Key factors to increase the efficiency and output of an Industrial Process: A Work Study.

Introduction

Now a days every organization gives emphasis on having its work done in a very efficient and effective way. The way the work gets completed and the efforts taken, plays a very crucial role in determining the success of any organization or for any industrial engineering product in the market and creating its impact on the customers to sustain in the market. This leads to the development of ‘Work Study’. The various aspects of work study has been discussed below in the following post.

Work Study

Work study is defined as the systematic study to find out one of the best ways of doing any work by investigation and analysis of all details about the work as per established standard. The British Standard Institution (BSI) defines work study as, “The technique which is partly concerned with method study and work measurement, which are used in the examination of human work in all aspects”. For more details on British Standard Institute and its process, click here.

The various study done related with the work and the many amount of investigations carried out gives a wider knowledge about the requirement of the work and leads to invention of various new and creative ideas and processes to get the work completed in a reduced amount of time.

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Industrial Engineering Work Study Document

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Evolution of Work Study

Companies competing in the market are always in search of creative and effective techniques to produce their product in order to sustain in the market. This leads to evolution of new and innovative techniques for the completion of work.

Evolution is said to be a gradual process over time in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. With changes in time there is a need to bring a change in the present technique of work study as it can, not only lead to the implementation of new and innovative techniques which are much more efficient in completion of work, but will also earn the organization a huge profit.

Today the various organizations with all their complexities and modernization naturally demand more systematic approaches like work study and also, any further evolutions in it. Following are the points which prove the necessity of evolution of work study.

• It helps to increase the productivity.
• It helps to reduce manufacturing cost of the products.
• It helps to serve the customers with utmost satisfaction.
• It helps in maintaining better working conditions by erasing all unnecessary factors.
• It helps to understand the manufacturing processes in detail and is helpful in selecting the correct process out of many.

Basic procedure of Work Study

There is a basic procedure(steps) in work study to carry out any fixed operation as per the required standards. These steps have been developed by carrying out various experiments and understanding the requirement of the particular job. These steps are internationally accepted and are very much helpful in selecting the correct process for the product. Following are the procedure involved in work study:

1. Selection of Job/ Process

As work study is the study of the process for finding out the best job, so the first step in work study is the selection of the job. The job as decided by the manufacturer for manufacturing any specified product is selected and the following steps are carried out.

2. Record

After selecting the job the next step that follows is to record the various data related to the job. These data are helpful in understanding the working efficiency of the selected job. The recorded data are time, quality of finished product, various problems faced, level of comfort of the worker during the work, etc.

These data are measured with the help of various sophisticated measuring instruments with very high level of accuracy.

3. Examination

The various data recorded are examined, and the conclusion is made whether to continue the job or to go for any replacement.

4. Development of New Method

As per the decisions made in the previous step the development of a new method is carried out by keeping in view the various data recorded by the previously selected method. The newly developed method promises to give better results than the previous method.

5. Measurement

This step mainly deals with the measurement of time for completion of work by the newly developed method. This is mainly carried out to set the standard time for the completion of work.

6. Define

This step justifies the use of the newly developed method and defines the various parameters related with it.

7. Install

The newly developed method is installed for its implementation in the industry and, hence the previous method gets replaced.

8. Maintain

The newly developed and installed method is taken care of so that it can be used in the long run of the organization to get the benefits. The various procedure involved in work study can be understood in a better way by taking the help of the following example.

For example in a cloth industry the indigenous method of hand sewing is used. It is too much time consuming and reduces productivity. The organization decides to replace this method with more efficient technique to increase the productivity in a reduced amount of time. Work study is implemented to solve the problem.

Select : Hand sewing
Record : Time taken, quality, number of cloths sewed, etc.
Examine : Why time taken is less? Quality reduced?
Develop : Stitching machines, automated robos.
Measure : The standard time for completion of job by the developed method.
Define : How development can be fruitful?
Install : Installation of the new machines.
Maintain : New machines are taken care of.

 

Summary

We have tried to present here an overview of standard methods and key factrors which when followed by an industry, will help increase the efficiency of their main process by decreasing the amount of time taken by the process from start to end and by increasing the output of the process.

[About the Author: Hyder is an engineering student in Mechanical engineering from College of Engineering, Pandharpur, Maharashtra India.]