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The analysis of personal and delay allowances using work sampling

technique in the sewing room of a clothing manufacturer

Article  in  International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology · March 2007

DOI: 10.1108/09556220710725739

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 International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology
The analysis of personal and delay allowances using work sampling technique in the
sewing room of a clothing manufacturer
Sinem Gunesoglu Binnaz Meric
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Sinem Gunesoglu Binnaz Meric, (2007),"The analysis of personal and delay allowances using work
sampling technique in the sewing room of a clothing manufacturer", International Journal of Clothing
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Science and Technology, Vol. 19 Iss 2 pp. 145 - 150

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(2001),"Continuous observation work sampling and its verification", Work Study, Vol. 50 Iss 1 pp. 23-30
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COMMUNICATIONS Analysis of
personal and
The analysis of personal and delay allowances
delay allowances using work
145
sampling technique in the sewing
room of a clothing manufacturer Received 12 January 2006
Revised 1 August 2006
Accepted 1 August 2006
Sinem Gunesoglu and Binnaz Meric
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Textile Engineering Department, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey

Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to study the operator activities in garment industry and the
percentages of distribution of operations and to analyze the personal and delay allowances by
observing the operations and deriving the ratios within a manufacturing period.
Design/methodology/approach – A work sampling technique is used. Relevant reports
(1978-2004) are studied to give the basis and methodology of the technique. In accordiance with
work sampling techique, the operations to be observed in a sewing room are defined, the number of
observations and observers required for each day and the procedure for making observations are
determined and the distributions of work flows are calculated.
Findings – It is found that 72.7 per cent of working time in an general sewing room was spent for
productive activities and 23.2 per cent for personal and unavoidable delay allowances.
Practical implications – Work sampling technique gives information about personal and delay
allowances in a work flow of any sewing room. When the distributions of activites are determined, it is
possible to find which activities are most responsible for low efficiency. For this purpose, standard
operations time in a sewing room should be determined by time measurement studies and work flow
should be organized.
Originality/value – This paper deals with an actual sewing room and gives general information about
the distributions of activites in work flow which should be used for organization of any sewing room.
Keywords Optimization techniques, Work sampling, Garment industry
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Garment manufacturing in nature is more complicated than many other industries.
It involves a number of machines, hundreds of employees and thousands of bundles of
sub-assemblies producing different styles simultaneously. In clothing production,
garment components are assembled through a sub-assembly process until they are
gathered into a finished garment. The production process involves a set of work stations
in each of which a specific task in a restricted sequence is carried out (Hui and Frency Ng,
1999). Many factors such as the properties of fabrics and human emotions will affect the International Journal of Clothing
performance of operatives that ultimately will cause variance on the task time. Science and Technology
Vol. 19 No. 2, 2007
Personal and delay allowances for the apparel industry are very important. Delays pp. 145-150
can be broken down into work elements which can be readily measured as fixed or q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0955-6222
variable and these measurements are then combined into work standards. DOI 10.1108/09556220710725739
 IJCST Work study is used in the development and control of work situations. Work
19,2 study encompasses all those procedures concerned with work measurement and
motion study. Motion study is qualitative analysis of a work situation leading to
the design or improvement of an operation. Work measurement techniques such as
time study and work sampling are used in measuring or forecasting the rate of
output of an existing or newly designed operation, as well as in determining how
146 much time is consumed for various productive and non-productive activities of a
process or operation. Also involved is the determination of standard times which
represent the allowable time for the performance of work (Chuter, 1990; Jenkins and
Orth, 2004).
Time study is used to determine a standard time for an operation by direct time
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measurement. Work Sampling Technique can be used to determine the required data
necessary for the application of a percentage allowance of personal needs, fatigue and
unavoidable delays (Brock, 1978, Pape, 1991). The main difference between time study
and work sampling is that time study requires a definite period of uninterrupted time
to observe and considerable time to work up the study. Work sampling, however, will
provide essentially the same results in 1/3-1/6 of the time and cost. Other advantages of
work sampling studies can be made over a period of days or weeks thus decreasing the
change of day-to-day or week-to-week variations (Barnes, 1980; Brisley, 1992; Brock,
1978, Chuter, 1990).
In this study, the operator activities in garment industry and the percentages of
distribution of operations are studied. The operations are observed, the ratios within
manufacturing period are derived.

