Time studies and job efficiency

[lordairgtar]

A while back I posted about my dislike of time clocks for individual jobs at work. They were, and still are, a hassle. I eventually became used to it and do it every time. I punch in and out of the jobs like I am supposed to. Today, the plant manager calls me into the office and says to me "Out of the 10 employees here, we have only two who have greater than 97% efficiency rates". One of them is me! My work has actually run under the times the company quotes it for. Coolness! Armed with this info, I am now negotiating for a raise.

[CATNHAT]

Cool and good luck! If he doesnt give you the raise put his hand in the time clock and stamp it!

[lordairgtar]

Our clocks work with bar code scanning. Each employee and task has it's own bar code. Of course I could just stick the laser thingy in his eye. LOL

[The Shaolin]

Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but there's a reason they're collecting that info, and it worked out way in your favor :) Congrats.

[Rocket Power]

Hopefully they're not like the last place I was at and the best time becomes the new normal.

Sometimes we would have to get project done with less time than we should have had because of bad scheduling. Then it was a lot of they did it before they can do it again...and again. You end up with a lot of burned out po'd people.

[Nickerz]

Timing individual jobs is a sure fire way to increase mistakes. The flip side to that though is it makes it easy to see who isn't very good at their job and to fire them and replace them with someone better until you have a whole team of performers.

[fivonut]

Timing individual jobs is a sure fire way to increase mistakes. The flip side to that though is it makes it easy to see who isn't very good at their job and to fire them and replace them with someone better until you have a whole team of performers.

Or, use it to see who the bottom performers are and work on a why to help them increase their efficiency, whether it be training them or changing the process.

[xxsn0blindxx]

Man you people are cynical. Unless every employee works exactly 40 hours per week and never takes vacation or gets sick, time card systems are the only way to know exactly how many man hours are being used to produce the output for a given time period. Without metrics there's no way to know what your factory is capable of doing. Yes, it can be used to catch underperformers, but typically that is noticed in person first, then verified with the data. Sure management will always want to raise productivity goals, but typcally it isn't a need to work harder, it's a need to work smarter. The largest productivity gains are typically found in making the work more efficient.

[shoooo32]

^^^ must be in management! You're absolutely right. No company purchases software for tens of thousands of dollars to figure out which employees are doing a poor job. Production control via bar code is almost mandatory these days for ISO 9001 companies.

[lordairgtar]

We are always looking for ways to make production more efficient. We found that having a worker learn all aspects of a given job's process, and having them complete the work from start to finish (scanning each step), time is saved by not having each step sit and wait for someone to do the task. The only area that is set apart is the Cutting Department. That person has to monitor all the machines cutting wire and cable and heat shrink, so that is all she does. Everyone has their main area of expertise, but all can do the entire job if need be. I typically do coaxial cable work and soldering, but I can work other departments as needed. I was so against all this in the beginning, but I rather like it now.

[brotherbenn83]

Timing individual jobs is a sure fire way to increase mistakes. The flip side to that though is it makes it easy to see who isn't very good at their job and to fire them and replace them with someone better until you have a whole team of performers.
This sure turns the entire auto service industry and flat rate on its frickin ear.

[FoxStang]

We are always looking for ways to make production more efficient. We found that having a worker learn all aspects of a given job's process, and having them complete the work from start to finish (scanning each step), time is saved by not having each step sit and wait for someone to do the task. The only area that is set apart is the Cutting Department. That person has to monitor all the machines cutting wire and cable and heat shrink, so that is all she does. Everyone has their main area of expertise, but all can do the entire job if need be. I typically do coaxial cable work and soldering, but I can work other departments as needed. I was so against all this in the beginning, but I rather like it now.
Cross functional training, I wonder where they got that from...

(Sarcasm)