FACILITY LOCATION

AND LAYOUT
FACILITY LOCATION
By: H/mariam K.
Location selection
 A key-decision as large investment is
made in building plant and machinery.
 Changing location very often is not

advisable
 Improper location of plant may lead to

 waste of all the investments made for

buildings, machinery, equipment's.
Facility Location
 Process of identifying the best
geographic location for a service or
production facility.
 The purpose of the location study

 To find an optimum location one that

will result in the greatest advantage to
the organization
 Location Decision
 Depends on the type of business.
 Industrial location decisions - strategy is
usually minimizing costs, although innovation
and creativity may also be critical.
 Retail and professional service
organizations - strategy focuses on
maximizing revenue.
 Warehouse location strategy - may be driven
by a combination of cost and speed of
delivery.
Location Decision
 A poor choice of location might result in
 Excessive transportation costs,
 Shortage of qualified labor,
 Loss of competitive advantage,
 Inadequate supplies of raw materials, or
 Some similar condition that is detrimental to
operations.
 Location Decision
 Service:- poor location could result in
 Lack of customers and/or high operating
costs.
 Manufacturing and services:-
location decisions can have a
significant impact on competitive
advantage
 Need for Location Decisions
 Location decisions arise for a variety of reasons:
 As part of a marketing strategy to expand

markets
 To add new facilities

 Growth in demand that cannot be satisfied by

expanding existing facilities
 Depletion of basic inputs/resources (e.g. mining
& fishing)
 Cost advantage
 Strategic Importance of Location Decisions

 Location decisions are strategically important:

 Are closely tied to an organization’s strategies
 Effect capacity and flexibility
 Represent a long-term commitment of
resources/costs
 Impact competitive advantage
 Importance to supply chains
 Impact on investments, revenues, and operations
Location and Costs
 Location decisions based on low cost
require careful consideration
 Once in place, location-related costs

are fixed and difficult to reduce

 Determining optimal facility location

is a good investment
Location and Innovation

 If creativity, innovation, and RD

investments are critical to the
operations strategy,
 Cost is not always the most
important aspect of a strategic
decision.
Four key attributes when strategy is based on
innovation

 High-quality and specialized inputs

 An environment that encourages
investment and local rivalry
 A sophisticated local market
 Local presence of related and
supporting industries
General Procedure for Making Location Decisions

 Procedures for making formal approach to

location decisions consist of the following steps:
 Decide the criteria to use for evaluating

location alternatives: increased revenues or

community service
 Identify important factors, such as location of

markets or raw materials

 Develop location alternatives
 Evaluate the alternatives and make a selection
 Location Options

 Four options to consider in location planning.

 Expand an existing facility
 Add new locations
 Shut down at one location and move to
another
 Doing nothing:
Expand an existing facility

 Attractive if there is adequate

room for expansion,
 especially if the location has
desirable features that are not readily
available elsewhere.
 Expansion costs are often less than
those of other alternatives.
Add new locations:

 While retaining existing ones,

like in many retail operations.
 In such case, it is essential to take

into account what the impact will

be on the total system.
 Shut down at one location and move to another:

 An organization must weigh:

 The costs of a move and the resulting benefits
against
 The costs and benefits of remaining in an
existing location.
 Causes that make the firm to consider this option
are
 A shiftin markets,
 exhaustion of raw materials, and

Doing nothing:
 If a detailed analysis of potential
locations fails to uncover benefits that
make one of the previous three
alternatives attractive, a firm may decide
to maintain the status quo, at least for the
time being.
 Factors that Affect Location Decisions… Many factors
influence LD

 Few factors are so important that they dominate the

decision.
 Manufacturing - potentially dominating factors –
 Availability of an abundant energy and water supply and
 Proximity to raw materials.

 Service organizations - Possible dominating

factors are Market related and include
 Traffic patterns,
 Convenience, and
 Competitors’ locations,
 Proximity to the market.
Some of these important factors.

