Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work

by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.

2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Work Sampling
Sections:
1. How Work Sampling Works
2. Statistical Basis of Work Sampling
3. Application Issues in Work
Sampling
Chapter 16
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Work Sampling Defined
Statistical technique for determining the proportions of time spent
by subjects in various defined categories of activity

Large number of observations are made over an extended
period of time

Statistical inferences are drawn about the proportion of time
spent by subjects in various defined categories of activity

Subjects = workers, machines

Categories of activity = setting up a machine, producing parts,
idle, etc.

For statistical accuracy
Observations must be taken at random times
Period of the study must be representative of the types of activities
performed by the subjects
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Historical Notes
L. H. C. Tippett introduced the technique of
work sampling (1927): snap reading method
snapshots to observe the activity (uptime vs.
downtime) of the looms

R. L. Morrow- introduced the technique in US
(1941): ratio delay study
Delays during production

C. L. Brisley used the term work sampling
(1952)
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

When is Work Sampling Appropriate?
Sufficient time should be available to perform the study
Several weeks usually required for a work sampling
study

Multiple subjects
Work sampling suited to studies involving more than
one subject

Long cycle times for the jobs covered by the study

Nonrepetitive work cycles
Jobs consist of various tasks rather than a single
repetitive task
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Example: How Work Sampling Works
A total of 500 observations taken at random times during
a one-week period (40 hours) on 10 machines with
results shown below.

Category No. of observations
(1) Being set up 75
(2) Running production 300
(3) Machine idle 125
500

How many hours per week did an average machine sped
in each category?

Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Example: Solution
Proportions of time determined as number of
observations in each category divided by 500

Time in each category determined by multiplying
proportion by total hours (40 hr)

Category Proportion Hrs per category
(1) Being set up 75/500 = 0.15 0.15 x 40 = 6
(2) Running production 300/500 = 0.60 0.60 x 40 = 24
(3) Machine idle 125/500 = 0.25 0.25 x 40 = 10
1.00 40

Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Work Sampling Applications
Machine utilization - how much time is spent by machines
in various categories of activity
Previous example

Worker utilization - how workers spend their time

Allowances for time standards - assessment of delay
components in PFD allowance factor

Average unit time - determining the average time on each
work unit

Time standards - limited statistical accuracy when
standards set by work sampling
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Statistical Basis of Work Sampling
Binomial distribution, in which parameter p = true
proportion of time spent in a given category of activity

There are usually multiple activity categories, so we
have p
1
, p
2
, . . , p
k
, . ., p
K
proportions for K different
activity categories

The binomial distribution can be approximated by the
normal distribution, where
= n p

o =
( ) p np 1
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Alternative Parameters
The parameters and o can be converted
back to proportions by dividing by the number
of observations n

p =


n
np
n
=

( )
n
p p
p

=
1
o
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Estimating the Proportion p
In a sampling study, we let = the proportion of the
total number of observations devoted to an activity
category of interest

The proportion is our estimate of the true value of the
population proportion p

We would like to have a good estimation of the true
value, which
should be unbiassed
There should be no bias (e.g., if the human subjects can
anticipate when the work sampling observer were coming,
they may be inclined to adjust their behaviour in response).
To eliminate the bias by randomizing the observations
Should have low variance
This can be achieved by increasing the number of
observations.
p

Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work

by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Confidence Intervals
Our aim is to estimate p within a defined error range at a
confidence level

The general statement of a confidence interval for
relative to p can be expressed as follows

Pr = 1 - o


p

|
|
.
|

\
|
+ <

<
2 2 /
p
/
z

p p

z
o o
o
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Confidence Intervals
This can be rearranged to the following
Pr = 1 - o











The probability that the actual p lies within p-z*sigma and
p+z*sigma is (1-alpha)
( )
p / p /
z p

p z p

o o
o o 2 2
+ < <
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Number of Observations Required
Invreasing the number of obserations increaases the accuracy
(?) and the precision (?) of our estimate.

But observations are costly. So here comes the queation:

How many observations are required to achieve a given
confidence interval about the estimate of p?

We need to decide two parameters:
1. Confidence level 1 - o
This allows us to find the corresponding value of z
o/2


2. The half-width c of the confidence interval, defined as the
desired acceptable deviation from p
Thus, we have p c
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Number of Observations Required
Given z
o/2
and c, the number of observations
required to achieve the specified confidence
level is given by the following




( ) ( )
2
2
2
1
c
p

z
n
/

=
o
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Example: Determining the number of
observations
Previous example. Determine how many observations
will be required to estimate the proportion of time used
to setup the 10 machines in the automatic lathe section.
The confidence interval must be within 0.03 of the true
proportion, which the foreman initially estimates to be
=.20. A 95% confidence level will be used.

