Work Study - Work Content Analysis - Basic and Excess Work Contents

Work Study - Machine Work Study & Operator Work Study

Work study has emerged as a popular concept in industrial engineering. Barnes called it work methods design. Then other American scholars termed as work systems design.

Work Content Analysis

To appreciate how work study acts to cut down costs and reduce the time of a certain activity, it is necessary to examine more closely the time and cost of activities.

The total time of a job is made up of basic work content and excess work content.

Work content means the amount of work contained in a given product made by a process measured in work-hours or machine hours.

A work-hour is the labour of one person for one hour.
A machine-hour is the running of a machine or piece of plant for one hour.

We can also think of work content of a process in similar terms.

Basic Work Content

Basic work content is the time (work-hours and machine hours) taken to manufacture the product if the design and specification were perfect, if  the process and equipment used were perfect and if there were no loss of working time from any cause whatsoever during the process period (excluding planned rest pauses). It is the irreducible minimum time theoretically required to produce one unit of output.

Excess Work Content

Excess work content is due to:

Imperfect design and specification of the product and components

Imperfect Process Design

Imperfect Facilities (production equipment, inspection machines, meters, and gages, material handling equipment, work place facilities and atmospheric conditions)

Delays and lost time due to absenteeism, equipment breakdowns, power failure, defects produced, accidents etc.)

Imperfect planning of jobs and materials.

Industrial engineers are engaged in productivity improvement through waste elimination or elimination of excess work content.

The topic as given in ILO Work Study Book

In practice, actual work content are in excess of basic work content due causes such as:

A. Poor Design and Specification

A1. Poor design and frequent design changes
A2. Waste of materials
A3. Incorrect quality standards (unnecessary tight tolerances)

B. Inefficient Process, Method of Manufacture or Operation

B1. Poor layout and utilization of space
B2. Inappropriate material handling
B3. Frequent stoppages as production changes from one product to another
B4. Inefficient operation
B5. Poor planning of inventory
B6. Frequent breakdowns of machines and equipment

C. Human Resource Issues

C1. Absenteeism and lateness
C2. Poor workmanship
C3. Accidents and occupational hazards

Industrial Engineering and Management Techniques to Reduce Excess Work Content

A. Poor Design and Specification

A1. Poor design and frequent design changes - Product industrial engineering
A2. Waste of materials - Material usage analysis and improvement
A3. Incorrect quality standards (unnecessary tight tolerances) - Quality Control - Tolerance cost analysis

B. Inefficient Process, Method of Manufacture or Operation

B1. Poor layout and utilization of space - Plant layout improvement
B2. Inappropriate material handling - Material handling industrial engineering
B3. Frequent stoppages as production changes from one product to another - Production planning, Setup time reduction
B4. Inefficient process and operation - Process analysis, Method study, Operation analysis
B5. Poor planning of inventory - Inventory planning
B6. Frequent breakdowns of machines and equipment - Preventive and predictive maintenance, Total Productive Maintenance

C. Human Resource Issues

C1. Absenteeism and lateness - Personnel policies and HRM
C2. Poor workmanship - Training
C3. Accidents and occupational hazards

Human Effort Industrial Engineering


Topic Described in Book Anil Mital, Anoop Desai
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=uW4NDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

There is a three way break up of time in a process.

Value added activity time + Non-value added activity time + No value added time.

Cost is incurred all the time. Time reduction is cost reduction if resources are same. (Narayana Rao, 19 July 2021)

There are basic and excess work content portions in "Value added activity time" and "Non-value added activity time." 

Updated on 19 July 2021,  8 May 2021,   16 August 2020,   23 July 2020
25 May 2020
First published on 24 June 2019