Work Measurement
The subject of work measurement for establishing time standards has been controversial line the days of Taylor. With the widespread adoption of Deming’s ideas, it has become the subject of renewed criticism. (Deming argued that work standards and quotas inhibit process improvement, focusing all of the worker efforts on speed rather than quality.)
Nevertheless. all organizations need some form of standard time estimates for planning and budgeting, and many companies use them with success in work design. as demonstrated in the UPS case at the .end of this chapter. It is therefore important to understand the basic industrial engineering methods used to set standards:
1. Tim~ study (stopwatch and micromotion analysis).
2. Elemental standard time data.
3. Predetermined motion-time data.
4. Work sampling.
Each method has its advantages over the others and has particular areas of application Exhibit S 10.7 lists these methods and relates them to a general class of jobs.
