Variability of the observed times
 The desired level of accuracy
 Desired level of confidence for the estimated job time

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Observed Time

OT 
 x i

n
where
OT Observed time
x i Sum of recorded times
n Number of observatio ns
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Normal Time

NT OT PR
where
NT Normal time
PR Performanc e rating
Assumes that a single performance rating has been made
for the entire job

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Normal Time (cont.)

NT  x j PR j  
where
NT Normal time
x j Average time for element j
PR j Performanc e rating for element j

Assumes that performance ratings are made on an element-

by-element basis

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Standard Time
ST NT AF
where
ST Standard time
AF Allowance factor
and
AFjob 1  A A Allowance percentage based on job time
1
AFday  A Allowance percentage based on workday
1 A

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Copyright ©2018 McGraw-Hill Higher Education 7-37
EXERCISE 1
it is the practice of this company to allow
workers a 30minutes coffee break and 18
minutes of personal time per day.
(Assuming an 8hour and 5day’s work
week)
1. Compute the allowance factor
2. Calculate the normal time for the
process
3. Calculate the standard time to complete
4. Calculate the daily output per worker
5. How many workers are needed to
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produce 600 units per week?
EXERCISE 1
Observation Times (minute) PR
1 2 3 4 5 %
A 36 39 37 39 38 120
B 12 10 36 15 13 110
C 3 3 5 5 4 90
D 15 18 16 17 36 85

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Historical Times
Standard Elemental Times are derived
from a firm’s own historical time study
data.
 Over time, a file of accumulated elemental
times that are common to many jobs will be
collected.
 In time, these standard elemental times can be
retrieved from the file, eliminating the need to
go through a new time study to acquire them.

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7.10 7-40
Predetermined Time Standards
 Predetermined time standards involve the
use of published data on standard elemental
times.
 Developed in the 1940s by the Methods Engineering
Council.
 The MTM (methods-time-measurement) tables are
based on extensive research of basic elemental motions
and times.
 To use this approach, the analyst must divide the job
into its basic elements (reach, move, turn, etc.) measure
the distances involved, and rate the difficulty of the
element, and then refer to the appropriate table of data
to obtain the time for that element
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Work Sampling
Work sampling is a technique for estimating
the proportion of time that a worker or
machine spends on various activities and the
idle time.
 Work sampling does not require timing an activity or
involve continuous observation of the activity
 Uses:

1. Ratio-delay studies which concern the percentage of

a worker’s time that involves unavoidable delays or
the proportion of time a machine is idle.
2. Analysis of non-repetitive jobs.

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Work Sampling (cont.)
pˆ (1  pˆ )
e z
n
z Number of standard deviations needed to achieve desired confidence
pˆ Sample proportion (the number of occurrence s divided by the sample size
n Sample size

2
 z
n   pˆ (1  pˆ )
 e
e maximum error percent

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Work Sampling vs. Stopwatch Time
Studies
Advantages of Work
Sampling
1. Observations are spread out over a period of time, making results less
susceptible to short-term fluctuations
2. There is little or no disruption of work
3. Workers are less resentful
4. Studies are less costly and less time-consuming, and the skill requirements of
the analyst are much less
5. Studies can be interrupted without affecting the results
6. No timing device is required
7. It is well suited for nonrepetitive tasks
Disadvantages of Work
Sampling
1. There is much less detail on the elements of a job
2. Workers may alter their work patterns when they spot the observer, thereby
invalidating the results
3. In many cases, there is no record of the method used by the worker
4. Observers may fail to adhere to a random schedule of observations
5. It is not well suited for short, repetitive tasks
6. Much time may be required to move from one workplace to another and back to
LO satisfy the randomness requirement
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Job Design Success
Success factors:
 Carried out by personnel with appropriate
training and background
 Consistent with the goals of the organization
 In written form
 Understood and agreed to by both
management and employees

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Operations Strategy
It is important to make design of work
systems a key element of strategy:
 People are still at the heart of the business
 Workers can be valuable sources of insight and
creativity
 It can be beneficial to focus on quality of work
life and instilling pride and respect among
workers
 Companies are reaping gains through worker
empowerment

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