work standardization

work standardization

Work standardization

The establishment of uniformity of technical procedures, administrative procedures, working conditions, tools, equipment, workplace arrangements, operation and motion sequences, materials, quality requirements, and similar factors which affect the performance of work. It involves the concepts of design standardization applied to the performance of jobs or operations in industry or business. See Design standards, Work measurement

Work standardization is part of methods engineering and, where it is practiced, usually precedes the setting of time standards. The objectives of work standardizations are lower costs, greater productivity, improved quality of workmanship, greater safety, and quicker and better development of skills among workers. See Methods engineering, Productivity

One of the best known of the more formal techniques of work standardization is group technology. This is the careful description of a heterogeneous lot of machine or other piece parts with a view to discovering as many common features in materials and dimensions as can be identified. It is then possible to start a rather large lot of a basic part through the production process, doing the common operations on all of them. Any changes or additional operations required to produce the final different parts can then be made at a later stage. The economy is realized in being able to do the identical jobs at one time.

There has been considerable progress in computerized systems to facilitate group technology. The techniques are closely linked to computer-aided design and to formalized codes that permit the detailed description of many operations. See Computer-aided design and manufacturing