OPERATIONS

MANAGEMENT

TOPIC VII
 DESIGN OF WORK SYSTEM

A. JOB DESIGN
B. METHODS ANALYSIS
C. MOTION STUDY
Job Design

 It involves denoting the content and methods of the job

 It includes the productivity, safety and quality of work life
Job Design Approaches

 Efficiency Approach – A refinement Frederick Taylor’s scientific

management concepts; systematic and logical tactic
 Considerable emphasis in the past
 Behavioral Approach – emphasizes the satisfaction of needs and
wants
Ergonomics

 It is the integration of human factors in the design of the

workplace
 It relates to design of equipment, design of work methods and
overall design of the work environment
Specialization

 It describes job that has a very narrow scope

 It concentrates on some aspect of a product or service
Behavioural Approaches to Job
Design
 Job Enlargement - giving a larger portion of the total task.
Horizontal loading – additional work on the same level of skill
and responsibility as the original job
 Job Rotation – employees/workers periodically exchange jobs. It
prevents monotonous jobs.
 Job Enrichment – increase in the level of responsibility for
planning and coordination tasks. Vertical loading
Stopwatch Time Study

  
Used to develop a time standard based on observation of one
worker taken over a number of cycles
 N=
 Z= number of normal sample standard deviation needed for
desired confidence
 S= Sample standard deviation
 A= Desired accuracy percentage
 X= Sample Mean
Stopwatch Time Study

  
 E= Maximum Acceptable Error
Example

 A time study analyst wants to estimate the time required to

perform a certain job. A preliminary study yielded a mean of 6.4
mins and a standard deviation of 2.1 mins. The desired
confidence is 95% How many observations will he need if the
desired maximum error is
 A.) 10 percent of the sample mean
 B.) One-half minute
Solution

  A.) S= 2.1 mins Z=1.96

 X= 6.4 mins a=10%
 N=
 N= 41.36 or 42

 B.) N=
 N= 67.77 or 68
Formulas:

  Observed Time
 OT=
 Normal Time
 NT=
 Standard Time
 ST=
Allowance Factor

  AFjob =

 AFday=
Standard Elemental Times

 Are derived from a firm’s own historical time study data.

 Over the years, a time study department can accumulate a file of
elemental times that are common to many jobs
 After a while, many elemental times can be simply retrieved from
the file, eliminating the need for analysts to go through a
complete time study to obtain them.
Procedure for using standard
elemental times
 Analyze the job to identify the standard elements
 Check the file for elements that have historical times, and record
them. Use time study to obtain others
 Modify the file times if necessary
 Sum the elemental times to obtain the normal time, and factor in
allowances to obtain the standard time.
Predetermined Time Standards

 Involve the use of published data on standard elemental times.

 High level of skill required
 Provides much better accuracy
Advantages

 They are based on large numbers of workers under controlled

conditions
 The analyst is not required to rate performance in developing the
standard
 There is no disruption of the operation
 Standards can be established even before a job is done
Work Sampling

 Is a technique for estimating the proportion of time that a worker

or machine spends on various activities and the idle time.
Compensation

 Significant issue for the design of work systems

 Important for organizations to develop suitable compensation
plans for employees
 If wages are too low, organizations may find it difficult to attract
and hold competent workers and managers.
 If wages are too high, the increased costs may result in lower
profits or may force to increase its prices
Compensation

Two basic systems for compensating employees

 Time-based systems
 Output-based systems
Compensation

Time-based systems
 Also known as hourly and measured daywork systems
 Compensation based on time and employee has worked during a
pay period
Compensation

Output-based systems
 Compensate employees according to the amount of output they
produce during a pay period,
 Pay according to performance
 Management
1. Time-Based
Advantages  Stable labor cost
 Easy to administer
 Simple to compute pay
 Stable output
Disadvantages  No incentive for workers 
to increase outputs
2. Output-Based
Advantages  Lower cost per unit
 Greater output
Disadvantages  Wage compuatation more
difficult
 Need to measure output
 Quality may suffer
 Difficult to incorporate wage
increases
Increased problems with
schedule
Worker
 Stable pay
 Less pressure to produce
than under output system
Extra efforts not rewarded
 Pay related to efforts
 Pay opportunity to earn
more
 Pay related to efforts
Opportunity to earn more
Pay functual
Workers may be penalized
because of factors beyond their
control