Chapter- Three

Design of Work
Systems
 Introduction
 Designing a work system is part of developing an
operations strategy.
 Effective operations strategy provides structure for
company productivity
 The work system includes:
o Job design
o Work measurements
o Worker compensation
 Work Study
 A generic term for the techniques of method study and
work measurement.
measurement
 These techniques are used in the examination of human
work in all its contexts.
 They lead systematically to the investigation of all the factors
which affect the efficiency and production at the workplace.
 Method Study:
Study to simplify job and develop more economical
method of doing work.
 Work Measurement (Time Study):
Study) to determine the standard
time for doing an operation.
 Objectives of Work Study
 Main objective:
o To obtain the optimum use of human and other physical as
well as material resources available to an organization for a
give work.
 Specific objectives:
o To reduce or eliminate non-productive time and work
o To fix a standard time for doing a job
o To evaluate workers performance
o To improve methods of operations
o To develop standard data for future reference
 Job Design
 Specifies the contents of the job.
 Specifies the work activities of an individual or a group in
support of an organization’s objectives.
 The design of a job should answer the following questions:
o What is the description of the job?
o What is the purpose of the job?
o Where is the job done?
o Who does the job?
o What background, training, or skills does an employee need to do the
job?
 Job Design
 The three additional factors in job design:
A. Technical Feasibility
 The job must be physically and mentally doable
 The technical feasibility of a job is the degree to which an
individual or group of individuals is physically and mentally able
to do the job.
 Good job design eliminates unreasonable requirements and
ensures that any constraining requirements are necessary to do
the job.
 This in turn widens the applicant pool and gives a company a
chance to hire the best candidates on the market.
 Job Design
 The three additional factors in job design:
B. Economic Feasibility
 The cost of the job should be less than the value it adds.
 The economic feasibility of a job is the degree to which the
value a job adds and the cost of having the job done create
profit for the company.
 If the job as it is designed costs more than the value it adds,
then it is not economically feasible.
 Job Design
The three additional factors in job design:
C. Behavioral Feasibility
 The behavioral feasibility of a job is the degree to which an
employee derives intrinsic satisfaction from doing the job.
 The challenge is to design a job so the worker feels good about
doing the job and adds value by doing it.
 This presents two problems:
o What motivates one worker may not motivate another
worker.
o Someone has to do the boring jobs.
 Job Design
 Behavioral Considerations in Job Design:
Degree of Labor Specialization
Job Specialization is the division of labor into unique
tasks
Specialization of labor can be seen from two
aspects.
– It has made possible high speed, low cost
production.
– Extreme specialization often has adverse effects
on workers, which in turn are passed on to the
production systems.
 Specialization in Job Design
Specialization from management’s perspective
Advantages Disadvantages
 Readily available labor  Lack of flexibility
 Minimal training needed  Workers dissatisfaction characterized by
 Reasonable wage cost o High absenteeism
 High productivity o High turnover rate

Specialization from employees perspective

Advantages
o Minimal credentials needed
o Minimal responsibilities
o Minimal mental effort needed
o Reasonable wages
Disadvantages
o Boredom
o Little growth opportunity
o Little control over work
o Little room for initiative
o Little intrinsic satisfaction
 Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
Two popular approaches are job enrichment and
socio-technical systems.
1. Intended to reduce boredom associated with
labor specialization.
Job enlargement
 Horizontal expansion of the job through increasing the scope of
the work assigned. It is Horizontal Loading.
Job enrichment
 Vertical expansion of the job through increased worker
responsibility for planning & coordinating of task.
Job rotation
 Shifting of cross trained workers to other tasks
 Periodically workers exchange work.
 Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
 Two popular approaches are job enrichment and socio-technical systems.
2. Socio-technical Systems
 The socio-technical systems approach is consistent with the job enrichment
philosophy but focuses more on the interaction between technology and
workgroup.
 This approach attempts to develop jobs that adjust the needs of the
production process technology to the needs of the worker and work group.
 The individual or work group requires a logically integrated patter of work
activities that incorporates the following job design principles:
 Task variety
 Skill variety
 Feedback
 Task identity
 Task autonomy
 Physical Considerations in Job Design
 While motivation and work group structure strongly influence job performance,
they may be of secondary importance if the job is too demanding form a
physical (human factors) standpoint.
 Work physiology:
– An approach to incorporating the physical coats of moderate to heavy work
in job design.
– Work physiology sets work rest–cycles according to the energy expended in
the various parts of the job.
– The harder the work, the more frequent and longer the rest periods.

