According to ILO, ‘Work Study’ is a generic term for those techniques, particularly method study and work measurement, that are used for the examination of human work in all its contexts, and which lead systematically to investigation of all the factors which affect the efficiency and economy of the situation being reviewed, in order to seek improvements.
Work study investigates the work done in an organization and aims at finding the best and the most efficient way of utilizing the available resources (man, material, money and machinery) to achieve the best possible quality work in minimum possible time. According to Delmar (1985), the three main goals in work study are: (1) To minimize inventory investment; (2) To maximize the efficiency of the production system; and (3) To improve customer service. To minimize the investment in inventories (idle resources that are waiting to be used), correct resources should be ordered as and when required by the product specification, taking into account tradeoffs between the order of quantity and total unit costs. This will result in reduction of holding costs and so the efficiency of the production system will improve, and hence, customer satisfaction will flourish because time and cost will be greatly reduced. The above should be carried out by the production planning department. Careful planning of the production system is required to improve efficiency.
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