System measures hourly efficiency to assess sustainability and quality

● In SA, about 40% of new business ventures fail in their first year, 60% in their second year, and 90% in their first 10 years. This trend cannot be allowed to continue.

Many organisations merely evaluate manufacturing primarily on the basis of cost and efficiency, but a performance measure means relatively little until it is compared against a target. Work study techniques can be used to develop these targets, says Barnes Sookdeo, head of the department of operations management at Unisa and Productivity SA Workplace Challenge Programme Expert Committee member.

Organisations need to beat their competition with superior operations using their people, assets and technologies to compete more effectively in the marketplace.

Sookdeo reports on the use of work study techniques to develop an efficiency reporting system that organisations can use to measure their outputs and subsequently their productivity.

Work study is the systematic examination of the methods of carrying out activities so as to improve the effective use of resources and to set up standards of performance for the activities being carried out. It consists of two techniques: method study and work measurement, which are used to effect improvements in organisations. Data collected in the former is analysed using the set procedure of the method study technique, charting all the steps involved in the complete assembly of the item being made.

The work measurement investigation consists of time studies. The recorded data of the time studies are analysed and the standard times for each step of the assembly process are compiled. These standard times are then used to develop an efficiency reporting system. Performance measurement is critical to organisational effectiveness and sustainability. As the old saying goes, what you cannot measure, you cannot manage.