 Regional Factors:
 Community Considerations

 Site Related Factors:

 Global Locations:
Regional Factors
 The primary regional factors are:
 Location of Raw Materials:
 Location of Markets
 Labor Factors
 Location of Raw Materials
 Near or at the source of raw materials for three primary
reasons:
 Necessity,
 perishability, and
 transportation costs.
 Mining operations, farming, forestry, and fishing fall
under necessity.
 Obviously, such operations must locate close to the raw
materials.
 Location of Raw Materials
 Firms involved in canning or freezing of fresh fruit
and vegetables, processing of dairy products,
baking, and so on must consider perishability when
considering location.
 Transportation costs are important in industries

where processing eliminates much of the bulk

connected with a raw material,
 Making it much less expensive to transport the product
or material after processing.
Location of Markets
 Profit-oriented firms - locate near the
markets they intend to serve as part of
their competitive strategy, whereas
 Nonprofit organizations choose locations

relative to the needs of the users of their

services.
 Other factors include distribution costs or

the perishability of a finished product.

 Location of Markets
 Retail sales and services are usually found near the
center of the markets they serve.
 Some firms must locate close to their markets because of
the perishability of their products.
 Examples include bakeries, flower shops, and fresh seafood
stores.
 Locations of many government services are near the
markets they are designed to serve.
Labor Factors:
 Primary labor considerations are
 The cost and availability of labor,
 Wage rates in an area,
 Labor productivity and attitudes toward work, and
 whether unions are serious potential problems.
 Skills of potential employees may be a factor,
although some companies prefer to train new
employees rather than rely solely on previous
experience.
Labour …
 Workers attitude toward turnover,
absenteeism, and similar factors may
differ among potential locations-
 workers in large urban centers may
exhibit different attitudes than workers
in small towns and rural areas.
Other Factors:
 Climate and taxes sometimes play a role
in location decisions.
Community Considerations
 Many communities actively try to attract
new businesses because
 Potential sources of future tax revenues and
 new job opportunities.
 Communities do not, as a rule, want
firms that will create pollution problems
or otherwise lessen the quality of life in
the community.
Community …From a company standpoint

 A number of factors determine the desirability of a

community as a place for its workers and managers to
live.
 facilities for education, shopping, recreation,
transportation, religious worship, and entertainment; the
quality of police, fire, and medical services; local attitudes
toward the company; and the size of the community.
 Other community-related factors are the cost and
availability of utilities, environment regulations, taxes
(state and local, direct and indirect).
Site Related Factors:
 Primary considerations - land, transportation, and
zoning or other restrictions.
 As land is required for a long-term commitment, its
costs may be secondary to other site-related factors like
 Room for future expansion,
 current utility and sewer capacities
 limitations that could hinder future growth- and
 sufficient parking space for employees and customers.
 In addition, for many firm’s access roads for trucks or
rail spurs are important.
 Global Locations: Factors relating to foreign
locations are:

 Policies of foreign ownership of production facilities

 local content requirements, import restrictions, currency
restrictions, environmental regulations and local product
standards.
 Stability issues
 Cultural differences: living circumstances for foreign
workers and their dependents
 Customer Preferences: possible buy locally sentiment
 Labor: level of training and education of workers, work practices,
possible regulations limiting number of foreign employees & etc
 Resources: availability and quality of raw materials, energy,
transportation
 Evaluating Location Alternatives:

 There are a number of techniques that are

helpful in evaluating location alternatives:
 Factor rating method,
 Center of gravity method,
 Locational cost-profit-volume analysis and
 Transportation model.
Factor Rating Method:
 A general approach that is useful for
evaluating a given alternative and
comparing alternatives.
 The process of selecting a new facility location
involves a series of following steps:

