Time Study

IE11
Work Study and Measurement

James Louie R. Meneses, PhD, CIE, AAE

Learning Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the student must be able
to:
•Use time study to establish time standards.
•Use both audio and visual break points to divide the
operation into elements.
•Use continuous timing to obtain a complete record
of times.
•Use snapback timing to avoid clerical errors.
•Perform a time check to confirm the validity of the
time study.
Introduction
• The seventh step in the systematic process of developing
the efficient work center is the establishment of time
standards.
• These can be determined by using estimates, historical
records, and work measurement procedures. In past
years, analysts relied more heavily on estimates as a
means of establishing standards.
• However, experience has shown that no individual can
establish consistent and fair standards simply by looking
at a job and judging the amount of time required to
complete it.
A Fair Day’s Work
• The fundamental principle in industry is that an employee
is entitled to a fair day’s pay in return for which the
company is entitled to a fair day’s work. A fair day’s work
can be defined as the amount of work that can be
produced by a qualified employee when working at a
standard pace and effectively utilizing her or his time
where work is not restricted by process limitations.
Qualified employee can be further defined as a
representative average of those employees who are fully
trained and able satisfactorily to perform any and all phases
of the work involved, in accordance with the requirements of
the job under consideration.
A Fair Day’s Work
Standard pace can be defined as the effective rate of
performance of a conscientious, self-paced, qualified
employee when working neither fast nor slow and giving
due consideration to the physical, mental, or visual
requirements of the specific job.

Effective utilization - typically this could be the

maintenance of a standard pace while performing essential
elements of the job during all portions of the day except that
which is required for reasonable rest and personal needs,
under circumstances in which the job is not subject to
process, equipment, or other operating limitations.
A Fair Day’s Work
• In general, a fair day’s work is one that is fair to both the
company and the employee. This means that the employee
should give a full day’s work for the time that he or she gets
paid, with reasonable allowances for personal delays,
unavoidable delays, and fatigue.
• The worker is expected to operate in the pre- scribed
method at a pace that is neither fast nor slow, but one that
may be considered representative of all-day performance
by the experienced, cooperative employee. Time study is
one method of determining a fair day’s work.
Time Study Requirements
ANALYST’S RESPONSIBILITY
All work involves varying degrees of skill, as well as physical and
mental effort. There are also differences in the aptitude, physical
application, and dexterity of the workers. It is easy for the analyst to
observe an employee at work and measure the actual time taken to
perform a task. It is considerably more difficult to evaluate all
variables and determine the time required for a qualified operator
to perform the task.

SUPERVISOR’S RESPONSIBILITY
The supervisor should notify the operator in advance that his or her
work assignment is to be studied. The supervisor should see that
the proper method established by the methods department is
being utilized, and that the operator selected is competent and has
adequate experience on the job.
Time Study Requirements
UNION’S RESPONSIBILITY
Most unions recognize that standards are necessary for the profitable
operation of a business and that management continues to develop
such standards using accepted work measurement techniques.
Furthermore, every union steward knows that poor time standards cause
problems for both labor and management.

OPERATOR’S RESPONSIBILITY
Every employee should be sufficiently interested in the welfare of the
company to support the practices and procedures inaugurated by
management. Operators should give new methods a fair trial and should
cooperate in helping to work out any bugs. The operator is closer to the
job than anyone else, and she or he can make a real contribution to the
company by helping to establish ideal methods.
Time Study Requirements
STOPWATCH
Two types of stopwatches are in use today: the traditional decimal
minute watch (0.01 min) and the much more practical electronic
stopwatch.

Decimal Minute Electronic Stopwatch

Thus, they provide both continuous and snapback timing

Time Study Requirements
VIDEOTAPE CAMCORDERS
Videotape camcorders are ideal for recording operators’ methods
and elapsed time. By taking pictures of the operation and then
studying them one frame at a time, analysts can record exact
details of the method used and can then assign normal time values.

TIME STUDY BOARD

When the stopwatch is being used, analysts find it convenient to
have a suitable board to hold the time study form and the
stopwatch. The board should be light, so as not to tire the arm, and
yet strong and sufficiently hard to provide a suitable backing for the
time study form.
Time Study Requirements
TIME STUDY SOFTWARE
There are several software packages available for the time study
analyst.
• TimStudy, by the Royal J. Dossett Corp., uses a custom-built
Datawriter to collect the data electronically and then upload them
directly to a desktop PC for analysis.
• CITS/APR, by C-Four, uses more versatile handheld PCs to collect
data, and allows for much more detailed data analysis because a
customized spreadsheet interface links directly into Excel.
• Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
• Palm CITS by C-Four, QuickTimesTM by Applied Computer Services,
Inc.
• WorkStudy+TM 3.0 by Quetech, Ltd.
Time Study Requirements
Multimedia Video Task Analysis (MVTA, Nexgen Ergonomics)

TRAINING EQUIPMENT
A simple inexpensive piece of equipment
that can assist in the training of time study
analysts is the metronome used by music
students. This device can be set to provide a
predetermined number of beats per minute,
such as 104 beats per minute. This happens
to equal the number of cards dealt per
minute when dealing at a standard pace
Time Study Requirements
CHOOSING THE OPERATOR
The first step in beginning a time study is to select the operator with the
assistance of the departmental or line supervisor.

