Anytime you decide to evaluate improving assembly line productivity – starting with a review of the ergonomics of the work-stations is the always best way to start.
Attending to the ergonomics of your work-stations makes analyzing, developing and implementing normal time labor standards required to complete an activity by a qualified, thoroughly experienced person more reliable for time performance predictions.
Ergonomics in the Workplace: Productivity Improvement
Healthy ergonomics preserves energy, prevents work-related injury and supports smoother more fluid body movements during work-performance tasks. Designing a workstation that is intuitively supportive of body ergonomics will actually eliminate unnecessary and wasted motion.
Attention to such details of the work-station or assembly-line workstations can improve your first time through performance and improve the quality of your product. Start by asking yourself these questions:
- What is the best method of performance for the person doing the task to acceptable and defined levels of safety and quality?
- What type of supports does the person need?
- What is a reasonable amount of output for a qualified worker?
Filling orders, loading projects, tagging inventory or product storage can all become predictably-timed processes. With predictability come accurate time-cost evaluations, labor-cost estimates and much more reliable project completion predictions.
Ergonomic Evaluation: Mandatory for Time-Cost Estimates
Evolution of computer technology has ushered in advancements for evaluation tools that offer precision estimates and “what if” evaluations. With consistent and reliable work standards, software and platform-based systems contain highly-effective tools that deliver eye-popping accuracy when it comes to time related labor efficiency and utilization. Especially when it comes to repeated, ergonomically-influenced manual process-dependent work activities.
Anytime operations managers can access reliable estimates for labor-based tasks – it becomes possible to reinforce customer trust and company dependability.
Establish Advantages: Reasonable Expectations for Labor
Analyzing human labor for increases in accurate work timelines – is fundamental to improving employee relations. These can always be improved because standardized time-work expectations can be established with repeatability and reliability. Employee satisfaction increases when there are no longer incidents of rushing orders, unscheduled overtime on short notice or requests for unrealistic time-frames for project completion.
In LEAN, one aspect of the continuous improvement process involves reviewing all areas to reduce spending – it is most beneficial when this can be done without reducing profit margins or work-quality standards. The MODAPTS ® system represents normal times; a qualified, experienced person working at a comfortable pace without undue stress can establish truly reasonable expectations and standards for labor productivity.
Cost-Measurement: Ergonomics in the Workplace
Attending to the physical ergonomics of the task is one of the process steps for determining the most efficient, safest method for performing these repeated tasks.
With time measurement standards, utilization of proper ergonomics at the workstation makes systems-management technology and time-standard training applications highly valuable for labor utilization. This process lowers cost and increases precision-delivery. It delivers work standards and task completion in a manner that can satisfy and impress your employees and customers.
How Ergonomics Support Predetermined Time Standards
When manufacturing companies perform cost analysis – accurate cost-measurement requires a measurement system which is based upon reliable labor standards. Cost measurement drives product development, plant product pricing, investment and discounting. Many manufacturers simply accept standardized-costs, based on past data, as the fastest, easiest approach to establishing “accurate” labor standards upon which to set pricing.
With the utilization of a PDTS that is simple to learn, easy to implement, maintain, and is accepted by unions, any manufacturer concerned about cost can realize efficient, reliable and repeatable ways of understanding their labor’s real-time impact on production costs. Especially when attending to the issues of optimal ergonomics layout of a workstation has proven the efficiency and effectiveness of the MODAPTS® measurement approach across the automotive manufacturing industry.
Worker Dignity, Company Respect and Increased Profits
Using MODAPTS® has been found to provide the greatest consistency of all such measurement systems. Because of the simplicity of the data is easily to understand, by its very nature leads to communication between the analyst and the operator. What better way than talking is there to communicate between an analyst and a worker when setting production standards?
Effective application of methods-analysis can lead to optimum production flow of materials increasing first time thru performance can result in increased profits, starting at the base foundation of any manufacturing company – the accurate application of ergonomic workstation design. Predefined manual tasks really are simple to time-predict allowing for any manager to access and base manufacturing capacity studies with profound accuracy.