 Determine which factors are relevant (e.g., location of

market, water supply, parking, revenue potential)
 Assign a weight to each factor that indicates its relative
importance compared with all other factors.
 Typically, weights sum to 1.00.
 Decide on a common scale for all factors (e.g., 0 to 100)
 Score each location alternative
 Multiply the factor weight by the score for each factor, and sum
the results for each location alternative
 Choose the alternative that has the highest composite score
Example:
 Assume that a small manufacturing firm has
recently decided to expand its operations to include
several new lines which it hopes to produce in a
separate location because of space limitations in its
existing plant. The following rating sheet illustrates
relevant factors and factor weightings for two
alternative locations.
At the weighted score of the two alternatives indicate,
alternative 1 =70 and alternative 2 = 85.7. Therefore,
based on factor rating method, alternative 2 is selected
which has the highest weighted score value.
 The Centre of Gravity Method:
 A method used to determine the location of a
distribution center that will minimize distribution
costs.
 It treats distribution cost as a linear function of the

distance and the quantity shipped.

 It takes into account

 the locations of plants and markets,

 the volume of goods moved, and
 transportation costs in arriving at the best location for a
single intermediate warehouse.
The center of gravity
 is defined to be the location that minimizes the weighted
distance between the warehouse and its supply and
distribution points, where the distance is weighted by the
number of tones supplied or consumed.
 The first step in this procedure is to place the locations on
a coordinate system.
 The origin of the coordinate system and scale used are
arbitrary, just as long as the relative distances are
correctly represented.
 This can be easily done by placing a grid over an ordinary
map.
 The center of gravity is determined by the formula.
 ,
 Where:
 Cx =x-coordinate of the center of gravity
 Dix = x-coordinate of location i
 Cy = y-coordinate of the center of gravity
 Diy = y-coordinate of location i
Example:
 A small manufacturing facility is being planned
that will feed parts to three heavy manufacturing
facilities. The locations of current plants with their
coordinates and volume requirements are given in
the following table
Location Break Even Analysis:
 BEA- is a technique used to compute the amount of
goods that must be sold just to cover costs.
 BEP is precisely the quantity of goods a company
needs to sell to break even.
 Quantity sold above BEP will bring a profit.
 At BEP, total cost and total revenue are equal and
the equation will use those to solve for Q, which is
the break-even quantity:
 𝑃𝑄 = 𝐹 + 𝐶𝑄 𝑄 = 𝐹 /𝑃 − 𝐶
 Step 1: For Each Location, determine Fixed and
Variable Costs.
 FC incurred regardless of how many units are produced
and include items such as
 overhead,
 taxes, and
 insurance.
 Variable costs - vary directly with the number of units
produced and include items such as materials and labour.
 Total cost is the sum of fixed and variable costs.
 Step 2: Plot the Total Costs for each Location
on one Graph.
 To plot any straight line we need two points.

 One point is Q = 0, which is the y intercept.

 Another point can be selected arbitrarily, but it is
best to use the expected volume of sales in the
future.
 Step 3: Identify ranges of output for which each
location has the lowest total cost.
 Step 4: Solve Algebraically for the BEPs over the
Identified Ranges.
 Select the location that gives the lowest cost for the
range of output required by the new facility
 Example: Fixed and variable costs for three
potential plant locations are shown below:
 If the selling price is = Br. 120
 Expected volume = 2,000 unit
 From the figure above we can understand that up to
1,000 units the best alternative is Hawassa; while
from 1,000 to 2,500 units the best alternative is
Dredawa and beyond 2, 500 is Addis.
Assembly-line Balancing
 Line-balancing is done to minimize imbalance
between machines or personnel while meeting a
required output from the line.
 For this, the management must know the tools,
equipment, and work methods used.
 Then the time needed for each assembly task (e.g.
drilling a hole, tightening a nut, or painting a part)
must be determined.
Assembly-line Balancing
 Management also needs to know the
precedence relationship among the
activities
 (i.e. the sequence in which different tasks
must be performed).
 The steps in balancing an assembly line are the
following:
 Step 1: Specify the sequential relationships among
tasks using a precedence diagram.
 Step 2: Determine the required workstation cycle
time(C), using the formula:
 Step 3: Determine the theoretical minimum number of
work stations (N)

