Exam 9: Human Resources, Job Design, and Work Measurement

A task involves positioning two metal parts with a rubber gasket sandwiched between them, inserting two bolts into predrilled holes, threading a nut onto each bolt, and tightening each bolt with a pneumatic wrench. In a preliminary study, the manager observed one of his workers performing this task five times. The observations were made in an air-conditioned, well-lit training facility, at ground level, with all tools and equipment clean and readily available. (a) What is the average observed time for this task? (b) What is the normal time for this task if the employee worked at a 10% slower pace than is typical for adequately trained workers? (c) What is standard time for this task if allowances sum to 14%?

________ involves enlarging employee jobs so that the added responsibility and authority is moved to the lowest level possible in the organization.

A work cell is scheduled to build 120 digital light processor (DLP) assemblies each week. These assemblies are later installed into home theater projection systems. The work cell has 6.5 hours of productive work each day, five days per week. What is takt time for this cell?

________ are charges that manufacturers pay to get their products displayed.

Explain what the purpose of assembly-line balancing is. Describe briefly how it is done.

Psychological factors have little relevance in the design of assembly line jobs because those jobs involve physical products and production technology.

The main goal of retail layout is:

Cycle time is the minimum time that the product is needed at each workstation.

An assembly line consists of 158 tasks grouped into 32 workstations. The sum of all task times is 104 minutes. The largest assigned cycle time is 4 minutes. What is the efficiency of this line?

An insurance claims processing center has six work centers, any of which can be placed into any of six physical departmental locations. Call the centers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and the departments A, B, C, D, E, and F. The current set of assignments is A-3, B-1, C-6, D-2, E-4, and F-5. The (symmetric) matrix of departmental distances, in meters is shown below. The matrix of work flow (estimated trips per day) among centers is shown below. The firm estimates that each trip costs approximately $4. What is the cost of the current assignment?

Explain in broad terms, using a sentence or two, what is meant by the "classical stopwatch study." To what extent is it still in use today?

Most pit crew members have background experience in what area?

________ is the use of computer software to evaluate the profitability of merchandising plans in a retail layout.

Develop a solution for the following line balancing problem, allowing a cycle time of 5 minutes. (a) Draw the precedence diagram for the set of tasks. (b) Calculate the theoretical minimum number of workstations. (c) Balance this line using the longest task time heuristic. (d) What tasks are assigned to which stations? (e) Does the solution have the minimum number of stations? Explain. (f) How much idle time is there, summed over all workstations? (g) What is the efficiency of this line?

The term common factors is often substituted for the word ergonomics.

A focused work center is well suited to the production of a large family of products requiring similar processing, even if their demands are not very stable.

An advantage of predetermined time standards is that the standard can be set before a task is actually performed.

Labor planning determines employment stability.

Many home builders are moving from a fixed-position layout strategy to one that is more process oriented in an attempt to add efficiency.

The preferred method of choice for setting labor standards is to base them on historical experience.