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CASE: The Navigator III

Frank Jones, owner of Frank's Fabricators, is trying to establish a standard time for producing the Navigator III remote control. Senior operator Sam consistently produces the Navigator III faster than others, and time-study analyst Susan observes that he performs element 6 in 1.50 minutes at 100% efficiency, suggesting he has developed a new method. The document raises questions about labor savings, potential annual savings, and the reluctance of employees to share process improvements.

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Genner Raz
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33 views2 pages

CASE: The Navigator III

Frank Jones, owner of Frank's Fabricators, is trying to establish a standard time for producing the Navigator III remote control. Senior operator Sam consistently produces the Navigator III faster than others, and time-study analyst Susan observes that he performs element 6 in 1.50 minutes at 100% efficiency, suggesting he has developed a new method. The document raises questions about labor savings, potential annual savings, and the reluctance of employees to share process improvements.

Uploaded by

Genner Raz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

CASE: The Navigator III

Frank Jones, the owner of Frank's Fabricators, has collected the following information to
develop a standard time for producing the Navigator III, a universal remote control. All of
the times are in minutes.

Frank has noticed that one of his senior operators, Sam, is able to consistently produce
the Navigator III much quicker than other employees. However, Sam always produces
exactly what the standard requires each day. Sam insists that he does everything
according to the job directions. He offers no additional insight into how quickly he
achieves the standard output levels.

During casual observations, Frank noticed that Sam appears to be doing element 6
much quicker than anyone else. Because of this, he asks Susan, a time-study analyst,
to observe how Sam is doing element 6. After observing Sam, she determined that his
mean observed time for element 6 was 1.50 minutes, and she rated his performance at
100 percent. This suggests that his output is not being accomplished by unusual effort
on his part. Since Sam was significantly quicker than the standard but was only working
at 100 percent, Susan suggested that he had developed a new method for doing
element 6.

Questions

1. Based on Susan's observations, determine how long it actually takes Sam to produce
a Navigator III.

2. If direct labor is assessed at $18 per hour, what would the labor savings per
Navigator III be if all the employees used the same method that Sam uses?

3. If Frank's Fabricators produces 20,000 Navigator IIIs each month, what are the
potential annual savings by using Sam's method for element 6?
4. Why do you think Sam is reluctant to share his method improvement for element 6
with the company?

5. Do standard times inhibit process improvement?

6. How can you ensure that employees will share time- saving improvements?

7. From an employee's perspective, why wouldn't you share a process improvement


with the company?

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