23-Ind-A2 Analysis and Design of Work · May 2015
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2015 — 98-Ind-A2 Analysis and Design of Work. Three-hour, closed-book exam (approved Casio/Sharp calculator only); any five of the seven questions constitute a complete paper and only the first five answered in the answer book are marked — all seven are solved below for completeness. The source’s marking-scheme line for Question 3 mislabels its final sub-part “(ii)” a second time instead of “(iii)”; it is answered here in the natural (i)/(ii)/(iii) order that matches the question text itself, 5/5/10 marks.
Reference texts: Niebel & Freivalds, Niebel’s Methods, Standards, and Work Design (13th ed.) — operations analysis, workplace/tool design and motion economy, stopwatch time study, performance rating and allowances, predetermined time systems (MTM/MOST), work sampling, wage-incentive and job-evaluation systems.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
Providing a safe and healthful workplace draws on both engineering and administrative controls. Environmental factors include adequate illumination for the visual demand of the task, ventilation and temperature/humidity control appropriate to the process (especially where fumes, dust or heat are generated), and noise control to Canadian occupational limits (WorkSafeBC and CCOHS guidance apply a 3 dB exchange rate, so every 3 dB above the base limit halves the permitted exposure time). Physical/engineering factors include machine guarding at all pinch points and rotating elements, ergonomic workstation and tool design consistent with motion economy (Question 1), safe and unobstructed aisles/egress routes, proper housekeeping to eliminate slip/trip hazards, and correctly specified personal protective equipment.
Administrative factors are equally important: hazard communication and labelling under WHMIS, documented safe-work procedures and lock-out/tag-out for equipment servicing, training and supervision, emergency and first-aid preparedness, and a functioning joint health-and-safety committee with a real incident-investigation and corrective-action loop — the requirements set out under provincial OH&S legislation. A safe workplace is also, directly, a productive one: fatigue, near-misses and lost-time injuries all remove capacity from the system that methods engineering is trying to improve.
Methods engineering (eliminating, combining, rearranging and simplifying work per Question 1(ii)) generates savings directly: shorter cycles reduce direct labor cost per unit, reduced motion and travel reduce fatigue and non-productive time, improved tooling and workplace layout reduce scrap and rework, and a simplified method is easier to train, which shortens the learning curve (Question 4(iii)) for new operators and reduces the cost of labor turnover.
Work measurement, applied after the method is fixed, converts the improved method into a defensible time standard, and the standard itself is the source of a second, independent layer of savings: it enables accurate cost estimating and quoting, realistic production scheduling and capacity planning (because planners know how long each job actually takes), a fair basis for wage-incentive pay (Question 7(ii)) that motivates output beyond the guaranteed rate, objective performance appraisal and line-balancing, and a quantitative baseline against which future method changes can be judged to prove they were genuine improvements rather than just different.
(1) Process of manufacture. The sequence and choice of manufacturing process determine, more than any single workstation improvement can, the cost, quality and cycle time of the finished part: the wrong process (e.g. machining a part that could be near-net-shape cast or formed) locks in excess material removal, cycle time and tooling cost regardless of how well any individual operation within it is executed. Operations analysis therefore questions whether the current sequence is the most economical one available, whether operations can be combined or eliminated by resequencing, and whether an alternative process would meet the same specification at lower cost — this is why “manufacturing sequence and process” is one of the nine standard lines of questioning in Question 1(ii).
(2) Set-up and tools. Even a well-chosen process is only as good as the tooling used to execute it: jigs and fixtures that locate and hold the part correctly reduce set-up time, cut cycle time by freeing the operator’s hands, improve dimensional consistency (reducing scrap and inspection burden), and reduce operator fatigue and injury risk by eliminating awkward hand-holding of the workpiece. Poor tooling, conversely, can defeat an otherwise excellent process choice by introducing long, non-productive set-up time between batches and inconsistent quality that operations analysis is specifically charged with detecting and correcting.
