'Do it yourself' work study
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1RITISH universities in recent years have lecome much less insular, showing 'a welome readiness to go out and meet the public. The short university terms mean that ,ccommodation is often available—perhaps or as many as six months a year—and this provides a powerful motive in making the Premises available to part-time students.
One privately-owned training establishnent in Hampshire is used by its owners —Lansing Bagnall Ltd—for part of the ,ear and let to outside organizations for everal months, resulting in its utilization for Out of 52 weeks, annually. That kind of ntensive use of costly premises is not Lpproached by most British universities but t shows what is possible.
Loughborough University is well-known or its summer programme and I was inerested to sit in for a day at a recent nurse, "Management for Road Transport lngineers". Organized by Mr. A. B. Greene co-operation with the Road Transport ndustry Training Board, the course was aspired by the conviction that legislative Ind operating developments are posing exremely challenging problems to fleet en;ineers, and others, Many responsible managers in road tranport have reached their present posts after lifetime of practical experience with a ninimum of academic qualifications. Faced )31 stringent legal sanctions if the quality of 'chicle maintenance is not maintained, and vith constant pressure from boards of lirectors for greater efficiency in the use of abour, it is small wonder that concentrated :courses are filling a real need.
Residential course The Loughborough course was residen ink assembled for Sunday dinner tad departed after breakfast the following kiturday. Accommodation on the university ,ite in houses in the student village was of a ugh standard, All the amenities of the tudents' union—including licensed bar —were open to them. None of the fleet :ngineer course students took advantage of he opportunity of bringing their families dong, but many of those attending other ;ourses in the summer programme did so.
In case any reader is tempted to partici)ate in a family holiday at Loughborough m some future occasion, he need have no peSitation in doing so. There is a creche/ ilay group for children under six while older )nes can join the youth group. Both are mder qualified supervision. Wives who wish
to attend courses in art, music, drama, industrial archaeology, and so on, may do so, and for the sports-minded, Loughborough University's facilities are world famous. Tennis, badminton, swimming, golf, athletics—the choice is wide. For good measure visits and evening entertainment are arranged, with a final gala dinner on the Friday evening. I can imagine many families who have experienced the Loughborough amenities for a week nagging Dad into taking a further refresher course next year!
Wide field covered
The course for road transport engineers covered a wide field and included lectures on the legal requirements of the 1968 Transport Act, the Road Traffic Acts and the 1967 Road Safety Act. Management functions were discussed in great detail, and a day was spent on vehicle, job and contract costing—a session that introduced students to balance sheets, depreciation factors, capital and revenue aspects and was topped-off by some syndicate case studies. Manmanagement introduced discussions on communications and human relations, staff recruitment, welfare arrangements and follow up activities and there was an interesting programme dealing with the ergonomics —a subject which deserves to be covered thoroughly in road transport seminars.
Mr. R. A. Fowell, of Leicester Polytechnic, who lectured on management techniques, provoked a lot of interest in his discussion of work study—especially when he spoke on the make-up of the professional work-study man. Solutions to practical problems examined by work-study specialists were seldom ideal, said Mr. Fowell. They were as ideal as the circumstances would allow. Though work study was thought to be a relatively modern development largely originating in the United States, it was obvious that primitive forms of work study had existed for thousands of years. When the Pyramids were built someone had to make decisions.
A principal justification for work study was that it ensured that 90 per cent of alternative ways of tackling a job were examined instead of the 50 per cent that would be thought of by common sense.
Work study men often wondered where they "fitted in" in industry or transport. They felt themselves to be between two fires. Bosses tended to feel that work study was "pandering to the working classes" and employees, almost invariably, regarded work study exponents as "bosses' men".
As to the qualities of a good work study man, Mr. Fowell put absolute honesty at the top of the list. Tact was another essential quality, for almost any suggestion he made could be construed as an implied criticism of management. If the manager felt "I should have known that or suggested that" he tended to feel some hostility to the work study man. Both management and employees had to be "sold" ideas; because no one likes change, this was a hard job.
Work study comprised method study —how best to do a job—and work measurement—how long should it take a reasonably proficient worker to do it. Work study was not designed to "speed up" workers so much as to get more efficient work out of them. A bonus carrot to persuade people to do a job quicker was not work study.
Of course, no streamlined, up-to-theminute system of work organization stays that way for long. Improvements are always possible. Every change in the work-force means that new ideas, perhaps new and forceful criticisms, will be thrown at management. Mr. Fowell made the valuable point that all jobs—there are some in road transport!—which are "a shambles" were organized by someone in the past who thought that his way of ordering things was the best way.
The criterion Although there was scarcely any limit to the scope of work study investigations in practice money was the criterion of judgment. "You don't waste three weeks of a work study man's time to save the company five bob a week", said Mr. Fowell. The jobs to be tackled first should be those which would yield substantial savings with improved organization.
Illustrating the need for work study to be accepted by both sides in industry, Mr. Fowell described what happened when a firm decided to change the layout of machinery in a workshop during a holiday period. The employees in the workshop were not told in advance of the likely changes, and when they returned after the holiday there was an immediate strike. Why? Because Old Joe—who was approaching retirement—who had worked for years in a quiet corner well away from the eyes of the foreman, was moved in the new scheme to work directly beneath the foreman's eye.
The men thought the reorganization was a "Oiabolical stunt"—they would all be old one day. Those of us who may feel that all workers who strike at the proverbial "drop of a hat" deserve the severest sanctions of the law or public opinion clearly need to be reminded of the elements of psychology.
