South East Asia Work Measurement Practices Challenges and Case ...

South East Asia Work Measurement Practices Challenges and Case Study Thong Sze Yee, Zuraidah Mohd Zain and Bhuvenesh Rajamony

Abstract South-East-Asia has been producing wide range of products since decades ago, and hence it is often dubbed as the world’s manufacturing-hub. In terms of operation, physical size and capital investment, there are family-owned businesses and Fortune 100 companies’ biggest off-shore facilities co-existing. As for its workforce portfolio, the majority used to be of the kind that was non-skilled labor intensive. However, there had been workforce capability substantial upgrading, resulting in the niches and specialties development in automation. Nevertheless, the awareness of work measurement impact on productivity performance remained low. The literature shows that studies on work measurement practices in this region are very limited. It is an absolute waste if there have been tremendous improvements deployed in the machinery, systems, and tools, but they do not function to their maximum capacity because their interaction with the labor is not optimized, and if there is poor work measurement to understand the ‘productivity-leak-factor’ in the operation. This paper shares the literature on work measurement-related studies that are carried out in this region. It also discusses data collection and preliminary findings of the impact of work measurement method. It is found that much needs to be done to instill the appropriate awareness and understanding of work measurement.

Keywords Work measurement Industrial engineering Time study Labor productivity South East Asia manufacturing practices Work sampling

T. S. Yee (&) Z. M. Zain B. Rajamony Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Perlis, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Z. M. Zain e-mail: [email protected] B. Rajamony e-mail: [email protected]

Y.-K. Lin et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Institute of Industrial Engineers Asian Conference 2013, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-4451-98-7_41, Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2013

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1 Introduction Method Study is the systematic recording and critical examination of ways of doing things in order to make improvements. It studies the steps and works for the task, identifies unnecessary/excess/non—optimized movements and eliminates ineffective time as a result of product/process shortcoming. Work Measurement is the application of techniques designed to establish the time for a qualified worker to carry out a specific task at a defined rate of working. It can also be leveraged to compare the time consumed by different methods, and hence to pick the best methods to set challenging and yet achievable standards. The combination of Method Study (to analyze, combine, simplify, eliminate unnecessary movement in order to make the job more economically to carry out) and Work Measurement (to evaluate, determine, eliminate ineffective time and set the standard to perform the task) work hand in hand to increase productivity by following a series of systematic steps and repeat the steps over and over again.

1.1 Introduction of Work Measurement Practices in South East Asia Industries Research in Work Measurement started more than one century ago in the West. Among the famous ones are Frederick Taylor for his scientific management studies in the 19th century, and the Gilbreths’ motion study research and development of ‘‘therbligs’’ that are based on the manufacturing environment. Subsequently, the concepts and models are included in university courses in Industrial Engineering (IE) during the pre-war period. Despite the fact that there were many scientific research and publications about work measurement, motion and time study in the next few decades, work measurement remained practices in the West only. 1960s was a period where the goods industry mushroomed after World War II. Over this period, the expansion of manufacturing boomed in SEA with the foreign investment. There were industrial parks established, of which many large-scale Americans’ and Europeans’ Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) set up their off-shore facilities. The entire economy was expanding, fuelled by large-scale labor workforce transformation from agriculture-base to industry-base. During this time, foreign companies brought in their technical and scientific innovation as well as their production management systems. Work measurement was one of the production systems introduced. Some companies set up Industrial Engineering (IE) departments for work measurement and other basic IE functions. For smaller plants, the planning, production, or engineering departments were usually assigned to handle the work measurement-related functions.

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1.2 Current Practices in South East Asia Industries There had been steady and positive growth in the manufacturing sector in the past five decades in this region. As a result, there had been a substantial upgrading of human resource capability, resulting in the development of a range of niches and specialties, particularly in automation. Nevertheless, the awareness of work measurement impact on productivity performance remains low. The literature shows that studies on work measurement practices in this region are very limited. It is an absolute waste if there have been tremendous improvements deployed in the machinery, systems and tools, but they do not function to their maximum capacity because their interaction with labor is not optimized. To comprehend further this region’s work measurement practices, a survey is carried out. The findings will form part of the research on the impact of work measurement method on manufacturing productivity. The finding will enable South East Asian manufacturing industries to understand the trends and benefits of work measurement in order to set strategic moves in this direction so as to unleash maximum potential in this area.

2 Factors of Work Measurement Practices According to Work Measurement in Skilled Labor Environments and the Industrial Engineering Publication IE Terminology, work measurement is ‘‘a generic term used to refer to the setting of a time standard by a recognized industrial engineering technique.’’ While this definition may depict a simplistic image of work measurement, the process of determining a time standard in a complex labor setting is far from easy. Thus, the survey enlists all possible influencing factors on the work measurement practice as shown in Fig. 1.