Solution:
z
o/2
=1.96. c=.03

n=1.96
2
(0.2)(0.8)/0.03
2
=683.5

684 observations are required


p
( ) ( )
2
2
2
1
c
p

z
n
/

=
o
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Use of Work Sampling to Measure Average
Task and Standard Times
Work sampling can be used to determine average task
times and standard times.

However, the standard times obtained by work sampling
are not appropriate for wage incentive plans.

So use work sampling to measure the standard times
only when other work measurement techniques become
impractical
e.g., very long cycle times, nonrepetitive tasks
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Determining Average Task Times
Average task time for a given work category is
determined by computing the total time associated with
the category and then dividing by the total count of work
units produced by that category


where
T
ci
= average task time,
p
i
= proportion of observations associated with categoryi,
TT = total time, Q
i
= total quantity associated with
category i
( )
i
i
ci
Q
TT p
T =
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Example: Determining average task times
Consider the example in slide 5. A total of 1572 units were
completed by the 10 machines and that a total of 23 setups
were accomplished during the 5-day period.
Determine (a) the average task time per work unit during
production (b) the average setup time.

Remember that proportion of observations associated with
category running production was found as 0.6. For being
set up it was 0.15.

Solution:
TT=40 hr (10 machines)=400 hr
(a) T
production
=0.60(400)/1572=9.16 min
(b) T
setup
=0.15(400)/23=2.609 hr
( )
i
i
ci
Q
TT p
T =
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Determining Standard Times
When the purpose of the work sampling study is to set time
standards, the analyst must rate the performance of the
worker during each observation

First determine normal time for activity i



where
T
ni
= normal time for work unit associated with activity i
PR
i
= average value of the performance ratings for all
observations in categoryi,

Then determine standard time
T
stdi
= T
ni
(1 + A
pfd
)

( )( )
i
i i
ni
Q
PR TT p
T =
( )
i
i
ci
Q
TT p
T =
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Defining the Activity Categories
Some guidelines:
Must be defined to be consistent with objectives of study

Must be immediately recognizable by observer (mutually
exclusive)

If output measures are included, then activity categories
must correlate with those measures

If more than one output measure, then an activity
category must be defined for each

Helpful to limit the number of categories to ten or fewer
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Work Sampling Observation Form
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Scheduling Observations
Preparing a schedule of randomized observations
Improve the statistical accuracy
Reduce bias

50 round per week vs 10 rounds per day* 5 days

Sampling stratification: Total number of observations is
divided into a specified number of time periods so that there
are an equal number of samples taken each period
Observation times in period are randomized
Reduces the variance ( )
s
i
:sample std. dev. in period i, W
i
: proportion of
sampling in period i and s
i
<s for all i)

=
=
k
1 i
2
i
2
n
s k
vs.
n
s
2
) (
i
W x Var
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Example: Generation of random
observation times
For the machine utilization example, generate the schedule of
10 observation times for the first day. The shift hours are 8:00
a.m. to noon, then 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Solution: Generate a set of three digit numbers between 1 and
999 (using a pseudo random number generators). Conversion
of numbers to clock times

Numbers with first digits=8,9,1,2,3 and 4 are read directly
as the clock hour

Numbers with first digits=0 and 6 are read as clock hours
10 and 11, respectively

Numbers with first digits=5 and 7 are discarded

Numbers with second digits 6 through 9 are discarded

Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Advantages of Work Sampling
Can be used to measure activities that are impractical to
measure by direct observation

Multiple subjects can be included

Requires less time and lower cost than continuous direct
observation

Training requirements less than DTS or PMTS

Less tiresome and tedious on observer than continuous
observation

Fewer aberrations (abnormalities) than short-run observations

Being a subject in work sampling is less demanding than being
watched continuously for a long time (some people are not
comfartable while being watched continuously)
Work Systems and the Methods, Measurement, and Management of Work
by Mikell P. Groover, ISBN 0-13-140650-7.
2007 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.

Disadvantages and Limitations
Not as accurate for setting time standards as other work
measurement techniques

Work sampling provides less detailed information about work
elements than DTS or PMTS

Not proper to set standards for incentive pay systems

Usually not practical to study a single subject

Since work sampling deals with multiple subjects, individual
differences will be missed

Workers may be suspicious because they do not understand the
statistical basis of work sampling

Behavior of subjects may be influenced by the act of observing
them