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Application of work sampling to short cycle assembly operations

University of British Columbia

The objective of this work is to study the applicability of work sampling to a short cycle repetitive operation and to compare the economics of work sampling technique with a conventional time study. To make this comparison, work sampling studies were carried out concurrently with ongoing time studies done by personnel of the Industrial Engineering department in a local lock factory. The criteria for the study were : 1. - The base data would ensure that the predictions would be within ± five percent of the true value with 95% certainty. These are standard confidence limits for most industrial applications. 2. - Preparation time for work sampling and time study were assumed to be equal. Two operations were studied, a line assembly operation and a bench assembly operation. The first study represents the work of a team of four people as a unit. The workers often changed their activities to achieve a better balance of the line, since the nature of the operation is such that it is practically impossible to have the workers at fixed positions performing the same activity all the time. The second activity represents numerous workers working independently at benches. The study proved that for assembly operations work sampling can be used to good effect and at viable cost when compared with standard stop watch study. The acceptability of the studies psychologically favours work sampling, as does the level of training required for the time study practitioner. It is generally accepted that a work sampling analyst could be trained in one-quarter of the time which would be required for time study.

Text

2010-02-27

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21175

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

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