2. Experimental
This study was carried out in sewing section of a garment manufacturer company and
work sampling technique was used to determine the allowances (Kiremitci, 1999) and it
was chosen due to mentioned advantages in Introduction.
Work sampling technique is simply the act of observing an operator or operations
at random time and then noting whatever was going on at the time the operator or
operations was observed. For example, a particular machine being down could be
noticed while walking through the sewing plant. If the operator is working (sewing, for
example), the tally sheet should record any activity of the operator during that time,
whether he/she is working, or is in any other state or activity.
In setting up any work sampling study, there are six important steps to be
considered. These steps are:
(1) Accurately define the project or problem(s).
(2) Determine the economic accuracy required.
(3) Define the operation to be observed.
(4) Determine the number of observations and observers required for each day.
(5) Determine the procedure for making observations (starting place of tour, length
of tour, manner of recording observations and when questions of operators or of
supervisors should be asked).
(6) Explanation of the work sampling procedure to all concerned (Barnes, 1980;
Pape, 1991; Stohlman, 1978).
 The operations are determined to be observed for distribution centre activities. Analysis of
The groups of determined operations are presented in Table I. personal and
In Table I:
.
G, the productive activities which belong to flow intervals in the measurement
delay allowances
period.
.
Vsv, unavoidable delays that shows additional assignment or breakdown times
which belong to flow intervals in the measurement period. 147
.
Vp, personal allowances that is caused by individual purposes or self
requirements which belong to flow intervals in the measurement period.
.
N, avoidable delays. It is additional operations caused by the operator which
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belong to flow intervals in the measurement period.

Number of observations and tour periods are calculated after the flow types are
determined. We assumed that a confidence level of 99 per cent and an accuracy of
^ 1 per cent are satisfactory. Also assuming that the binomial distribution is used
as the basis for determining error and then the formula for determining the number of
observations required (n) is Equation (1) (Barnes, 1980):

Nr Operations

1 To take a bundle G
2 To sew
3 To tie the bundle
4 To take pieces for sewing
5 To leave sewn piece
6 To control bundle and write on card Vsv
7 To regulate a piece before sewing
8 To control and check work
9 To bring material
10 To tie a broken thread
11 To change apparatus
12 To discuss about work
13 To change thread bobbin
14 To organize work place
15 To correct faults
16 To correct his/her faults Vsv
17 To break of electricity
18 To wait for work
19 To wait for cleaning
20 To change machine
21 Needle break
22 Machine is out of work and operator has additional work
23 Machine break down
24 Machine maintenance and adjustment
25 Individual purposes or self requirements Vp
26 To speak privately N
27 To leave the work early Table I.
28 To leave the factory The groups of determined
29 To start working late operation types according
30 Unknown X to flow types
 IJCST ðZ a=2 Þ2 pð100 2 pÞ
n¼ ð1Þ
19,2 f 02
Where p: percentage occurrence of an activity or delay being measured; f 0 : degree of
confidence; Za/2: value taken from normal distribution table.
In preliminary (Brisley, 1992; Pape, 1991) studies for the sewing room, p ¼ 30
148 per cent and f 0 ¼ 1.0 are assumed at the measurement of distribution time ratios.
Thus, Za/2 ¼ 2.575 is derived from the normal distribution table and then n is found
14,000 from the Equation (1).
The work sampling period is defined as 8 weeks by taking 2 days in a week.
According to this, daily number of observation nT is calculated using Equation (2):
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14; 000
nT ¼ ¼ 875 observations=day ð2Þ
ð2 days=weekÞ £ 8 weeks
About 30 work systems consisting of 20 lock-stitch machines and ten over-edge stitch
machines are chosen for the observation in the sewing room. Thus, tour number to be
realised in a day RT is calculated using Equation (3):
nT
RT ¼ < 30 tours=day ð3Þ
30
Random time tables are used to determine the tour periods. Working hours, resting
periods and noon hour are taken into account for determination the time periods.
Tour plan for the sewing room has been determined as shown in Table II.

3. Results
Observations were continued until distribution time ratios gave measured degree of
confidence f smaller than f 0 ¼ 1 in this study. The distribution of work flows within
f is in Table III.