2.1 Influencing Factors for Work Measurement Practices There are four key influencing factors that contribute to the work measurement profile, and they are practitioner’s knowledge, environmental circumstances, work measurement methods, and targets of measurement. For practitioner’s knowledge, work measurement is about how humans interact with tools, processes, people, technologies and combinations of them. Knowledge learned in the books seldom suffix to cope with work measurement implementation. It has to be stated that a practitioner’s skill set for analytical reasoning is critical to the success of the work measurement program. Environmental circumstances refer to the type of working environment. A wafer fabrication plant facility versus garment manufacturer impacts the workplace physical setting, work methods, capability, productivity

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Fig. 1 Influencing factors for work measurement practices

rate setting, and workforce ratio differently, and these must certainly be taken into account. To effectively counter measure the factors, different work measurement methods must be applied. The availability and freedom to use a number of alternative methods is equally important. The targets of measurement is a set of complex raw data that must be considered in the work measurement process. This makes the analysis complicated and hence these become influencing factors.

2.2 The Approach of Data Collection Surveys with questionnaires that cover the four influencing factors have been distributed to 400 manufacturers around the SEA countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia. There was no specific company selection criteria used. This is so as to widen the range of diversity in terms of service and product type. The questionnaires were written in English and designed in an e-survey format and Microsoft Excel for softcopy delivery, whilst hardcopies were delivered through postal service or door- to-door delivery to organizations located within the vicinity of where the study is carried out.


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2.3 The Survey Response The overall survey response rate is approximately 41 % (164/400) from all countries except Cambodia. Despite a good return rate, only 9 % (36 companies) provide complete or usable information. Out of those, 26 companies (6.5 %) report that their organizations have IE departments and confirm practicing work measurement. This percentage seems like a small population. Unfortunately, there is no track record to testify that this figure represents a healthy growth of work measurement practices in this region.

3 Case Study The 36 companies which have completed the survey are categorized to 13 categories of industry sectors (see Table 1). 11 of them which are from the manufacturing sectors, fully or partially practice work measurement whilst the other two non-manufacturing industries from Finance and Research and Development (R&D) totally do not. There are a few different aspects observed between the groups of work measurement versus non-work measurement practice companies. 1. Work Measurement is used mainly in the manufacturing sectors with large headcount pool in workplace. Non manufacturing organizations which have small groups (\200 persons) of dedicated individuals with 100 % specialized skill who work in laboratory and office do not use work measurement. 2. Among the manufacturers, all (100 %) wafer fabrication, garment, and automobile sectors use work measurement systems in a variety of formats. 3. For small manufacturing plants (*200 workers), one or two types of work measurement systems are used. It is observed that tool types increase proportionally with worker population. Up to five types of work measurement methods are used in bigger plants. The survey results also lead to the comprehension of how work measurement data is used. For example, despite the fact that approximately 50 % of the companies appoint Industrial Engineers to set the productivity rate (quantity of products produced within a period of time by a person) for their companies, only about 24 % of the companies use IE or work measurement method. Instead, the companies prefer to refer to ‘‘past records’’ and ‘‘estimations’’ as their main or cross reference method. In fact, all the manufacturing companies in this survey use more than one method for work measurement to set productivity rate.

Electronics manufacturer Wafer plant LED manufacturer Box-build assembly plant Heavy tooling manufacturer Petroleum Garment manufacturer Chemical production Automobile manufacturer Medical device manufacturer Finance organization R&D organization Food processing industry Legend All companies in this category practice work measurement Some companies in this category do not practice or partially practice work measurement 100 % companies in this category do not practice work measurement 1,000 persons and above Mixture of ‘‘1–200’’ and ‘‘1,000 and more’’ 1–200 persons

Special type of work

Non manufacturing work

Workers’ quantity range

Manufacturing facilities

Table 1 Comparison of company profile on work measurement practices Company’s work measurement Environment practices

100 % full skill or specialized work skill required

Mixture of skilled and non skilled work

50 % or more non skilled work

Workers’ skill set profile

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For companies that practice work measurement, time study stopwatch is the most popular work measurement method followed by work sampling. Work measurement practitioners also cast the rating on the most favorable and least preferred methods.

Fig. 2 Types of work measurement methods and percentage of use. Note MOST—Maynard Operation Sequence Technique; MODAPTS—Modular Arrangement of Predetermined Time Standards; PMTS—Predetermined motion time system; MTM—Methods Time Measurement

3.1 The Popular Work Measurement Method The survey shows that work measurement using time study-stopwatch is the most popular method used (Fig. 2). Work measurement practitioners who use other methods (non ‘time study—stopwatch’) also rate ‘time study—stopwatch’ as the most preferred method (see Table 2 for details).

