During World War II she worked as a consultant for the government, advising military bases and war plants. She also focused on efficiency techniques for the American homemaker. She developed important inventions such as the foot-pedal trash can, shelves inside refrigerator doors, and an electric food mixer.

Both he and his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth were industrial engineers and efficiency experts who contributed to the study of industrial engineering in fields such as motion study and human factors.

Frank B. Gilbreth

Frederick Winslow Taylor introduced stop watch time study in 1881 in the MIDvale Steel Company in Philadelphia (1).

In summary, a time and motion study goes like this:

1. Look closely at what you’re doing.
2. Spot opportunities to be more efficient.
3. Make a change to the way you work to do it.
4. See if it produces the expected results.
5. Rinse and repeat.

Some allowances such as personal allowance (20%), fatigue allowance (5%), preparation allowance (5%) are added in normal time to obtain the standard time. The standard time is the basis for the calculation of wages and incentives. Thus, Standard time = Average Time × Rating factor + Other allowances.

Follow eight simple steps in thinking through a time study to avoid potential potholes.

• Know Why the Study Is Being Conducted.
• Understand and Articulate the Different Types of Work to Measure.
• Measure Work Elements Down to a Level of Desired Complexity.
• Ensure the Study Takes Place During a Representative Time Period.

1. The allowance factor (AF) is the amount of time allowed for personal, fatigue, and unavoidable delays.
2. Standard Time=normal time x allowance factor, where:

The main objective of time study is to determine by direct observation, the quantum of human work in a specified task and hence to establish the standard time, within which an average worker working at a normal pace should complete the task using a specified method.

Performance Rating can be defined as the procedure in which the time study engineer compares the performance of operator(s) under observation to the Normal Performance and determines a factor called Rating Factor. System of Rating. There are several systems of rating the performance of operator on a job.

The process of calculating an average numeric rating is to get the total of all section ratings. Then, this total is divided by the number of sections in the performance document. So, if there were four sections in the document, the calculator would divide the total number of numeric ratings by four.

 Normal time is the time needed to complete an operation by an employee working at 100% efficiency having no delays.  Standard time is the time needed to complete an operation by an employee working at 100% efficiency with unavoidable delays: 8.

Rating scale is defined as a closed-ended survey question used to represent respondent feedback in a comparative form for specific particular features/products/services. Researchers use a rating scale in research when they intend to associate a qualitative measure with the various aspects of a product or feature.

Louis Leon Thurstone

Attitude scales provide a quantitative measurement of attitudes, opinions or values by summarising numerical scores given by researchers to people’s responses to sets of statements exploring dimensions of an underlying theme.

A Likert Scale is a type of rating scale used to measure attitudes or opinions. With this scale, respondents are asked to rate items on a level of agreement. For example: Strongly agree.

To determine the minimum and the maximum length of the 5-point Likert type scale, the range is calculated by (5 − 1 = 4) then divided by five as it is the greatest value of the scale (4 ÷ 5 = 0.80).

A variety of options for analyzing Likert scale data exist including the chi square statistic. The chi square statistic compares survey respondents’ actual responses to questions with expected answers to assess the statistical significance of a given hypothesis. Combine the response categories in your Likert scale.

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