 Step 4: Select a primary rule by which tasks are to be

assigned to workstations, and secondary rule to break ties.
 Step 5: Assign tasks, one at a time, to the first
workstation until the sum of the task times is equal to the
work station cycle time
 Step 6: Evaluate the efficiency of the balance:

 Step 7: If the efficiency is unsatisfactory, rebalance

using a different decision rule.
  Cellular Layouts:
 Cellular manufacturing is a type of layout in which
machines are grouped into what is referred to as a cell.
Groupings are determined by the operations needed to
perform work for a set of similar items, or part families that
require similar processing. The cells can consist of one
machine, a group of machines with no conveyorized
movement of parts between machines, or a flow line
connected by a conveyer. In the cellular layout, machines
are arranged to handle all of the operations necessary for a
group of similar parts. Thus, all of the parts follow the same
route, although minor variations are possible.
Office Layout:

 The main difference between office and

factory layouts is the importance placed on
information. However, in some office
environments, just in manufacturing,
production relies on the flow of material.
Office layout deals with grouping of workers,
their equipment, and spaces/offices to provide
for comfort, safety, and movement of
information.
Retail Layout:

 Retail layouts are based on the idea that sales and profitability vary
directly with customer exposure to products. Thus, most retail
managers try to expose customers to as many products as possible.
Studies show that the greater the rate of exposure, the greater the
sales and the higher the return on investment. Once the overall
layout of a retail store has been decided, products need to be
arranged for sale. Many considerations go into this arrangement.
However, the main objective of retail layout is to maximize
profitability per square foot of floor space (or, in some stores on
linear foot of shelf space). Big-ticket, or expensive, items may
yield greater dollar sales, but the profit per square foot may be
lower. Computerized programs are available to assist managers in
evaluating the profitability of various merchandising plans.
Warehousing and Storage Layouts:

 The objective of warehouse layout is to find the optimum trade-off

between handling cost and costs of warehouse space. So, the
management’s task is to maximize the utilization of the ‘cubic
space’ of the warehouse—that is, utilize its full volume while
maintaining low material handling costs, which is defined as all the
costs related to the incoming transport, storage, and outgoing
transport of materials to be warehoused. The cost also includes
equipment, people, material, supervision, insurance, and
depreciation. Effective warehouse layouts also minimize the
damage and spoilage of material within the warehouse. The variety
of items stored and the number of items ‘picked’ affect the
optimum layout. A warehouse storing a few items leads itself to
higher density than a warehouse storing a variety of items.
Service Layout

 The major factors considered for service providers, is an

impact of location on sales and customer satisfaction.
Service facility layout will be designed based on degree
of customer contact and the service needed by a customer.
These service layouts follow conventional layouts as
required. For example, for car service station, product
layout is adopted, where the activities for servicing a car
follows a sequence of operation irrespective of the type of
car. Hospital service is the best example for adaptation of
process layout. Here, the service required for a customer
will follow an independent path.
Job design and Work Measurement

First, a company determines its objectives, and then

develops an operations strategy to achieve those objectives.
A Part of the operations strategy is designing a work system,
which provides the structure for the productivity of the
company. The work system includes: job design, work
measurement, and worker compensation. The company
determines the purpose of each job, what the job consists of,
and the cost of the employees to do the job. A job must add
value and enable the company to achieve its objectives.
Objectives of job design are productivity, safety and quality
of work life.
Job design

 Job design is about how we structure each individual’s job, the

workplace or environment in which they work and their interface
with the technology they use. Its objective is to develop job
structures that meet the requirements of the organization. Job design
specifies the work activities of an individual or a group in support
of an organization‘s objectives. You design a job by answering
questions such as: What is your description of the job? What is the
purpose of the job? Where is the job done? Who does the job? What
background, training, or skills does an employee need to do the job?
 Job design involves a number of separate yet related elements
which when taken together define the jobs of the people who work
in the operation. The following are elements of job design that
should be consider in job designing.
Ergonomics Environmental Design