3.2 Relationship of Favorable Methods There is no absolute conclusion drawn to the reason why time study-stopwatch is the favorable method, but the possible contributing factors could be: • About 40 % of the work measurement practitioners pose Bachelor or Master Degree in IE, whilst 24 % learned work measurement-related subjects through internal company training programs. • The top three work measurement courses that the practitioners have taken are, in order of popularity, Stopwatch, Work Sampling and PMTS. • Majority of the companies use Time Study–stopwatch and the practitioners have two to five years of hands on experience using this method. Moreover, they work in small teams of five to ten persons. This is a good learning environment to continuously polish the work measurement skills. The findings indicate that preference is driven from the users’ academic background and the peers’ interaction, which provides the technical support.

Best method

Consider good

Least preferred

Remarks

Time study-stop watch, PTS in general, MOST Time study—stop watch Time study-stop watch, PTS in general, Stop watch is rated the most popular method among MOST, MODAPTS, estimation, PDA, companies that use stop watch, work sampling, PTS, self-developed systems MOST, and all other methods listed (1) Time study—stop watch Time study-stop watch, PTS in general, Time study—stop watch remains as the popular one in (2) Work sampling MOST, MODAPTS, estimation, PDA, the category of ‘‘best method’’. However, work self-developed systems sampling is also popular followed by that

MTM

Table 2 Comparison of preferred work measurement method rated by users Category of preference Type of systems Group of work measurement users who rate this

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Table 3 Influencing factors rating of switching work measurement type Factor(s) and rate of influence level The most

The least

Company’s preference or standard Follow majority staff’s expertise No or lack of certification Constraint in budget, time or resources Licensing and consultation fees is too high Too many changes to manage to switch method Others

3 1 9 3 7 1 0

14 0 0 2 1 2 1

3.3 Targets of Measurement As discussed in Sect. 3.1, most companies use more than one work measurement method as the primary and/or cross reference/supporting function. Among the survey participants, only garment manufacturers are completely satisfied with their current method -GSD (A type of PMTS called General Sewing Data). The survey results also show that it is not easy to switch to other methods. For big corporation, there is usually a company standard that controls/influences the decision. On the other hand, small firms are most concerned about cost and the availability of resources to manage the transition. The least influencing factor is ‘‘certification’’ and this is probably due to the fact that the survey target population is corporate instead of individually-owned, whereby the companies are likely to afford paying for the training and certification (Table 3).

4 Conclusions The research, at this stage, uncovers some fundamental work measurement facts in this region. It is a reflection of the current phenomenon. Despite the importance of determining productivity from an academic stand point, it is not a common practice among the industries. Even though there are many established work measurement tools available, the preferred and frequently used method narrowed down to the more traditional methods, namely, time study through stopwatch and work sampling, based on the practitioners’ technical training, on-the-job experience and existing company practice. Except for the garment industry, which has already found the best fit method, others in the survey are neither satisfied nor unsatisfied with the present method. Switching of work measurement method is highly driven by the company rather than the individual’s preference, technical relevance, or needs. There is no conclusion possibly drawn to the selection of method is based on the four key influencing factors as discussed in Sect. 2.1. It is also not conclusive that the presently-used methods contribute effectively to improvise manufacturing productivity in this region.

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5 Future Work The next phase of research will concentrate on the correlation factors of the choice of the labor work/motion study and work measurement methods based on actual practice in the workplace. A comparison between the productivity levels versus the work study methods applications will be carried out based on on-site observations. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the companies which have completed the surveys and acknowledge the helpful comments. Intel Penang, B. Braun Medical Industries, Intel Kulim, Fairchild, B. Braun Vietnam, Agilent Penang, Philips Lumileds Penang, Osram Penang, Faeth Asia Pacific, Plexus Penang, Brady Penang, Smart Modular Technologies (M), Silterra (M), ST Microelectronics Singapore, Flextronics Senai, Talisman (M), Renesas Semiconductor (M), Sugihara Grand Industries, Pen Apparel, Flextronics Prai, Motorola Solutions (M), First Solar (M), Honeywell Aerospace Avionics, Square, Nokia, Hitachi Chemical, Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional, Pouchen Group, Flextronics Singapore, Tri Quint, KCK Garment, AUO Sunpower, Delphi Automotive System, AMD (M), CPF Public Company, Central Almenario de Tarlac and ProPlanner Asia.

References Time and Motion Study, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_and_motion_study Tom Best, Work Measurement in Skilled Labor Environment. http://www.iienet2.org/uploaded Files/SHS_Community/Resources/Work%20Measurement%20in%20Skilled%20Labor%20 Environments.pdf