2025 - A to Z Industrial Engineering - Blogging Theme - Industrial Engineering Benefits the Society and Organizations
Industrial Engineering - Systems/Processes/Methods Improvement Using Engineering solutions creatively.
Industrial Engineering - Prime focus - Productivity Improvement.
Productivity improvement gives National Prosperity and Organization Prosperity.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/national-productivity-council-gandhinagar_cartoonseriesabr10-productivity-economicgrowth-activity-7301162658278379520-eyyl
A to Z of Industrial Engineering - Blogging Challenge April 2025 - Proposed Posts
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-to-z-of-industrial-engineering.html
Existing Collection of Articles
A to Z of Industrial Engineering - Principles, Methods, Techniques, Tools and Applications
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2018/06/a-to-z-of-industrial-engineering.html
Job Design and Industrial Engineering
Job design may be defined as the methods that management uses to develop the content of a job, including all relevant tasks, as well as the processes by which jobs are constructed and revised.
The nature of work is changing because of advanced information technology and globalization. Consequently, two new developments have emerged. The first is a blurring of the distinction between on-work and off-work time. A person carrying a cell phone and/or PDA (personal digital assistant) and a home office containing a fax machine and Internet access is “at work” even when not in the office
and is “on-call” practically every moment of the day. This includes drive time and time spent in airports or while flying across the world. The second development, which is tied to the first, is the rising number of telecommuting jobs or teleworking, in which the employee performs substantial amounts of work at home. An increasing number of organizations provide employees with advanced information technology for home use. These recent trends create new challenges for job design models.
There is a growing theoretical and research base in the organizational behavior area on the topic job design and some methods based on the research results are being widely applied to the actual practice of
management. The major job design applications are explained below.
Job Rotation
One of the recommendations of OB researchers in job design is moving employees from one relatively simple job to another after short time periods (one hour, half-days, every day). For example, at McDonald’s, an employee may cook French fries one day, fry hamburgers the next, wait on
the front counter during the next shift, and draw soft drinks the next. This form of job rotation has several advantages. First, the odds of injury are reduced, as each worker must refocus on a new task throughout the workday. Further, the incidence of repetitive strain injuries (e.g., carpal tunnel syndrome) may also be reduced. Second, as employees learn sets of tasks, they are more flexible and able to cover for someone who is absent or who quits. The primary disadvantage of job rotation is that each individual task eventually becomes as boring as the rest of the simple tasks. In other words, over the long term there is no substantial difference between cooking French fries and frying hamburgers. Consequently, job satisfaction and/or performance may decline. Rotation does, however, have some research evidence showing a positive impact, especially for cross-training and developing employees for broadened responsibilities. In any event, it is a better alternative to job design than doing nothing.
Job Enlargement
This job design process involves increasing the number of tasks each employee performs. A sales clerk who waits on customers, finalizes the sale, helps with credit applications, arranges merchandise, and reorders stock has an enlarged job, when compared to a checkout clerk or a shelf stocker in a retail store. Workers in enlarged jobs are able to use more skills in performing their tasks. Many times, however, enlargement reduces the efficiency with which tasks are completed, thereby slowing work down. However, enlargement does not necessarily result in improved employee satisfaction and commitment.
Job Enrichment
Job enrichment represents an extension of the more simplified job rotation and job
enlargement techniques of job design. It is a direct outgrowth of Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation. The assumption is that in order to motivate personnel, the job must be designed to provide opportunities for achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and growth. The technique entails “enriching” the job so that these factors are included. In particular, job enrichment is concerned with designing jobs that include a greater variety of work content; require a higher level of knowledge and skill; give workers more autonomy and responsibility in terms of planning, directing, and controlling their own performance; and provide the opportunity for personal growth and a meaningful work experience. While job rotation and job enlargement horizontally load the job, job enrichment vertically loads the job. In addition to more tasks to perform, there is more responsibility and accountability. For example, instead of doing a mundane, specialized task, then passing off to another worker doing another minute part of the task, under job enrichment, the worker would be given a complete module of work to do (job enlargement) and, importantly, would inspect his or her own work (responsibility) and put a personal identifier on it (accountability).
Job enrichment is not a panacea for all job design problems facing modern management. Based on documented cases where this approach to job design did not work, Miner gave some explanations. Job enrichment is difficult to truly implement; many employees simply prefer an old familiar job to an enriched job, and that employees in general and unions in particular are resistant to the change. Some employees have expressed preferences for higher pay rather than enriched jobs, and others enjoy their current patterns of on-the-job socialization and friendships more than they do increased responsibility and autonomy. Essentially, job enrichment in some situations may inhibit a person’s social life at work.