 Ergonomics is concerned primarily with the physiological

aspects of job design – that is, with the human body and how it
fits into its surroundings.
 This involves two aspects.
 First, how a person interfaces with environmental conditions
in his or her immediate working area. By this we mean the
temperature, lighting, noise environment and so on.
 Second, how the person interfaces with the physical aspect of
his or her workplace, where the ‘workplace’ includes tables,
chairs, desks, machines, computers.
 Ergonomics is sometimes referred to as human factors
engineering or just ‘human factors’.
 working temperature - Individuals vary in the
way their performance and comfort vary with
temperature. Nevertheless, some general points
regarding working temperatures provide guidance
to job designers:
 Illumination levels - The intensity of lighting
required to perform any job satisfactorily will
depend on the nature of the job. Some jobs which
involve extremely delicate and precise movement,
surgery for example, require very high levels of
illumination. Other, less delicate jobs do not
require such high levels.
 Noise levels - The damaging effects of excessive
noise levels are perhaps easier to understand than
some other environmental factors. Noise-induced
hearing loss is a well-documented consequence of
working environments where noise is not kept below
safe limits.
 Ergonomics in the office - As the number of
people working in offices (or office-like workplaces)
has increased, ergonomic principles have been
applied increasingly to this type of work. At the same
time, legislation has been moving to cover office
technology such as computer screens and keyboards.
Software: appropriate to task, adapted to user, no
undisclosed monitoring, Screen: stable image,
adjustable, readable, glare/reflection-free.
Ergonomic Workplace Design
 Many ergonomic improvements are primarily
concerned with what are called the anthropometric
aspects of jobs – that is, the aspects related to
people’s size, shape and other physical abilities. The
design of an assembly task, for example, should be
governed partly by the size and strength of the
operators who do the job. The data which ergonomists
use when doing this is called anthropometric data. we
all vary in our size and capabilities, ergonomists are
particularly interested in our range of capabilities.
Designing task allocation – the division of labor

 Division of labor is an approach to job design that

involves dividing a task down into relatively small
parts, each of which is accomplished by a single
person or team. It was first formalized as a concept
by the economist Adam Smith in his Wealth of
Nations in 1746.4 Perhaps the epitome of the
division of labor is the assembly line, where
products move along a single path and are built up
by operators continually repeating a single task.
There are some real advantages in division-of-labor
principles:

 It promotes faster learning

 Automation becomes easier
 Reduced non-productive work
 Monotony
 Physical injury
 Low flexibility
 Poor robustness
 It promotes faster learning. It is obviously easier
to learn how to do a relatively short and simple task
than a long and complex one. This means that new
members of staff can be quickly trained and
assigned to their tasks when they are short and
simple.
 Automation becomes easier. Dividing a total task
into small parts raises the possibility of automating
some of those small tasks. Substituting technology
for labor is considerably easier for short and simple
tasks than for long and complex ones.
 Reduced non-productive work. This is probably
the most important benefit of division of labor. In
large, complex tasks the proportion of time spent
picking up tools and materials, putting them down
again and generally finding, positioning and
searching can be very high indeed.
 There are also serious drawbacks/ to highly
divided jobs:
 Monotony - The shorter the task, the more often
operators will need to repeat it. Repeating the same task,
for example every 30 seconds, eight hours a day and five
days a week, can hardly be called a fulfilling job. As
well as any ethical objections, there are other, more
obviously practical objections to jobs which induce such
boredom. These include the increased likelihood of
absenteeism and staff turnover, the increased likelihood
of error and even the deliberate sabotage of the job.
 Physical injury - The continued repetition of a
very narrow range of movements can, in extreme
cases, lead to physical injury. The over-use of some
parts of the body (especially the arms, hands and
wrists) can result in pain and a reduction in
physical capability. This is sometimes called
repetitive strain injury.
 Low flexibility - Dividing a task into many small
parts often gives the job design a rigidity which is
difficult to adapt under changing circumstances.
For example, if an assembly line has been designed
to make one particular product but then has to
change to manufacture a quite different product, the
whole line will need to be redesigned. This will
probably involve changing every operator’s set of
tasks, which can be a long and difficult procedure.
 Poor robustness - Highly divided jobs imply
materials (or information) passing between several
stages. If one of these stages is not working
correctly, for example because some equipment is
faulty, the whole operation is affected. However, if
each person is performing the whole of the job, any
problems will affect only that one person’s output.
Eliminating Employee Boredom (Monotony)

