More measurement now.(Mail)(Letter to the editor)

In the March issue, "Return to Work Measurement," by Shigeyasu Sakamoto was a very thought-provoking column.

Work measurement can be very expensive. As a former member of General Electric's corporate manufacturing staff I found that there should be about one industrial engineer for every 150 employees. In an appliance manufacturing plant of 1,200 factory people, there was a need for at least eight work measurement people. Not all had to be industrial engineers. Managers did not want those eight people on its payroll. Yet they wanted all jobs to be measured all the time because an incentive system was in play. There were only four to five people in the work measurement team.

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Rework labor was about 40 percent of direct labor. Thus, 300 extra people were collecting salaries each week. Almost all processes were out of control because equipment was worn out. Yet managers were concerned about each six-inch move of a worker's arm! There were several manufacturing engineers on site who would make studies that showed any major improvement in processes would be too expensive. In reality, replacing equipment as required would have meant lower bonuses for the managers, but it might have saved the business and the jobs, or at least prolonged both for several years.

So that manufacturing ship sunk and all employees went down ...