Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine June Issue 2018 | Page 54

HAVE YOUR SAY BREAKING NEWS Tell us your news by emailing at [email protected] To read the latest sustainability news, go to https://apparelresources.com/business-news/sustainability/  Myth Buster Are you measuring work content right? “How you do and what you do is going to decide how long you will take to do it”. Time is a by-product of the method being followed. SAM (Standard Allowed Minute) or SMV (Standard Minute Value) of an operation is a common way of expressing the work content of an operation in terms of minute value. But there is a great deal of conceptual understanding that goes behind calculating the same. The normal time for an operation is defined as the time that a qualified operator would take to perform the job if he or she worked at a normal tempo. Professor Prabir Jana from NIFT, Delhi demystifies the preconceptions of some popular technologies to lay bare ‘facts’ that can help in using technology better. Time Study is the only way to measure the work content of any operation WRONG Time Study is one of the two ways of measuring work content of any operation. Use of PMTS (Predetermined Motion Time Systems) is the second method by which work content of any operation can be estimated. For measuring work content by Time Study, operation has to be in progress. The work study engineers actually observe the operation, measure time using stopwatch, add allowances and arrive at Standard Minute Value. Through PMTS, any PMTS practitioner can estimate the work content of an operation in advance. Rating is a very subjective process RIGHT Operator performance or operator rating is in a way as indication of how normal, skilled, effective, correct and consistent they are. Operator performance (also called operator rating) is a key ingredient to arrive at Standard Allowed Minute. Once the time is recorded by stopwatch by work study engineers, one has to assess the rating of the operator. The rating system Earlier Time Study (more so for method study) used to be done by trained and qualified industrial engineers. A Time Study board, decimal stopwatch, Time Study sheet and pencils were used. The industrial engineers are required to have good hand-eye coordination for simultaneous observation and writing ability. Now videography and software tools are available which have de-skilled the process requires an analyst to evaluate the operator’s skill, effort, the environmental conditions of the workplace, and the consistency between elemental time values. It also attempts to evaluate the speed of an operator’s motions, dexterity and the effectiveness of motions employed to perform the task. There are different rating systems being followed; however, all resort to qualitative measurement parameters, a few of which are mentioned above. This is basically subjective assessment of many objective parameters. Higher the rating, higher will be the operator’s skills WRONG One should not confuse between multi-skilling and performance. In my experience in Indian factories, operators are generally graded as A, B or C based on how many different types of operations they can perform (often having a direct correlation with their experience). These grades are often misused as their performance indicators, which is incorrect. Performance or rating indicates how an operator can perform an operation (a skill), and has no relation with how many 54 Apparel Online Bangladesh | JUNE 2018 | www.apparelresources.com different operations he/she can perform. After all, one can be either ‘Master’ of few or ‘Jack’ of many. Personal and fatigue allowances are constant for all organisations WRONG Personal allowances are basically to take care of personal needs of individuals like washrooms, drinking water, etc. Although the amount of personal time required will vary with individual more than with the kind of work; it is a fact that employees need more personal time when the work is heavy and done under unfavourable conditions. It is said that for light work (e.g. garment sewing jobs), where the operator works 8 hours per day without any organised rest periods, 2% to 5% time on an average will be allowed for personal needs. The word ‘unfavourable conditions’ is very important; it is observed that on a hot and humid day without proper air cooling system in the sewing floor and a drinking water facility at a distance, may result in 13% personal allowance! At present there is no fully satisfactory way of measuring