23-Ind-A2 Analysis and Design of Work · May 2016
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2016 — 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.
Reference texts: Niebel & Freivalds, Niebel’s Methods, Standards, and Work Design (13th ed.) — operations analysis and process/flow charting, motion economy, multiple-machine assignment, stopwatch time study, performance rating and allowances, predetermined time systems (MTM/MOST), work sampling, and 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.
A point job evaluation plan (rating each job against a common set of compensable factors — skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions — and summing weighted points into a single job score) has real costs and risks that should be weighed before installation: (1) it is expensive and slow to develop and maintain — selecting and weighting factors, writing job descriptions, rating every job, and re-rating whenever jobs change is a substantial, ongoing administrative burden; (2) it can provoke employee and union resistance, particularly where the plan is perceived as management using a veneer of scientific objectivity to justify decisions (pay differentials, job grading) that are ultimately still subjective choices about which factors matter and how heavily to weight them; (3) it tends to freeze job structure into the categories the plan defines, discouraging the flexible, multi-skilled job design that modern lean/cellular manufacturing often wants; (4) if factor selection or weighting is not carefully audited, the plan can silently encode systemic bias — historically, factors that undervalue traditionally female-dominated job characteristics have produced pay-equity problems that then require costly correction; and (5) it evaluates the JOB, not the individual’s performance in it, so it must be paired with, not substituted for, a genuine performance-management or incentive system if individual output is also to be rewarded.
Done well, a point job evaluation plan gives the organization an internally consistent, defensible pay structure: jobs of comparable difficulty and responsibility are paid comparably, and the reasoning behind any pay differential is documented and auditable rather than negotiated case by case. This reduces pay-related grievances and disputes, because a challenged rate can be traced back to the specific factor scores that produced it; it gives management a rational basis for budgeting and for wage negotiation, since the whole pay structure moves together rather than job by job; it supports a logical, transparent basis for promotion and career-ladder decisions, since the point difference between two jobs quantifies the step being taken; it helps attract and retain talent by demonstrating that pay is systematically, not arbitrarily, determined; and, when factor selection is properly audited, it supports pay-equity compliance by making it possible to demonstrate that jobs of equal value are in fact paid equally regardless of the demographic composition of who holds them.
(a) Piecework. The operator is paid a fixed rate per unit produced (or per unit above a threshold), so earnings scale directly and continuously with output with essentially no ceiling. It gives the strongest, most immediate incentive to increase output, but it also carries the largest risk of quality shortcuts, unsafe pace, and highly variable weekly earnings when work availability or difficulty fluctuates — and it requires the underlying piece rate itself to be set from an accurate time standard (Question 4(i)), since an inaccurate rate is both unfair and expensive to renegotiate once workers have adapted their pace to it.
(b) Standard hour plan. The operator is paid their guaranteed hourly rate for the number of standard hours earned — i.e., for the standard time the completed output should have taken — rather than for the actual clock hours worked. An operator who completes 100% of standard output in a shift earns their normal day rate; one who completes 125% of standard output in the same clock time earns 125% of the day rate. This ties pay to the SAME standard-time measurement already used for planning and costing, and smooths short-run output variability (a slightly slow hour is absorbed against a slightly fast one) better than pure piecework.
(c) Measured day work. The pay rate is fixed for a period (not varied shift to shift with output) but is periodically reset based on the operator’s demonstrated, longer-run average performance level against standard — an operator who sustains a consistently higher performance level over the review period is moved to a higher fixed rate for the next period. It combines the income security of straight day work (no day-to-day pay swings) with a performance-based incentive that operates on a slower, aggregated time scale.
Most commonly used in industry: the standard hour plan. It is the most widely used of the three because it directly reuses the same engineered time-standard infrastructure (Question 4) that the plant already maintains for planning, costing and scheduling, rather than requiring a separately negotiated piece-rate table for every job; it smooths short-term output and machine-availability variation better than pure piecework, reducing earnings volatility and the associated grievance load; and, because pay tracks percentage of standard rather than a per-unit dollar figure, it transfers cleanly across product mix changes without renegotiating a rate for every new part number, which a piece-rate shop must do constantly.
