WS/ OM – Work Study/ Organisation & Methods

Sometimes, specific tasks must be analysed in detail to identify how to improve them

Work Study, a scientific management approach, can be the answer

WS engineers determine the right way to perform a manual or clerical task, and then calculate the time it should take an experienced operative to complete it, measured in SMVs  – Standard Minute Values – which are then used to calculate ‘ideal’ manning levels and bonuses earned

Up to the 60s, pioneering WS techniques to improve productivity included:

• Time and method study from Frederick W Taylor in the 30’s – “The Principles of Scientific Management” – Philadelphia steel

• Move product to workers and their gear – Charles Sorensen – Ford

• Hawthorne experiments and impact of rest breaks – George Elton Mayo – GE

• Motion study from Frank & Lillian Gilbreth

• Rating assessment from Charles Bedaux

These techniques evolved from the productivity improvement initiatives taken by US manufacturing companies such as Bethlehem Steel and Henry Ford’s car factories – both were capital and labour intensive – both focused on output volumes and labour productivity

Much success came from:

• Subdivision of manual work into small groups of simple, repetitive tasks:

  • Henry Ford claimed “nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”

  • Only later was it realised that this so bored and demotivated employees that output volumes would eventually fall

• Detailed measurement of manual work to reduce wasted time

• Tighter control of labour numbers, grades and so costs

• Work-measured bonus schemes paying an extra 1/3 of pay for 1/3 extra effort

• Standardisation and interchangeability of parts

• More efficient layouts of assembly lines

It was not too difficult to achieve major productivity improvements at the time – many work practices were disorganised, largely because employees had been left to devise their own ways of working

Work study thus had a good run, for at least 50 years, up until the 80s

However, its connection with job losses always made it despised by the Unions

And its focus on manual and clerical tasks made it disregarded by those wanting to study ‘higher’ levels of work e.g. brainwork