 Work environment:
– The physical environment in which employees work affects their
performance, safety, and quality of work life.
– Illumination, noise and vibration, temperature, humidity, and air quality are
work environment factors under the control of the organization and the
operations manager.
 Physical Considerations in Job Design
Ergonomics:
 A good interface between human and machine must be built.
Studies of this interface are known as ergonomics.
 Ergo = Work; Nomics = Study; Ergonomics= Study of Work.
 It is used to describe the study of the physical arrangement of
the work space together with the tools used to perform a task.
 In applying ergonomics, we strive to fit the work to the body
rather than forcing the body to conform to the work.
 Work Measurement
• The fundamental purpose of work measurement is to set
time standards for a job.
• Properly set labor standards represent the amount of
time it should take an average employee to perform
specific job activities under normal working condition.
• Labor standards may be set in three ways:
– Historical experience
– Work Measurement/Time studies
– Predetermined time standards
 Work Measurement
1. Historical Experience
•Labor standards can be estimated based on historical experience;
i.e., how many labor-hours were required to do a task the last time it
was performed.
– Historical standards have the distinct advantage of being relatively easy
and inexpensive to obtain.
– They are usually available from employee time cards or production
records.
•But they are not objective.
– Do they present a reasonable work pace or a poor work pace?
– Are unusual occurrences included?
– Because these variables are unknown, their use is not recommended.
 Work Measurement
2. Work Measurement/Time studies
• Work measurement is the process of estimating the amount of worker time
required to produce one unit of output.
•Determines how long it should take to do a job.
•Goal of work measurement is to develop labor standards that can be used for
planning and controlling operations.
 Standard time
•The length of time it should take a qualified worker using appropriate process and
tools to complete a specific job, allowing time for personal fatigue and unavoidable
delays.
•The second component in work system design, work measurement, is a way of
determining how long it should take to do a job.
•Work measurement techniques are used to set a standard time for a specific job.
In restaurant, for example, the time needed to take the customer’s order and
communicate that information to the kitchen staff can be calculated as the standard
time.
 Work Measurement
 Steps in Work Measurement
1. Define the task to be studied (after methods analysis has been conducted).
2. Break down the task into precise elements (parts of a task that often take no
more than a few seconds).
3. Decide how many times to measure the task (the number of cycles or samples
needed).
4. Time and record the elemental times and ratings of performance.
5. Compute the average actual cycle time.
– The average actual cycle time is the arithmetic mean of the times for each
element measured, adjusted for unusual influences for each element:

Average actual cycle time = Sum of the time recorded to perform each element

Number of cycles observed

 Work Measurement
 Steps in Work Measurement
6. Compute the normal time for each element. This measure is a “Performance
rating” for the particular worker pace observed.
Normal time = (Average actual cycle time) x (Rating factor)
• The performance rating adjusts the observed time to what a normal worker could
expect to accomplish.
7. Sum of normal times for each element to develop at total normal time for the
task.
8. Compute the standard time. This adjustment to the total normal time provides
for allowances such as personal needs, unavoidable work delays, and worker
fatigue:
Standard time =Total normal time
1- Allowance factor
– Personal time allowances are often established in the range of 4% to 7% of
total time, depending upon nearness to restrooms, water fountains, and other
facilities.
– Delay standards are often set as a result of the actual studies of the delay that
occurs.
Work Measurement
Work Measurement
 Work Measurement
3. Predetermined Time Standards
• Predetermined time standards divide manual work into small basic elements
before established times (based on very large samples of workers).
• To estimate the time for a particular task, the time factors for each basic
element of the task are added together.
• For any given firm to develop a comprehensive system of predetermined
time standards would be prohibitively expensive.
oFirst, they may be established in a laboratory environment, which will not upset
production activities (which time studies tend to do).
oSecond, the standard can be set before a task is done and can be used for
planning.
oThird, no performance ratings are necessary-and the method is widely accepted by
unions as a fair means of setting standards.
Predetermined time standards are particularly effective in firms that do
substantial numbers of studies where the tasks are similar. Some firms use both
time studies and predetermined time standards to ensure accurate labor standards.