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management
Page 95
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matters by John Darker, AM BIM
Work study in vehicle maintenance
IN SEVERAL REPORTS of the Prices and Incomes Board the road transport industry has been heavily criticized for failing to take work study seriously, not only on the traffic operational front but in the workshops. The Department of Employment and Productivity established its productivity advisory service to help backward industries to exploit the newer management services aids; PIB criticisms of the road haulage and bus industries have not involved the DEP in a single call for advice—though almost every other industry in Britain has taken advantage of its expertise.
I was surprised to learn from the DEP that in the past year it has had no reports of any applications of work study in the field of vehicle maintenance. With fitters in such short supply and the industry under pressure to improve its safety operational standards, efficient use of manpower is clearly called for. Techniques that have been profitably applied in a wide range of industries and services cannot permanently be rejected in road transport by the conservatism of managements and employees.
Management insight Persistent inquiries revealed that some major work study exercises in the road transport and bus industries are underway. If it is too early to evaluate the results it is certainly not too early to applaud the courage, persistence and insight of the managements concerned.
National Carriers Ltd. operating the largest cartage fleet in Britain-9,500 vehicles and 22,500 trailers—had good reason to seek to trim maintenance costs as part of its drive to operate less unprofitably. They inherited a .£26m. deficit and within five years must break even. Enterprising management and effective internal and external public relations is rapidly reducing the area of unprofitable operations, though there is along haul in prospect.
NCL was fortunate to inherit a massive hoard of work study data relating to vehicle maintenance from BR's Western Region, where some pioneering was done, at a cost of £120,000, between 1958-63. The work study based incentive scheme Chen introduced for the 3,300 Western Region vehicles is now outdated: individuals earned an individual bonus, but excessive paperwork was involved. A group incentive scheme is now favoured which incorporates an element derived from local fleet availability—the $64 question! Other factors include the proportion of planned maintenance programmes achieved and the ratio of established hours/actual hours worked on fleet maintenance programmes.
Very little shop floor work study is now being done by NCL, I learned from Mr David Wilson. HQ maintenance engineer. "We use manufacturers' times qualified where necessary by our own studies. Some jobs are outside our 'pre-valued' times. Certain types of vehicles and certain operations are given assessed times for maintenance purposes. Because the original exercise was done in considerable detail we can assess times for any job."
How far has NCL's current work study programme proceeded? The majority of the 180-odd workshops will be on the' new incentive scheme by the end of 1970, In recent years there has been much concentration of maintenance depots-30 have been eliminated in the past two years. The concentration naturally follows the operational pattern of the business. But with staff complements at each depot ranging from 2 to 180— most of the larger workshops employ about 160 men—detailed trade union negotiations take time.
Mr H. N. J. Overell, NCL's assistant engineer, London Area, was largely involved in the Western Region work study scheme and is now involved in implementation of the revised scheme; 95 per cent of the maintenance work content is now work studied, he told me. He is more than satisfied with results achieved so far. The installation of a scheme at a workshop has been greatly speeded up.
"It used to take us nine men and 18 months to put in a scheme. Now, a non technical man assisted by a clerk can install a scheme in two months, or less. In the London area, for example, five workshops employing 180 men, have been evaluated for work study in nine weeks and the schemes are ready to be put to the staff."
Simplicity is always a bull point with an incentive scheme. NCL, very sensibly, has streamlined the whole concept of work study so that the man on the shop floor can readily understand the basis and fairness of the scheme. A points value system is used for calculation of maintenance operational times. There is a series of values ranging from, say, 10 points for a designated vehicletype to +-point for a bicycle—NCL even maintains gang mowers on the same principles! This approach seems to me to offer great attractions and I would hope that NCL will soon find it possible to make available to the industry at large the broad details of its work study formula. There seems no doubt that vehicle maintenance workshops throughout the country could make better use of their facilities and labour by utilizing work study methods which are readily comprehensible, acceptable to the employees and their trade unions and which can be demonstrated to yield substantial benefits to management.
Different approach At Bristol Omnibus Co Ltd a very different approach to work study is being followed, with advice from Associated Industrial Consultants Ltd, (197 Knightsbridge, London SW7). I spent a very interesting afternoon with Mr W. G. Perry, of AIC, after meeting Mr E. W. A. Butcher, Bristol's young director and general manager.
Mr Butcher, faced by up to 33 per cent shortage of operating grades, was glad to report that a lost mileage of 12 per cent had now been reduced to four per cent, with better results still hoped for. An improved consolidated pay rate increase had hAped greatly.
On the engineering side, skilled labour was at a premium. Concord, at Filton is greedy for good craftsmen. Mr Butcher must seek to improve the general level of performance and skill of his 900-strong maintenance force with a retirement loss of 100 men a year and a further loss through normal wastage of another 100. Maintenance facilities represent one of the biggest assets of the company and he is determined to expand throughput— even to take on vehicle maintenance work for private operators before long.
Maintenance problems as better vehicles are introduced will become more exacting— the Leyland National bus would probably be more difficult to maintain than present buses, he thought. It was important to cut down the number of spare buses and vehicles awaiting repair—hence the stress on maintenance efficiency.
The work study system being installed at Bristol—and at NBC's Western National establishment at Plymouth—is known as MTM-2. MTM—Methods Time Measurement—uses synthetic data which is applied to studied maintenance and repair operations. These are described and recorded by "tape analysts" with additional help from senior staff. As opposed to stop watch observations the use of miniature tape