RECORDING SIGNIFICANT INFORMATION

Analysts should record the machines, hand tools, jigs or fixtures, working
conditions, materials, operations, operator name and clock number,
department, study date, and observer’s name.

POSITIONING THE OBSERVER

The observer should stand, not sit, a few feet to the rear of the operator,
so as not to distract or interfere with the worker. Standing observers are
better able to move around and follow the movements of the operator’s
hands as the operator goes through the work cycle.
Time Study Elements
DIVIDING THE OPERATION INTO ELEMENTS
For ease of measurement, the operation should be divided
into groups of motions known as elements. Elements should
be broken down into divisions that are as fine as possible and
yet not so small that reading accuracy is sacrificed. Elemental
divisions of around 0.04 min and the preceding and
succeeding elements are relatively long, an element as short
as 0.02 min can be readily timed.
Time Study Elements
Some additional suggestions may help in breaking
elements down:
1. In general, keep manual and machine elements separate,
since machine times are less affected by ratings.
2. Likewise, separate constant elements (those elements for
which the time does not deviate within a specified range of
work) from variable elements (those elements for which the
time does vary within a specified range of work).
3. When an element is repeated, do not include a second
description. Instead, in the space provided for the element
description, give the identifying number that was used when
the element first occurred.
Start of Study
Two techniques can be used for recording the elemental
times during the study.
1. Continuous Timing Method - as the name implies,
allows the stopwatch to run for the entire duration of the
study. In this method, the analyst reads the watch at the
break point of each element, and the time is al- lowed to
continue.

2. Snapback Technique - after the watch is read at the

break point of each element, the watch time is returned to
zero; as the next element takes place, the time increments
from zero.
Start of Study
ADDRESSING DIFFICULTIES
Foreign elements - during a time study, the operator may
encounter unavoidable delays, such as an interruption by a
clerk or supervisor, or tool breakage. The operator may also
intentionally cause a change in the order of work by going for
a drink of water or stopping to rest.
Start of Study
CYCLES IN STUDY
Determining how many cycles to study to arrive at an equitable
standard is a subject that has caused considerable discussion
among time study analysts as well as union representatives.
Start of Study
CYCLES IN STUDY
Using the sample mean x and sample standard deviation s, the
normal distribution for a large sample leads to the confidence
interval
Start of Study
However, time studies often involve only small samples (n <
30); therefore, a t distribution must be used. The confidence
interval equation is then

The ± term can be considered an error term expressed as a

fraction of x:

where k = an acceptable fraction of x.

Solving for n yields
Sample Problem:
A pilot study of 25 readings for a given element
showed that bar x = 0 .30 and s = 0.09. A 5%
desired acceptable fraction k and an alpha = 0.05
for 24 degrees of freedom.
Execution of Study
RATING OPERATOR PERFORMANCE
Since the actual time required to perform each element of the
study depends to a high degree on the skill and effort of the
operator, it is necessary to adjust upward the time of the good
operator and downward the time of the poor operator to a standard
level.
The basic principle of performance rating is to adjust the mean
observed time (OT) for each element performed during the
study to the normal time (NT) that would be required by the
qualified operator to perform the same work:
Where:
NT = Normal Time
OT – Observed Time
R = Performance Rating
Adding Allowances
Three Classes Of Interruptions
• Personal interruptions, such as trips to the restroom and
drinking fountain;
• Fatigue allowance, which can affect even the strongest
individual on the lightest work.
• Unavoidable delays, such as tool breakage, super- visor
interruptions, slight tool trouble, and material variations,
all of which require that some allowance be made
Standard time (ST) - The time required for a fully qualified,
trained operator, working at a standard pace and exerting
average effort, to perform the operation.

The allowance is typically given as a fraction of normal

time and is used as a multiplier equal to 1 + allowance:

An alternative approach is to formulate the allowances as a

fraction of the total workday, since the actual production time
might not be known. In that case, the expression for standard
time is
Example 2.
Get the Normal time of each element

Rating 50 75 100 125

Observed time 1.2 0.8 0.6 0.5
Example 3.
The data below represent time study observations for
an assembly operation. Assume a 7% allowance factor.
Get the std. time of each element.
• The sum of the elemental times gives the standard in
minutes per piece, using a decimal minute watch, or
hours per piece, using a decimal hour watch.
• The majority of industrial operations have relatively short
cycles (less than 5 min); consequently, it is sometimes
more convenient to express standards in hours per
hundred pieces.
• For example, the standard on a press operation might be
0.085 h per hundred pieces. This is a more satisfactory
method of expressing the standard than 0.00085 h per
piece or 0.051 min per piece.
The percent efficiency of the operator can be expressed as
Example 4.
The standard time for an operation is 11.46 min per piece. In an 8-h shift,
the operator would be expected to produce? What is the efficiency?
However, if the operator produced 53 pieces in a given working day, the
standard hours earned would be?