Deck 7: Work Design and Measurement

Question 1

Learning curves are mostly relevant for complex, new activities that have not been done often.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

According to learning curve theory, every doubling of total output will produce a constant percentage decrease in time per unit .

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Learning curves generally apply to situations in which there is a high degree of human involvement and tasks are fairly repetitive.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

If an 80 percent curve is appropriate for a task and the first unit takes 10 hours, the average time for the first 2 units would be 8 hours.

Question 5

According to learning curve theory, the time reduction per unit decreases (improves)as the number of units increases.

Question 6

If the elapsed time for the task is short and the activity is somewhat routine, a modest amount of improvement occurs during the first few repetitions.

Question 7

Negotiated purchasing results in lower unit costs for smaller quantities.

Question 8

According to learning curve theory, for certain kinds of tasks the cost per unit decreases as the number of repetitions increases.

Question 9

For an 80 percent learning curve, if the first unit requires 10 hours, the second unit will require 8 hours and the third 6.4 hours.

Question 10

An 80 percent learning curve means that with each doubling of repetitions there will be a 20 percent decrease in time per unit.

Question 11

The learning curve principle would apply to the number of students in a class: a class twice as large will learn 80 percent faster.

Question 12

Ergonomics is the use of computers and robots in the workplace.

Question 13

A learning curve for an overqualified worker is higher than that for an average worker.

Question 14

Learning curves are used primarily for mass production applications.

Question 15

The decrease in time between the second and fourth units will be equal to the decrease in time between the first and second units.

Question 16

The learning curve is a basic tool for mass production-type activities because it can deal with large volumes of output.

Question 17

When the task is fairly complex and has a longer duration, it will take a larger number of repetitions before improvement is observed.

Question 18

The learning curve principle would apply to a baseball pitcher learning to throw a curveball.

Question 19

If we have never made the first unit but only think we know how much the labor time will be, we cannot draw a learning curve.

Question 20

A learning percentage of 95 percent indicates greater learning than a percentage of 90 percent.

Question 21

Potential benefits of self-directed teams include higher productivity and greater worker satisfaction.

Question 22

Methods analysis cannot be done for new jobs (ones that do not yet exist)since it requires observation of the process.

Question 23

Self-directed teams are allowed to make changes in the work processes under their control.

Question 24

Predetermined time standards are usually based on observing one very efficient worker performing the task.

Question 25

Self-directed teams help other work groups make changes to their processes.

Question 26

One disadvantage of specialization is worker dissatisfaction.

Question 27

Job design relates to people, therefore technology has little impact.

Question 28

Many lower-level jobs are monotonous and boring.

Question 29

The quickest, most effective way to improve an employee's job satisfaction is to increase his or her compensation.

Question 30

One of the potential benefits of self-directed teams is higher quality.

Question 31

Job enrichment involves an increase in the level of responsibility for planning and coordinating tasks.

Question 32

Motivation influences quality and productivity, but not the work environment.

Question 33

Specialization is one of the sources of disagreement between the efficiency and behavioral approaches to job design.

Question 34

One important factor that influences productivity is trust between workers and managers.

Question 35

One potential disadvantage of self-directed teams is higher turnover and absenteeism.

Question 36

Trust is a factor influencing productivity.

Question 37

Job enrichment involves giving workers a greater share of the total task, which is why they feel enriched.

Question 38

Ergonomics is an important part of job design to consider for factory work but not for office work.

Question 39

A flow process chart is helpful for visualizing the portions of a work cycle during which the equipment is busy or idle.

Question 40

One therblig is the equivalent of 1 hour of sustained work by one average person.

Question 41

A standard time is the amount of time it should take a fully trained and qualified worker to complete a specific task, working at an efficient, yet sustainable pace, using their choice of methods, tools, equipment, and workplace arrangement.

Question 42

No stopwatch is required in a work sampling study.

Question 43

Therbligs are basic elemental motions.

Question 44

Predetermined time standards use historical data from a company's own files.

Question 45

Work sampling involves the use of some method of randomizing the observations.

Question 46

Predetermined time standards involve the use of published data regarding how long various activities are expected to take.

Question 47

An advantage of work sampling, compared to a stopwatch time study, is that observations are spread out over a period of time in work sampling.