Despite some potential limitations, job enrichment is still a viable approach, and research provides continuing evidence that it has mostly beneficial results (more employee satisfaction and customer service, less employee overload, and fewer employee errors). There is even a study that found employees were more creative when they worked in an enriching context of complex, challenging jobs and a supportive, noncontrolling supervisory climate. However, management must still use job enrichment selectively and give proper recognition to the complex human and situational variables.
The Job Characteristics Approach to Task Design
To meet some of the limitations of the relatively simple Herzberg approach to job enrichment (which can be termed orthodox job enrichment, or OJE), a group of researchers began to concentrate on the relationship between certain job characteristics, or the job scope, and employee motivation. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham developed the most widely recognized model of job characteristics. This model recognizes that certain job characteristics contribute to certain psychological states and that the
strength of employees’ need for growth has an important moderating effect. The core job characteristics can be summarized briefly as follows:
1. Skill variety refers to the extent to which the job requires the employee to draw from a number of different skills and abilities as well as on a range of knowledge.
2. Task identity refers to whether the job has an identifiable beginning and end. How complete a module of work does the employee perform?
3. Task significance involves the importance of the task. It involves both internal significance—
how important is the task to the organization?—and external significance—how proud are employees to tell relatives, friends, and neighbors what they do and where they work?
4. Autonomy refers to job independence. How much freedom and control do employees have, for example, to schedule their own work, make decisions, or determine the means to accomplish objectives?
5. Feedback refers to objective information about progress and performance and can come from the job itself or from supervisors or an information system.
The critical psychological states can be summarized as follows:
1. Meaningfulness. This cognitive state involves the degree to which employees perceive their work as making a valued contribution, as being important and worthwhile.
2. Responsibility. This state is concerned with the extent to which employees feel a sense of being personally responsible or accountable for the work being done.
3. Knowledge of results. Coming directly from the feedback, this psychological state involves the degree to which employees understand how they are performing in the job.
In essence, this model says that certain job characteristics lead to critical psychological states. That is, skill variety, task identity, and task significance lead to experienced meaningfulness; autonomy leads to the feeling of responsibility; and feedback leads to knowledge of results. The more these three psychological states are present, the more employees will feel good about themselves when they perform well.
Hackman states: “The model postulates that internal rewards are obtained by an individual when he learns (knowledge of results) that he personally (experienced responsibility) has performed well on a task that he cares about (experienced meaningfulness).” Hackman then points out that these internal
rewards are reinforcing to employees, causing them to perform well. If they don’t perform well, they will try harder in order to get the internal rewards that good performance brings.
He concludes: “The net result is a self-perpetuating cycle of positive work motivation powered by self-generated rewards. This cycle is predicted to continue until one or more of the three psychological states is no longer present, or until the individual no longer values the internal rewards that derive from good performance.” Hackman and Oldham provided original research supporting the existence of these relationships, and subsequent research has found strong support for the linkages between the core job dimensions and the critical psychological states, and between these states and the predicted outcomes.
An example of an enriched job, according to the Hackman-Oldham characteristics model, would be that of a surgeon. All five job characteristics are present in surgeon's job. All five job characteristics would be relatively minimal or nonexistent in the perceptions of many assembly line jobholders and thus can help explain the motivation problem with these low-level jobs. In other words, the job design, not just the person holding the job, helps explain the motivation to perform under this approach.
Many well-known companies have actually implemented job design changes in accordance with the job characteristics model. For example, in terms of building in autonomy in jobs, well-known firms in the hospitality (e.g., Disney, Ritz Carlton) and retail industries allow their frontline employees to “make it right” for the “guest”/customer at any cost. For instance, at the very successful Container Stores, every salesperson has a key to the till in order to make any decision the customer needs.
Source: Fred Luthans, 12 ed.
-------------------
Job design is also an important topic human resource management and operations management.
Job design will specify the activities to be performed by a person occupying the job. The job has to be designed so that organization's requirements are met by the output given by the job. Its integration with input and output sides has to be ensured in the design. The supervision aspects of the job are also to be specified.
The qualifications or competencies required for the person filling the job are to specified.
Job design is an important topic human resource management and operations management.
Job design will specify the activities to be performed by a person occupying the job. The job has to be designed so that organization's requirements are met by the output given by the job. Its integration with input and output sides has to be ensured in the design. The supervision aspects of the job are also to be specified.
The qualifications or competencies required for the person filling the job are to specified.
Taylor's Ideas on Task Design and Management
(a) A LARGE DAILY TASK. --Each man in the establishment, high or low, should daily have a clearly defined task laid out before him. This task should not in the least degree be vague nor indefinite, but should be circumscribed carefully and completely, and should not be easy to accomplish.
