Methods and Standard Scope

Methods and Standard Scope

 Methods Engineering includes designing, creating, and
selecting the best manufacturing methods, processes, tools,
equipment and skills to manufacture a product based on the
working drawings that have been developed by the product
engineering section.
 When the best method interfaces with the best skill available,
an efficient worker-machine relationship exists.
 Also included is the responsibility for following through to
see that:
 - predetermined standards are met
 - workers are adequately compensated for their output,skills,responsibilites
and experience;
 - workers have a feeling of satisfaction from the work that they do
Cont..
 The overall procedure includes:
 - defining the problem
 - breaking the job down into operations
 - analyzing each operation to determine the most economical
manufacturing procedures for the quantity involved with due regard
for operator safety and job interest
 - applying proper time values
 - following thorough to assure that the prescribed method is put into
operation
Methods Engineering
 Terms operation analysis, work design, and simplification and
methods engineering and corporate re-engineering are frequently
used synonymously.
 Referring to a technique for increasing the production per unit of
time or decreasing the cost per unit output --- PRODUCTIVITY
IMPROVEMENT
 Implies the utilization of technological capability.
 R&D leading to new technology is therefore essential to methods
engineering
 Systematic close scrutiny of all direct and indirect operations to
find improvements that make work easier to perform, in terms of
worker health and safety, and also allow work to be done in less
time with less investment per unit (greater profitability)
What Methods Engineers DO?
 Responsible for designing and developing the various
work centers where the product will be produced.
 Engineer must continually restudy the work centers to find
a better way to produce the product and/or improve its
quality.
 Use systematic procedure to develop a work center,
produce a product, or provide a service.
What Methods Engineers DO? The process..
 Select the project
 Get and present the data
 Analyze the data
 Develop the idea
 Present and install the method
 Develop a job analysis
 Establish time standards
 Follow up the method
Work Design
 Must be used to fit the task and workstation ergonomically
to the human operator.
 It is necessary for the methods engineer to incorporate the
principles of work design into any new method, so that it
not only will be more productive but also will be safe and
injury-free for the operator.
Standards
 They are the end result of time study or work measurement.
 Establishes a time standard allowed to perform a given task,
based on measurements of work content of the prescribed
method, with due consideration for fatigue and for personal
and unavoidable delays.
 Several techniques of time study analysts:
 stopwatch time study
 Computerized data collection
 Standard data
 Predetermined time systems
 Work sampling
 Estimates based on historical data
Know that!!
 A good time study analysts are good methods engineers!!
 Resulting standards are used to implement a wage
payment scheme
Objectives of Methods, Standards and Work
Design
 Principal Objectives are:
 To increase productivity and product reliability safely
 To lower unit cost, thus allowing more quality goods and services to be
produced for more people

 Corollaries to the principal objectives:

 Minimize the time required to perform tasks
 Continually improve the quality and reliability of products and services
 Conserve resources and minimize cost by specifying the most appropriate direct
and indirect materials for the production of goods and services
 Take the availability of power into careful consideration
 Maximize the safety, health and well-being of all employees
 Produce with an increasing concern for protecting the environment
 Follow a humane program of management that results in job interest and
satisfaction for each employee.
Historical Developments
 Jean Rodolphe Perronet (1760), a French Engineer, made
extensive time study on the manufacture of No. 6 common
pins
 Charles Babbage (1820), an English economist, conducted
time studies on the manufacture of No. 11 common pins
 Frederick Winslow Taylor (1881) began his time study work
 He proposed that the work of the employee be planned out by the
management at least one day in advance.
 Workers were to receive complete written instructions describing their
tasks in detail and noting the means to accomplish them.
 He advocated breaking up the task assignments into small divisions of
effort known as ELEMENTS
More of Taylor’s Work
 In his “Shop Management” project presentation he included the scientifice
management elements like: time study; standardization of all tools and tasks; use of
planning department; use of slide rules and similar time saving implements;
instruction cards for workers; bonuses for successful performance; differential rates;
mnemonic systems for classifying products; routing systems; and modern cost
systems.
 Famous on his pig-iron experiment and the shoveling experiment
 Well-known for his discovery of the Taylor-White process of heat treatment for tool
steel.
 Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Frederick W. Taylor
Motion Study and the work of Gilbreths
 Frank and Lillian Gilbreths were the founders of the
modern time study technique
 Which is now defined as the study of body motions used
in performing an operation
 The purpose of motion study:
 To improve the operation by eliminating unnecessary motions
 Simplifying necessary motions
 Establishing the most favorable motion sequence for maximum
efficiency
 Increase production
 Reduce fatigue ; and
 Instruct the operators in the best method of performing an operation
More of the Gilbreths
 They developed the technique of filming motions to study
them. It is known as the micromotion study.
 They also developed the cyclegraphic and chronocycle graphic
analysis techniques for studying the motion paths made by an
operator.
 Cyclegraphic technique: involves attaching a small electric light bulb to the
finger or the hand or part of the body being studied and then photographing
the motion while the operator is performing the operation. The resulting
picture gives a permanent record of the motion pattern employed and can be
analyzed for possible improvement.
 Chronocyclegraph is similar to cyclegraph, but its electric circuit is
interrupted regularly,causing the light to flash. Instead of showing solid lines
of the motion patterns, the resulting photograph shows short dashes of light
spaced in proportion to the speed of the body motion being photographed.