Question 48

Ergonomics is important for preventing common workplace injuries such as back injuries and repetitive-motion injuries.

Question 49

Work measurement concentrates on how long the tasks take to accomplish.

Question 50

For purposes of obtaining good time standards using a stopwatch time study, the analyst should try to avoid having the worker discover he or she is being observed.

Question 51

One factor in determining how many cycles to time in a time study is the degree of variation that is present in the observed times.

Question 52

The normal time in time study is obtained by multiplying the observed time by the performance rating.

Question 53

The standard time for a job can be obtained by multiplying the normal time by an appropriate allowance factor.

Question 54

A performance rating of less than 1.0 means that the observed worker was judged to be working at a faster than normal rate-doing the job more quickly than normal.

Question 55

Work sampling can be used to estimate the proportion of time a machine is idle.

Question 56

Work sampling provides a detailed elemental breakdown of a task for purposes of establishing reliable time standards.

Question 57

The normal time for a job is multiplied by the performance rating to obtain the standard time for the job.

Question 58

The two basic causes of accidents are worker carelessness and management demands for increased productivity.

Question 59

The design of work systems is based on objective standards and thereby avoids most ethical issues.

Question 60

Work sampling is most frequently used to set time standards.

Question 61

A worker-machine chart can help identify nonproductive parts of a process.

Question 62

Once production is underway and the learning curve effect is occurring, successive changes made to the production process will cause the time per unit to:

A)continue following the original learning curve without any impact.
B)cause a scallop effect.
C)increase the unit time and result in a higher percentage learning curve.
D)decrease the unit time and result in a higher percentage learning curve.
E)decrease the unit time and result in a lower percentage learning curve.

Question 63

Sometimes improvements in labor requirements are more apparent than real because of:

A)fixed costs increasing.
B)automation.
C)mass production.
D)increases in indirect labor.
E)greater precision in estimating the learning rate.

Question 64

Output-based systems compensate employees according to the amount of output they produce, thereby tying pay directly to performance.

Question 65

Specialization is a term that describes job that have a very wide scope.

Question 66

To which worker would learning curves be most applicable?

A)bus driver
B)printing press operator
C)assembly-line worker
D)auto service mechanic
E)baker or cook

Question 67

It took exactly 10 hours to perform the first kidney transplant on a 100 percent learning curve. The second kidney transplant will take how many hours to perform?

A)8 hours
B)10 hours
C)12 hours
D)A 100 percent learning curve cannot exist.
E)5 hours

Question 68

The more _____ a task, the less likely it is that a substantial learning curve will be in effect.

A)strategic
B)capital intensive
C)routine
D)tactical
E)unusual

Question 69

Suppose the first unit of output required 900 labor hours, and the second unit required only 810. At this rate, how many more units must be produced before labor requirements are less than 700 hours?

A)2
B)4
C)6
D)8
E)10

Question 70

Increasing volumes result in _____ the learning curve.

A)moving up
B)moving down
C)moving off
D)moving away from
E)stabilization of

Question 71

Methods analysis is more likely to lead to a relatively easy and successful implementation of an improved method if workers have been consulted throughout the process than if the analyst assumed sole responsibility for the development of the improved method.

Question 72

Work sampling provides both quick and accurate estimates of activity times.

Question 73

The fact that human activities typically improve when they are done on a repetitive basis is described by a(n):

A)normal distribution curve.
B)learning curve.
C)binomial distribution curve.
D)exponential curve.
E)fatigue factor allowance.

Question 74

The importance of work design is often underscored by the organization's dependence on technology.

Question 75

Measured daywork systems are output-based compensation systems.

Question 76

Time-based systems compensate employees according to the time they have worked and the amount of output they produce.

Question 77

On a log-log graph, learning curves appear as:

A)upward-curving lines.
B)downward-curving lines.
C)straight lines.
D)lines which increase at a decreasing rate.
E)lines which decrease at a decreasing rate.

Question 78

Increasing compensation is always the best way to improve worker satisfaction.

Question 79

It would be acceptable to use a group incentive plan for an assembly line operation.

Question 80

A worker-machine chart can be used to determine how many machines an operator can manage.