It was also salutary to be reminded by Mr. Fowell that all schemes submitted by work study men have drawbacks—"if they hadn't they'd have been done years ago". It was foolish for the likely good effects of a new system or method to be grossly exaggerated.
In a discussion period the fleet engineers seized on some of Mr. Fowell's points. One said: "We have a lot of work study people in our company. Now I know why they are a strange breed!" Mr. Fowell replied spiritedly. "People never tell you the absolute truth. They exaggerate, often tell you elaborate stories to put you off the scent. Workers of all grades like to show themselves in the best light. They may say what they think you want them to say. Great experience is needed to judge a satisfactory tempo of work. You can train people to assess the effectiveness of others' performance just as you can train yourself to judge speed, but it remains a subjective judgment, liable to error."
Useful technique
One of the useful techniques demonstrated by Mr. Fowell concerned what is known as Activity Sampling. This simple application of work study, requiring no special training or equipment, has many applications in road transport where the intensity of work varies often through no fault of the employees. The particular illustration given—in a preceeding instructional film—related to the efficiency of employees serving in a garage forecourt. The method used to determine the percentage efficiency of the employees would be equally applicable in a maintenance workshop, loading platform or whatever.
The object of the exercise was to quantify the time spent by the staff serving fuel, performing other jobs—cleaning forecourt, adjusting lights, ete., and merely waiting for work.
A hundred random observations were made and the details were entered under one of the appropriate columns, "Serving", "Other Work" or "Waiting". It is convenient when recording this kind of informaiion to use the long-established method of four vertical strokes with a cross stroke to indicate a group of five observations. Thus iii would stand for a total of eight separate observations.
In the film illustration, as a result of 100 random observations, it was found that waiting time amounted to 20 per cent, other work occupied 12 per cent and serving, occupied 68 per cent of time. • Of course, for reasonably accurate results to-be obtained some commonsense has to be applied. It would be ludicrous in the garage forecourt example quoted if all the observations were made at two-minute intervals in the first 3+ hours of the working day. A hundred random observations could well be spread out over a week or a month, or the average of four separate weeks' readings could be made. A table of random numbers is obtainable.
There is, in fact, a useful formula to determine the accuracy of the sample: N= 4P(100-P) L2
where N= number of observations P= approximate percentage of total time (of the activity studied)• L= Limit of accuracy that is acceptable, e.g. + 4 per cent.
There would be no point in striving to obtain a result which was statistically almost perfectly accurate. A result that is accurate 19 times out of 20 and not very wrong on the twentieth assessment would be more than accurate enough for most practical managers.
With a very varied work pattern observations would have to be spread over a long period. A farmer, for example, might have to make observations spread over a whole year. The result can be equally valid, forming a sound basis for management decisions.
Mr. Fowell commended this activity sampling method because while it gives much of the value of a proper work study it avoids the risk of labour difficulties that may occur if stop watches are used to record employees' behaviour. But it must be stressed that activity sampling should not be undertaken without reference to the staff concerned As stated above, in many transport operations working efficiency may be relatively low through no fault of the employees: If a man spends 80 per cent of his time working at 90 per cent efficiency his actual efficiency is only 72 per cent. Perhaps it is figures of this kind that provide the basis for some well-known American business consultants referring with impeccable theoretical justification to "half-time Britain".
Another thought-provoking film shown by Mr. Fowell was produced by the British Productivity Council, with the title "Plan Your Maintenance". The subject matter concerned factory maintenance but the principles, in my view, are equally applicable to vehicle maintenance. I suspect that most vehicle breakdowns on the road conform to a pattern just as most plant breakdowns in a factory conform to a pattern. The recording of information in a methodical way so that reasonable deductions may be made from the records is something that every fleet engineer needs to arrange.
It was not at all hard to see many parallels between this factory maintenance film and the attitudes that are common in road transport. One plant engineer featured
in the .film advocated a doubling up of spares to cut down machine breakdowns— the belt and braces approach, with a vengeance. However variable the maintenance operations undertaken, if accurate records of times taken for particular jobs are maintained over the years the fleet engineer or transport manager will have some standard times to work to. The availability of a number of recognized tables of standard times for a huge variety of common workshop operations will doubtless be drawn to the attention of fleet engineers, cost accountants and others by the Road Transport Industry Training Board, who are well aware of the techniques available for improving management performance.
Although work study is commonly applied in industry and is becoming an accepted routine in transport its application on an extensive scale in clerical operations in road haulage and passenger transport is probably called for. Efficient documentation is just as vital an ingredient of profitable operations as sound traffic or workshop organization. Mr. Fowell had much to say on such techniques as Group Capacity Assessment whereby a group of workers may be allotted a time for a range of operations. Teamwork incentives are available. The knowledge that management care about the efficiency of clerical procedures often acts as a stimulus.
There was much good sense in the discussion on the design and origination of forms. In many transport organizations almost anyone can "dream up" and introduce a form to record information. How often do management check the make-up of the form at the stencil stage before a few hundred copies are run off'? All of us today spend a sizeable proportion of our lifetime filling up forms. Those that are within the control of road transport managers should be intelligently designed and their number should be strictly controlled.
At the conclusion of this admirable Loughborough course I asked Mr. Greene, the organizer, how the students compared with those from other callings. "Road haulage management students are about the most dedicated people I have come across", he said. My one-day sample of the course for fleet engineers convinced me that the chaps present were worked very hard during their week. Yet Mr, Greene said some of the students thought there should have been doing evening studies as well! No comment.