DESIGN OF WORK

SYSTEMS
Introduction
 Work design involves
 Job design
 Work measurement and the establishment of time standards
 Worker motivation and compensation

 Decisions in other design areas have an impact in work systems

 Product or service design decisions in large measure determine the kinds of
activities workers will be involved with
 Process layouts tend to necessitate broader job content than product layouts

 Implication
 Adopt a SYSTEMS APPROACH to design
 Decisions in one area must be related to the overall system
Introduction

 It is important for management to make design of

work systems a key element of its operations
strategy. Despite the major advances in computers
and operations technology, people are still the heart
of a business; they can make or break it, regardless
of the technology used. Technology is important, of
course, but technology alone is not enough.
Introduction

 Workers can be a valuable source of insight and

creativity because they actually perform the jobs
and are closest to the problems that arise. All too
often, managers overlook contributions and
potential contributions of employees, sometimes
from ignorance and sometimes from a false sense
of pride.
Job Design
The act of specifying the contents and methods
of jobs
Job Design
 Job designers focus on
 What will be done in a job
 Who will do the job
 How the job will be done
 Where the job will be done

 Objectives of Job Design

 Productivity
 Safety
 Quality of Work Life
Job Design
 Ergonomics
 Incorporation of human factors in the design of the workplace
 Design of equipment
 Design of work methods
 Overall design of the work environment

 Ergonomics seeks to prevent common workplace injuries

such as back injuries and repetitive-motion injuries by
taking into account the fact that people vary in their
physical dimensions and capabilities
Job Design

 Workers and managers alike should be consulted in

order to take advantage of their knowledge and to
keep them informed. Employees can be a source of
valuable ideas because they are intimately involved
with the work. Managerial support for job design
depends on the commitment and involvement of
managers. It is usually easier to sell a design to
workers if they have been included in the process.
Current Practice in Job Design
 Two Schools of Thought

 Efficiency School
 Frederick
Winslow Taylor
 Emphasizes a systematic, logical approach to job design

 Behavioral School
 Emphasizes satisfaction of wants and needs
Specialization
Work that concentrates on some aspect of a
product or service
Specialization
 College professors often specialize in teaching
certain courses, some auto mechanics specialize in
transmission repair, and some bakers specialize in
wedding cakes.

 Rationale
 Ability to concentrate one’s efforts and thereby
become proficient at that type of work
Specialization
 ADVANTAGES
 For management
 Simplifies training
 High productivity
 Low wage costs
 For labor
 Low education and skill
requirements
 Minimum responsibilities
 Little mental effort needed
 DISADVANTAGES
 For management
 Difficult to motivate quality
 Worker dissatisfaction, possibly
resulting in absenteeism, high
turnover, disruptive tactics, poor
attention to quality
 For labor
 Monotonous work
 Limited opportunities for
advancement
 Little control over work
 Little opportunity for self-
fulfillment
Behavioral Approaches to Job Design

 Job Enlargement
 Giving a worker a larger portion of the total task, by
horizontal loading
 Horizontal loading – the additional work is on the same
level of skill and responsibility as the original job

 Goal
 To make the job more interesting and providing the
worker with a more recognizable contribution to the
overall output
Behavioral Approaches to Job Design

 Job Rotation
 Workers periodically exchange jobs
 Avoiding one or a few employees stuck in monotonous
jobs

 Goal
 Job rotation allows workers to broaden their learning
experience and enables them to fill in for others in the
event of sickness or absenteeism
Behavioral Approaches to Job Design

 Job Enrichment
 Increasing responsibility for planning and coordination
tasks, by vertical loading
 Example of this is to have stock clerks in supermarkets
handle reordering of goods

 Goal
 Motivating potential of worker satisfaction
Motivation
Key factor in many aspects of work life
Motivation
 Not only can it influence quality and productivity, it also
contributes to the work environment

 People work for a variety of reasons in addition to compensation

 Socialization
 Self-actualization
 Status
 Physiological aspects of work
 Sense of purpose and accomplishment

 Another factor that influences motivation, productivity, and

employee-management relations is trust.
Teams
 Self-directed teams
 Self-managed teams
 Designed to achieve a higher level of teamwork and
employee involvement

 Underlying Concepts
 Workers, who are close to the process and have the best
knowledge of it, are better suited than management to
make the most effective changes to improve the process
Teams

Among the leading problems

of teams are conflicts between
team members, which can
have a detrimental impact on
the effectiveness of a team
List of Requirements for Successful Team Building
by Robert Bacal

 Clearly stated and commonly held vision and goals

 Talent and skills required to meet goals
 Clear understanding of team members’ roles and
functions
 Efficient and shared understanding of procedures
and norms
 Effective and skilled interpersonal relations
 A system of reinforcement and celebration
 Clear understanding of the team’s relationship to
the greater organization
Methods Analysis
Analyzing how a job is done
Methods Analysis
 The need for Methods Analysis can come from a
number of different sources:

 Changes in tools and equipment

 Changes in product design or introduction of new
products
 Changes in materials or procedures
 Government regulations or contractual agreements
 Other factors (e.g., accidents, quality problems)
Methods Analysis
 Methods Analysis is done for both existing jobs
and new jobs

 Basic Procedures in Methods Analysis

 Selecting an Operation to study
 Documenting the Current Method
 Analyzing the Job and Proposing New Methods
 Installing the Improved Method
 The Follow-Up
Selecting an Operation to Study
 Some general guidelines for selecting a job to study
are to consider jobs that

 Have a high labor content

 Are done frequently
 Are unsafe, tiring, unpleasant, and/or noisy
 Are designated as problems
Documenting the Current Method

 Use charts, graphs, and verbal descriptions of the

way the job is now being performed.
Analyzing the Job and Proposing New Methods

 Flow Process Chart

 Chart used to examine the overall sequence of an
operation by focusing on movements of the operator or
flow of materials
 Helpful in identifying nonproductive parts of the process

 Worker-Machine Chart
 Chart used to determine portions of a work cycle during
which an operator and equipment are busy or idle
 One use of this type of chart is to determine how many
machines or how much equipment the operator can
manage
Installing the Improved Method

 Successful implementation of proposed method

changes requires convincing management of the
desirability of the new method and obtaining the
cooperation of workers
The Follow-up

 In order to ensure that changes have been made and

that the proposed method is functioning as
expected, the analyst should review the operation
after a reasonable period and consult again with the
operator