Work Measurement

Work measurement is defined as establishing time for a given task that would take when the task
is performed by a qualified or skilled employee at a defined level of performance.

Work measurement gives answers to the following questions typically faced by service
organization.

 How many people are required to meet specific demand or job requirement?
 How much work employees are doing?
 How effectively employees are working?
 How to design an appropriate incentive system?
 What are the fair productivity expectations of supervisors or top management?

Work measurement methods

- The methods are adopted to measure work done by employees vary from one workplace
to another and from one industry to another.
- The basic procedure for work measurement, regardless of a particular technique is
comprised of analyzing work, measuring and synthesizing the work.
- In analysis, the job is divided into discrete components called elements. In measurement,
a specific technique is adopted to establish time required by each element of task. Finally,
elemental times are synthesized and added together with appropriate allowances to
construct the standard time to complete task.

Allowances

During the work shift or working day, workers suffer from fatigue or may like to attend personal
needs. The fatigues in workers are imposed by:

• Type of work undertaken

• Duration of work
• Working environment
The time required by the worker to recover from fatigue and to attend to the personal needs is
referred to as an 'allowance'. It is also termed as relaxation time, contingency time or unoccupied
time of worker.

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There are three mostly used techniques of work measurement presented in Figure:

Work Measurement Techniques

Time Studies Predetermined time standards Work Sampling

Figure: Different techniques for work measurement

Time Study
• The time study is a classical stopwatch study involves timing a sample of a worker's
performance and using it to set a standard. The standard time is the time required by an
average worker to perform a job once.

Time study was proposed by Frederick W. Taylor in 1881.

• It requires trained and experienced observers to measure the time because the standard
time cannot be set before the work is performed.
• More appropriate when the task is repetitive in nature.

Steps to perform Time Study

1. Define the task or objective to be studied.
2. Decide how many times to measure the task.
3. Divide the task into precise elements.
4. Time and record each element time a worker would take to complete the task element.
Rate the performance of worker. Let the experienced analyst record the time.
5. Complete the average cycle time for each task element as given below:

Sum of the times recorded to perform each element

Average cycle time =
Number of cycles observed

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 6. Determine the performance rating and normal time for each task element as given
below:
Normal time= [Average observed time] x [Performance rating factor]

Performance rating factor

Rating is the process during which the time study observer or analyst compares the
performance of the worker observed with analyst’s own concept of normal performance.

7. Add the normal times for each element to develop a total time for the job.
8. Compute the standard time as given below:

Total Normal Time

Standard Time =
1 – Allowance factor

Predetermined Time Standards

• Analyst divides the task into small basic elements.
• The time taken to complete the basic elements is already established based on very
large samples of workers
• The time factors for all basic elements are added to estimate time for a particular task
• The time standards can be set before a task is done & hence can be used for planning
• There are a number of commercially available systems to set predetermined time
standards such as
− MTM: Methods Time Measurement
− CSD: Computerized Standard Data

Work Sampling
• Estimates the percentage of time that worker spends on various activities.
• Developed by L. Tippet in 1930s.
• Used to analyze the jobs that have non-repetitive elements.

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 • Also used to determine ratio delay which is the percentage of time a worker is delayed or
idle.
• Work sampling involves random observations to record the activity that the worker is
performing.
• Work sampling helps in determining how employees allocate their time. So, the study can
be utilized to set staffing levels, reassign duties, estimate various costs and set delay
allowances.
• Easier approach and less expensive than time study.

• Example: An IT manager takes 400 instantaneous observations at random intervals on a

coder over few weeks to find out that the coder was doing coding job in 270 observations
whereas the coder was idle for 130 observations due to miscellaneous reasons. So, we can
see that the coder remains idle for (130/400) x 100 = 32.5% of the time. No doubt the
accuracy of such results depends on the number of observations.

Steps of work sampling procedure

1. Take a Preliminary sample to obtain estimates of the parameter values.

2. Compute the sample size required.
3. Prepare a schedule for random observations at appropriate times.
4. Observe and record employee activities
5. Record the performance indicator like number of units produced or any other services
rendered during the study.
6. Compute the normal time and standard time per service.

Sample size for Work Sampling

1. Parameter to be estimated can be the percentage of time a worker is busy or a worker is

idle.
2. Determine the number of observations or sample size, n, Considering desired confidence
level and accuracy as given below
Z2 P (1 – P)
n=

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 h2

Z = Standard normal deviate for the desired confidence level (derived from normal form)

P = Estimated value of sample proportion

h = Sample accuracy level in percent

Even though the large number of observations will give more accuracy, there should be some
limit beyond which accuracy is not worthwhile economically. It incurs a good percentage of cost
in conducting the work sampling study with large number of observations.

TABLE : COMMON Z VALUES FOR DESIRED CONFIDENCE LEVELS

Desired Z-value
confidence (%) (standard deviation required for desired level of confidence)

90 1.65

95 1.96

95.45 2.00

99 2.58

99.73 3.00

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Example

1. An office worker wants to set standard time to complete a task K comprised of three
job elements. He clocked work elements and chose to take 6 cycles as shown in table .
The allowance for the task is 12% and performance rating for each element is also
given in the table. Find the normal time and standard time to complete the task.
Table: Observed cycles and performance rating to complete task k

Cycles observed (minutes)

Job Element Performance rating

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 15 10 13 17 45 14 100%

2 30 20 26 72 25 23 110%

3 4 3 2 3 5 4 100%

2. Work element a b c d*
Observed time 0.56 0.25 0.50 1.10 (min)
Performance rating 100% 80% 110% 100%
*Irregular element performed every 5 cycles.
Allowance 15%
Find the normal time and standard time for the work.

3. An office worker wants to perform work sampling for task T. It was estimated that
employees are idle 20% of the time. An office worker would like to take a work sample
with accuracy of 4% desired confidence level of 95.45%

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