(b) STANDARD CONDITIONS. --Each man's task should call for a full day's work, and at the same time the workman should be given such standardized conditions and appliances as will enable him to accomplish his task with certainty.
All orders must be given to the men in detail in writing; and in order to lay out the next day's work and plan the entire progress of work through the shop, daily returns must be made by the men to the
planning department in writing, showing just what has been done. Before each casting or forging arrives in the shop the exact route which it is to take from machine to machine should be laid out. An instruction card for each operation must be written out stating in detail just how each operation on every piece of work is to be done and the time required to do it, the drawing number, any special tools, jigs, or appliances required, etc.
It is also necessary in most shops to make important physical changes. All of the small details in the shop, which are usually regarded as of little importance and are left to be regulated according to the individual taste of the workman, or, at best, of the foreman, must be thoroughly and carefully standardized; such. details, for instance, as the care and tightening of the belts; the exact shape and quality of each cutting tool; the establishment of a complete tool room from which properly ground tools, as well as jigs, templates, drawings, etc., are issued under a good check system, etc.; and as a matter of importance (in fact, as the foundation of scientific management) an accurate study of unit times must be made by one or more men connected with the planning department, and each machine tool must be standardized and a table or slide rule constructed for it showing how to run it to the best advantage.
http://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2013/08/importance-of-people-organization-fw.html
There is no question that the average individual accomplishes the most when he either gives himself, or some one else assigns him, a definite task, namely, a given amount of work which he must do within a given time; and the more elementary the mind and character of the individual the more necessary does it become that each task shall extend over a short period of time only.
Another and perhaps equally great advantage of assigning a daily task as against ordinary piece work lies in the fact that the success of a good workman or the failure of a poor one is thereby daily and prominently called to the attention of the management. Many a poor workman might be willing to go along in a slipshod way under ordinary piece work, careless as to whether he fell off a little in his output or not. Very few of them, however, would be willing to record a daily failure to accomplish their task even if they were allowed to do so by their foreman; and also since on ordinary piece work the price alone is specified without limiting the time which the job is to take, a quite large falling off in output can in many cases occur without coming to the attention of the management at all. It is for these reasons that the writer has above indicated "a large daily task" for each man as the first of four principles which should be included in the best type of management.
Scott A Snell and George W. Bohlander suggested a good model for job design to be implemented by HR people.
The model has four elements.
Organization objectives for the job.
Industrial engineering considerations - Efficiency and productivity
Ergonomic considerations - comfort, safety and health
Behavioral considerations that influence job satisfaction
Reference
Managing Human Resources by Scott A Snell and George W. Bohlander, 16th edition, 2012, Pp.157-58
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=7n0cyNP-MHIC
Job Design - Importance - PWC
Job design is an important activity and top consultants are offering the consultancy service in it currently. Any service being offered by top consultant is one which is important for the managements in the current time.
Job design is an important element of work design and includes the types of tasks required, how tasks are completed, and the level and variation in knowledge and skills required. Good job design facilitates thriving by enabling the employee to grow, become more confident, competent and seek further challenge. It is critical for employee mental health and performance that job design moves away from streamlining tasks for perceived efficiency and toward a model of creating jobs that cultivate development, motivation, empowerment and engagement.
Job design can be used to provide employees with resources. For example, autonomy is a type of resource which enables employees control over their work. There is a wealth of evidence to
show that employees who have greater autonomy are more proactive, creative and committed to the organisation. Thriving can also be enhanced when employees perceive the job to be important, have low amounts of repetition, and optimised levels of challenge and complexity.
PWC Report: The opportunity to thrive - December 2015
http://www.pwc.com.au/pdf/8a3423db-a242-4f2f-bde5-257bbcb0aa3f.pdf
The above passage is focusing on the behavioral aspects of the job.