Weeks Days

1 Tuesday-Thursday
2 Monday-Wednesday
3 Thursday-Friday
4 Wednesday-Thursday
5 Tuesday-Wednesday
6 Tuesday-Thursday
7 Tuesday-Friday
Table II. 8 Monday-Thursday

Flow type Symbol Number of observation (n) p (per cent) f (per cent)

1. Productive activities G 9,815 72.7037 0.9873

2. Unavoidable delays Vsv 2,011 14.8963 0.7891
3. Personal activities Vp 1,123 8.3185 0.6120
Table III. (2 þ 3) V 3,134 23.2148 0.9357
The distribution of the 4. Avoidable delays N 551 4.0814 0.4385
flows Total 13,500 100
 It is found that 72.7 per cent of working time was spent for productive activities and Analysis of
23.2 per cent for personal and unavoidable delay allowances at the end of work personal and
sampling study. In early similar studies (Barnes, 1980; Pohl, 1979; Brock, 1978;
Stohlman, 1978), personal and unavoidable delays allowances which we found as delay allowances
8.3 and 14.9 per cent, respectively, were both recorded as 5 per cent.
The percentages of distribution of operations consisting of delays are shown in
Figure 1. As seen from Figure 1, the operation caused by individual purposes or 149
self requirements (Operation Nr: 25) covers 36 per cent of total distribution time
periods.
Work control operation (Operation Nr: 8) has the second place with 11 per cent
percentage of non-productive activities. This operation is simply the operator’s eye
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control of the quality of patch after sewing. Regulating before sewing (Operation Nr: 7)
has the share of 10 per cent of non-productive activities. This time period is spent for
regulation of small pieces like collars, sleeve cuffs, etc. This operation is caused
especially by imprecise cuttings and would be eliminated by using modern automated
cutting systems.
Waiting for the piece to be sewn (Operation Nr: 18) takes 6 per cent of
non-productive activities. The main reason for this is not to balance the production
planning and production line well. Another reason for this is the lack of communication
between production units. The improper material planning and late delivery of cutted
pieces from cutting department can be given as examples.
The percentages of personal delay and unavoidable allowances according to the
productive activities were calculated 11.4 and 20.5 per cent, respectively.

4. Conclusions
This study investigates personal and unavoidable delay allowances of the sewing room
of a garment manufacturer. Operation types are classified and the work flow is

40

35

30

25
p (%)

20

15

10

5
Figure 1.
0 The distribution of
25 8 7 16 6 12 18 22 13 10 15 17 Other
non-productive activities
non-productive activities
 IJCST composed; then each operation activity time is measured and allowances are calculated.
Distribution of operations within non-productive activities are also determined.
19,2 We found that personal based operations or intervals have the greatest amount of
non-productive activities. Controlling and checking the work, cutting action before
sewing and waiting the pieces have also remarkable percentages. To increase
the efficiency of a sewing room, distribution of these actions should be reduced since
150 wrongly production line and missions determined cause delays during the execution of
a work. All materials should be in required place at correct time to prevent delays.
For this purpose, standard time should be determined by time measurement studies
and work flow should be organized.
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References
Barnes, R. (1980), Motion Time and Time Study Design and Measurement of Work, 7th ed.,
Wiley, New York, NY, pp. 406-40.
Brisley, L.C. (1992), “Work sampling and group time technique”, in Hudson, W.K. (Ed.),
Maynard’s Industrial Engineering Handbook, 4th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY,
pp. 4.39-68.
Brock, H. (1978), Work Measurement Technique in the Apparel Distribution Center, JSN
International, Agra, November, pp. 42-9.
Chuter, A.J. (1990), Introduction to Clothing Production Management, BSP Professional Books,
London, pp. 43-59.
Hui, C.L.P. and Frency Ng, S.F. (1999), “A study of the effect of time variations for assembly line
balancing in the clothing industry”, International Journal of Clothing Science &
Technology, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 181-8.
Jenkins, J.L. and Orth, D.L. (2004), “Productivity improvement through work sampling”,
Cost Engineering, Vol. 46 No. 3, pp. 27-32.
Kiremitci, S. (1999), “The investigation of reasons for additional activities and their ratios in
production time at an apparel plant”, MSc thesis, Uludag University, Bursa.
Pape, E.S. (1991), “Work sampling”, in Salvendy, G. (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial Engineering,
2th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, pp. 1699-721.
Pohl, H. (1979), “Aufbau und Höhe von Verteil und Erholunszeiten für Arbeitsverrichtungen der
Bekleidungsfertigung”, Bekleidung und Waesche, pp. 2-12.
Stohlman, D. (1978), Work Sampling – What is and How to Use it in the Sewn Products Industry,
JSN International, Agra, December, pp. 32-40.

Corresponding authors
Sinem Gunesoglu can be contacted at: sinem@uludag.edu.tr; Binnaz Meric can be contacted
at: binnaz@uludag.edu.tr

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