 Companies that choose highly specialized job

design have several options for reducing worker
boredom, including job enlargement, job
enrichment, and job rotation.
 Job Enlargement፡ is the horizontal expansion of a
job. The job designer adds other related tasks
 to the job so the worker produces a portion of the
final product that he or she can recognize. By
reducing the level of specialization, however, job
enlargement may result in some lost productivity
compared to what was specified in the original job
design.
 Job enrichment፡ is the vertical expansion of a job.
The job designer adds worker responsibility
 for work planning and/or inspection. This allows
the worker some control over the workload in
terms of scheduling although not in terms of how
much work to do—and instills a sense of pride in
the worker.
 Job rotation፡ exposes a worker to other jobs in the
work system. Rotation allows workers to see
 how the output from their previous assignment is
used later in the production or service process.
Workers see more of the big picture and have a
better over- all understanding of the work system.
In addition, they acquire more skills that may
increase their value to the company. Job rotation
provides more flexibility for the company, as its
workers have upgraded skills.
Designing Job Methods – scientific management

 Scientific management is a school of management theory dating from the

early twentieth century; more analytical and systematic than ‘scientific’ as
such, sometimes referred to (pejoratively) as Taylorism,
 after Frederick Taylor who was influential in founding its principles. In this
work he identified what he saw as the basic tenets of scientific management:
 All aspects of work should be investigated on a scientific basis to establish the laws,
rules and formulae governing the best methods of working.
 Such an investigative approach to the study of work is necessary to establish what
constitutes a ‘fair day’s work’.
 Workers should be selected, trained and developed methodically to perform their
tasks.
 Managers should act as the planners of the work (analyzing jobs and standardizing
the best method of doing the job) while workers should be responsible for carrying
out the jobs to the standards laid down.
 Cooperation should be achieved between management and workers based on the
‘maximum prosperity of both.
Work Measurement

 Work measurement is the process of establishing the time for a

qualified worker, at a defined level of performance, to carry out a
specified job. Although it is agreed that a specified job is one for
which specifications have been established to define most aspects
of the job. A qualified worker is ‘one who is accepted as having the
necessary physical attributes, intelligence, skill, education and
knowledge to perform the task to satisfactory standards of safety,
quality and quantity. Standard performance is ‘the rate of output
which qualified workers will achieve without over-exertion as an
average over the working day provided, they are motivated to apply
themselves to their work. Basic times - When a qualified worker is
working on a specified job at standard performance, the time he or
she takes to perform the job is called the basic time for the job.
Work Measurement Techniques
 Commonly used work measurement
techniques are
 Stopwatch time study/time studies
 Historical times/historical experience/ standard elemental
time
 Predetermined data/predetermined time standard
 Work Sampling
1. Time study
 Time study is ‘a work measurement technique for
recording the times and rate of working for the
elements of a specified job, carried out under
specified conditions, and for analyzing the data so
as to obtain the time necessary for the carrying out
of the job at a defined level of performance’.
Time study … Steps