https://nraomtr.blogspot.com/2017/04/job-redesign-for-effectiveness.html
Job and Work Analysis
Methods, Research, and Applications for Human Resource Management Second Edition
Michael T. Brannick University of South Florida
Edward L. Levine University of South Florida
Frederick P. Morgeson Michigan State University, Eli Broad Graduate School of Management
Sage Publications 2007
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
Overview of the Book
The Uses of Job Analysis
Definitions
Building Blocks of Job Analysis Methods
A Couple of Job Analysis Projects
2. Work-Oriented Methods
Time-and-Motion Study
Functional Job Analysis
Task Inventories
Critical Incident Technique
3. Worker-Oriented Methods
Job Element Method
Position Analysis Questionnaire
Other Trait-Based Worker-Oriented Measures
Cognitive Task Analysis
4. Hybrid Methods
Combination Job Analysis Method
Multimethod Job Design Questionnaire
Occupational Information Network
5. Management and Teams
Overview of the Chapter
Management and Leadership
Job Analysis for Teams
6. Job Analysis and the Law
Overview of the Chapter
Federal Legislation
Enforcement of Equal Employment Opportunity Laws
Executive orders
Professional Standards
Prescriptions for Job Analysis
7. Job Description, Performance Appraisal, Job Evaluation, and Job Design
Job Description
Performance Appraisal
Job Evaluation and Compensation
Job Design/Redesign
8. Staffing and Training
Staffing
Training
9. Doing a Job Analysis Study
Overview of the Chapter
Matching Purpose and Job Analysis Attributes
Selecting Approaches
Observations and Interviews
Questionnaires
Analyzing Data
A Note About Accuracy in Job Analysis
Chapter Summary
10. The Future of Job Analysis
Overview of the Chapter
Changing Conditions
Implications for Jobs and Job Analysis
Chapter Summary
About the Authors
http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book229151&currTree=Subjects&level1=K00#tabview=toc
Review
An important book to be browsed by industrial engineers
Work Analysis and Design -Bernardin HRM Chapter - Review Notes
Definition
Work analysis is a systematic process of gathering information about work, jobs, and the relationships among jobs.
The chronological Steps in Work Analysis (given in the form of questions)
1. What are the required outcomes/measures for assessing strategy execution (e.g., customer requirements for products/services derived from the strategic plan)?
2. What are necessary, critical, essential tasks, activities, behaviors required to meet or exceed the requirements established at step 1? what the relative importance, frequency, and essentiality of these tasks for achieving measures at step 1?
3. What are the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics or competencies required to perform the activities at step 2?
4. How should jobs/work be defined? Where does the work get done to maximize efficiency/effectiveness? Do we use individual jobs, work teams, independent contractors, full-time/part-time? Do we outsource?
Major Goals of Work Analysis
1. Description of observables
2. Description of job characteristics
3. Verifiable and reliable data
Major Products of Work Analysis
Job description
Job classification
Job evaluation
Job specification
Job description
Job descriptions define the job in terms of its content and scope. Job descriptions are often summarized in employment ads.
Job specification
Job specifications consist of the KASOCs need to carry out the job tasks and duties.
Strategic Job Analysis - Work Analysis
Strategic job analysis comes into picture when a new business is started as a separate unit or as a separate division. It also comes into picture when jobs are changing dramatically or when a new job is being created. In this case, the analysis takes on a rather predictive bent and the job is described through the anticipated tasks that need to be performed in order to meet organizational goals. If a job currently exists, then a conventional or routine job analysis procedure is used.
If the job isn't in existence, then subject matter experts (SMEs) and the primary customers (users of outputs of the job) are brought together to identify the tasks and output of the new job. While internal customers described their requirement, SMEs help in bringing the external customer and environment into the analysis. Detailed description of job tasks and the required KASOCs are developed with the help of SMEs. The results of this strategic analysis are compared with existing job descriptions if the analysis is carried for existing jobs expected to have a big change. If the jobs are changing due to introduction of new technology, the experts from hardware and software supplies are also consulted in the process of job analysis.
Formal Approaches to Work Analysis
Position Analysis questionnaire
Management position description questionnaire
Competency modeling
O*Net
Critical Incident Technique
Job compatibility questionnaire (JCQ)
Job Diagnostic Survey
Multimethod Job Design Questionnaire
Competency Modeling
Most experts contend that competency modeling is more focused on how objectives are accomplished rather than what is accomplished. Competency modeling attempts to identify and define competencies that are common for an occupational group. The concept of competencies is also used in the case of organizations. But here our concern is with competencies required for a job position and competencies that an individual in the job possesses. Thereby, the most common purpose for competency modeling will be to derive training and development programs.
Even though the derivation of competencies lacks rigor, use of competency modeling is very popular. Peoplesoft, SAP and Oracle have competency modeling components to help HR managers. But Bernardin points out that there is difficulty in distinguishing between competencies and psychological traits.
O*Net and DOT
Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) classifies job based on a nine-digit code and provides job descriptions.
O*NET - The Occupational Information Network was developed as a replacement of the DOT. It is positioned as a tool for job analysis and career exploration.
O*NET is based on a six-domain content model.
Worker requirements
Experience requirements
Worker characteristics
Occupational requirements
Occupation specific requirements
Occupation characteristics
Visit online onetcenter for more information
https://nraomtr.blogspot.com/2011/12/work-analysis-and-design-bernardin-hrm.html
