How Did Timestudy's Impact The Work Force At Biomed

Part B Question 4

What is a timestudy? What is a timestudy used for? What is a “speedup?” How did timestudy’s impact the work force at Biomed?

A common goal among any company is maximizing profits. This maximization is ultimately dependant on several variables. These variables include cost of production, market conditions, and most importantly, productivity and efficiency. Productivity and efficiency are the main incentive for the use of time studies in the work force, and will be the main focal point of the following discussion.

Throughout the years, advances in technology have enabled certain factories to have fully automated production lines. This ultimately allows a uniform production time for each product being made, and eliminates

A time study being conducted by management ultimately seems to indicate a lack of trust in their employees, and can even be taken as an insult by some. This lack of trust results in a disconnect between working class levels (that is, a class struggle) due to the creation of tension as a result of the time studies being conducted. This is why secret time studies were introduced. The difference between a normal time study and a secret time study is that in a secret time study, workers do not know they are being monitored. As expected, when workers are aware they are being monitored, the average productivity of the assembly line is increased. This ultimately causes a bias in the data being collected during the study, and the results are not accurate. Intuitively, workers will work at a slower pace when they do not believe they are being monitored. In either case, workers do not take kindly to the fact they are being monitored. This was ultimately shown to be true when Devinatz discussed a worker quitting when they realized they were part of a time study. Workers that are aware they are being monitored often feel as though they are not trusted, and not believed to be competent. This results in a low worker moral, a stressful and ultimately less productive work environment. Workers find it difficult to show their best effort when they are aware their superiors do not believe in them, and this tends to be reflected in their