The importance of raising standards
For a society or a nation to raise standards of living of its population, it must always strive to maximize the return from the resources deployed so that the economy can grow and sustain a better quality of life. In simple terms, productivity growth is the most important driver of prosperity and being the main determinant of national income per person its importance cannot be under-stated. The principles apply to all organisations as well and using the simple formula of Outputs/Inputs productivity gains can occur in different ways:
- By innovating products, services or systems
- Adopting new technologies
- Less productive organisations being replaced by new, more productive firms
- By more productive firms gaining market share from less productive ones.
However, choosing the right productivity strategy for each individual organisation is complex and some can be seriously flawed by failing to make the right investment decisions. Productivity performance measures such as labour and capital, needs to be based on the tried and tested value-added concepts. Establishing programmes for real cost savings in a pragmatic way and to identify productivity improvements will require organisations to invest in array of options which includes technology, new innovative systems and/or products and most definitely their workforces. Among those measures, value-added based labour productivity is the single most frequently used productivity statistic and one of the widely used and dominant tools to pursue higher value-add employees is Work Study. Originally named ‘time and motion’ study before evolving later to encompass other aspects of observing and analysing work, the earlier term was abandoned. Modern management today looks at various aspects of production or service and invariably applies array of improvement tools and techniques, singly or in combination across their organisations. While work study has continued to be a relatively simple and cheap method of rationalising methods of work, it too has also continued to develop and evolve into a powerful tool for raising business performance. Thus, many work study trained specialists realise that other Lean improvement techniques can complement and also be added advantageously to assimilate and develop improved methods of work. The combination provides effective modern techniques enabling higher levels of productivity.
How does Work Study work?
Work study is the systematic examination of the methods of carrying out activities so as to improve the effective use of resources. Work study then aims at examining the way activities are carried out, simplifying or modifying the method of operation to reduce unnecessary wasteful use of resources, and setting up a time standard for performing that activity. The relation between productivity and work study is thus obvious. If work study results in cutting down the time of performing a certain activity by removing non-value activities by say 30 per cent, merely as a result of rearranging the sequence or simplifying the method of operation and without any additional input resources, then productivity will go up by a corresponding output value, which in this case is 30 per cent. To appreciate how work study acts to cut down costs and reduce the time of a certain activity, it is necessary to examine more closely what standard time actually consists of.
The total time of a job is made up of activities to carry out an operation or to produce a given quantity of a certain product may be considered as made up as illustrated in figure 1. There is first: The basic work content of the product or service. Work content means, of course, the amount of work “contained in” a given product or a process measured usually in minutes. The standard time is adjusted to take into account the nature of the work.
These eight steps (figure 2) constitute the logical procedure that a work study specialist would normally apply.
| STEP | DETAIL | |
| 1 | Select | The selection of job or process to be studied can be helped by a Pareto analysis of products which can help pin-point the starting point. |
| 2 | Record | Collect all relevant data about the job or process by direct observation and using the most suitable data collection techniques so that the data will be in the most convenient form to be analysed. |
| 3 | Examine | Critically examine the recorded facts and challenge everything that is done, considering in turn: the purpose of the activity; the place where it is performed; the sequence in which it is done; the person who is doing it; the means by which it is done. |
| 4 | Develop | the most economic method, taking into account all the circumstances and drawing as appropriate on various production management techniques as well as contributions of managers, supervisors, employees and other specialists with whom new approaches should be explored and discussed. |
| 5 | Evaluate | The results attained by the improved method compared with the quantity of work involved and calculate a standard time for it. Show results of different alternative solutions. |
| 6 | Define | The new proposed future state with methods and the related time and present it to all those concerned, either verbally or in writing, using demonstrations. |
| 7 | Install | Installing the new method will include training those involved, as an agreed practice with the allotted time of operation. |
| 8 | Maintain | The new standard practices are now the current state and by monitoring the results and comparing them with the original targets improvement KPI’s can be quantified. Establish control procedures for storage and retrieval of data. |
Steps 1, 2 and 3 occur in every study, whether the technique being used is method study or work measurement. Step 4 is part of method study practice, while step 5 calls for the use of work measurement. It is possible that after a certain time the new method may prove to be in need of modification, in which case it would be re-examined again using the above sequence. Effective implementations of the above can off-set the effect of any loss in competitiveness that can occur in macro changes in trading positions such as currency fluctuations but alternatively could bring extra employment by finding new price points for their products or by paying higher salaries to retain the more productive employees. Productivity gains help businesses to shore up and provide space to develop their longer term plans therefore any future business strategies needs to prioritise productivity over other key performance indicators. Real productivity improvements pay for the investments made and the support of specialists can smooth the transition to lower cost competitive positions.