 Define the task to be studied, and inform the worker

who will be studied
 Divide the task into precise elements
 Decide how many times to measure the task
(number of times or cycles needed)
 Time and record element times and rating of
performance/time the job, and rate the worker ‘s
performance
 Compute average observed time: (Observed Time:
is simply the average of the recorded time).
Steps …
 Determine performance rating and normal time:
(Normal Time is the observed time adjusted for workers
performance). normal time is the length of time a worker
should take to perform a job if there are no delays or
interruptions. It does not take into account such factors
as personal delays (getting a drink of water or going to
the restroom), unavoidable delays (machine adjustments
and repairs, talking to a supervisor, waiting for
materials), or rest breaks.
 Normal time = Average Observed Time x Performance
Rating Factor
Steps….
 Add the normal times for each element to
develop the total normal time for the task
 Compute the standard time: (The standard time
for a job is the normal time plus an allowance for
these delays.
Rest Allowances
 Personal time allowance: 4% - 7% of total time for use
of restroom, water fountain, etc.
 Delay allowance: Based upon actual delays that occur
 Fatigue allowance: Based on our knowledge of human
energy expenditure
Standard Elemental Times
 Standard elemental times are derived from a firm’s
own historical time study data. Over the years, a
time study department can accumulate a file of
elemental times that are common to many jobs.
After a certain point, many elemental times can be
simply retrieved from the file, eliminating the need
for analysts to go through a complete time study to
obtain them. The procedure for using standard
elemental times consists of the following steps:
The procedure for using standard elemental
times consists of the following steps:

 Analyze the job to identify the standard elements

 Check the file for elements that have historical
times, and record them
 Modify the file times if necessary
 Sum the elemental times to obtain the normal time,
and factor in allowances to obtain the standard
time.
 One obvious advantage of this approach is the potential
savings in cost and effort created by not having to
conduct a complete time study for each job. A second
advantage is that there is little disruption of work, again
because the analyst does not have to time the worker. A
third advantage is that performance ratings do not have
to be done; they are generally averaged in the file times.
The main disadvantage of this approach is that times
may not exist for enough standard elements to make it
worthwhile, and the file times may be biased or
inaccurate.
Predetermine Time Standards
 Predetermined time standards involve the use of published
data on standard elemental times. A commonly used system
is methods-time measurement (MTM), which was developed
in the late 1940s by the methods Engineering Council. The
MTM tables are based on extensive research of basic
elemental motions and times. To this approach, the analyst
must divide the job into its basic elements (reach, move, turn,
disengage), measure the distance involved; rate the difficulty
of the element, and the reefer to the appropriate table of data
to obtain the time for that element. The standard time for the
job is obtained by adding the times of all of the basic
elements.
Among the advantage of predetermined time
standards are the following:

 They are based on large numbers of workers under

controlled conditions
 The analyst is not required to rate performance in
developing the standard
 There is no disruption of the operation
 Standards can be established even before a job is
done
Work Sampling
 Work sampling is a technique for estimating the proportion
of time that a worker or a machine spends on various
activities. Unlike time study, work sampling doesn’t require
timing an activity. Instead, an observer makes brief
observations of a worker or machine at random intervals and
simply notes the nature of the activity. For example, a
machine may be busy or idle; a secretary may be typing,
filing, talking on the telephone, and so on; and a carpenter
may be carrying supplies, talking measurement, cutting
wood, and so on. The resulting data are counts of the number
of times each category of activity or non-activity was
observed.
Steps for Work Sampling

 Select the job or group to be studied and inform the

workers.
 Take a preliminary sample to obtain an estimate of the
parameter value (such as percent of time a worker is
busy).
 Compute the sample size required; for desired level of
accuracy, sufficient no of observations are required. For
many kinds of measurements, a level of ± 5% accuracy
is considered satisfactory. For this level of accuracy, the
formula for determining the no of observations is
Example:

 The manager of Michigan county’s welfare office,

Dana Johnson, estimates her employee are idle
25% of the time. She would like to take a work
sample that is accurate within 3% and want to have
95.45%confidence in the result.
 Wants employees idle 25% of the time Sample
should be accurate within 3%
 Wants to have 95.45% confidence in the results
  Chapter Four
 Operations Planning and Control