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Incentive

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Because manufacturing processes are undergoing continuous change, forward thinking companies are looking for new incentives to motivate labor. Companies are learning that they can no longer cling only to individual incentive pay plans. Just as an artist relies on a whole pallet of colors, the future success of incentives is having and using many different pay plans, each tailored to achieve a desired effect. There are many incentive plans for you to consider. Some even de-emphasize money and appeal to employees higher needs. I even discussed one plan, Merit Pay, in a previous Industry Advisor article. Now I will compare individual to group incentives – in certain key areas and provide highlights of the differences. Be aware that I am an advocate of group incentives.
PERFORMANCE
Individual Incentives
Since each direct labor employee – who is motivated by money – is theoretically in "business for him/her self" there should be a strong inducement for high performance. A piece work operator could care less about a fellow operator’s performance. The relative productivity of each individual can be readily determined. Likewise, actual time spent on specific jobs is also easily determined and standards set. Individual incentives work best on singularity of product and long runs. They lose their effectiveness and are usually costly to maintain in a high style, fast in-process turnover environment.
Group Incentives
Groups attempt to empower people and tend to have a leveling effect on labor’s performance. Rather than restrict production, the group pressures the superior producer to handle more job assignments. Group pressures may likewise have an upward leveling effect upon the operator who would be satisfied with relatively low individual earnings. Therefore, average group output often is higher than average individual output.
EARNINGS
Individual Incentives
If the rates are "fair" each individual is rewarded according to his/her own output. Low earnings on the part of one operator does not affect the earnings of others. Earnings by the day, order, or lot are readily determined. Individual piecework plans traditionally employ an "engineering" staff of to keep the pay plans balanced and current.
Group Incentives
Peer pressure is harnessed and earnings are vote consistent, since all members of a group share equally in the bonus. Objective records of individual production are often not readily available. Individual hourly rates may be adjusted on the basis of periodic merit ratings by the group leader, individual records for temporary periods or work-sampling studies, or excessive goal attainments. Meeting various production criteria forms the basis for Merit pay plans. Empowered groups tend to offer more valid suggestions on ways to overcome production issues and usually pressure management continuously until the issues are resolved. Another added benefit is that companies who have successfully moved towards various group incentives have ultimately been able to downsize their overhead labor.
QUALITY
Individual Incentives
Frustrated and unknowing employees like to try to beat the system and see what sub-standard work they can pass though and not get caught. When found. defective work penalizes only the person responsible. If however, several persons are performing the same operation and necessary identification controls are lacking, quality may be difficult to enforce and the company may have to absorb the cost of rework.
Group Incentives
Peer pressure will rapidly straighten out any employee’s bad attitude. The group only gets paid for quality production at the end of the line. Defective work penalizes all members of the group causing all group members become inspectors. Quality standards are simpler to enforce since it is usually easier to identify the group responsible for defective work than to fix responsibility upon an individual.
MORALE
Individual Incentives
Significant inconsistencies in earnings; supervisors who distribute "good" work to their picks or favorites; "good" versus "bad" piece rates etc. lead to controversies, lowered morale and . . Tata Power to offer Mumbai users incentive to cut consumption
India’s largest integrated private power firm is yet to work out a way of sharing the savings
Makarand Gadgil

Mumbai: In an effort to encourage its customers in Mumbai to cut peak-hour electricity consumption, Tata Power Co. Ltd plans to share with users the savings that will result from having to purchase less power from the open market to meet demand. India’s largest integrated private power company is yet to work out a way of sharing the savings.
“Sharing savings is a widely used concept in the Western countries, especially in the US,” said S. Padmanabhan, Tata Power’s director of operations. “If we are buying expensive power at Rs. 8 per unit to meet a customers’ peak-hour demand, and his tariff is Rs. 5 per unit, and if he doesn’t consume that unit during peak hours, then I, as a utility, don’t have to buy that unit of power. So it brings savings to both me and him. In this case, the saving will be of Rs. 3 per unit. This saving can be shared based on a predetermined formula.”
Tata Power caters to one-third of Mumbai’s total demand, which is 2,400-2,500 megawatts at present and goes up to 3,000-3,100 megawatts during summers. The remaining demand is met by the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) and Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. While BEST supplies power between Colaba and Nariman Point in south Mumbai, and Sion and Mahim in north Mumbai, Reliance supplies power to suburbs.
Power distribution utilities buy expensive power through short-term contracts to meet peak-hour demand. Typically, contracted power costs Rs. 2.5-4 per unit. Buying power in the spot market or through short-term contracts can cost anything between Rs. 5 and Rs. 11 per unit, depending on the season.
Tata Power’s customer base in Mumbai grew from around 22,000 in 2008 to over 250,000 by the end of 2011. Its power generation capacity for Mumbai is around 1,800 megawatts. During the winter season it purchases about 70-100 megawatts from the open market at the average rate of around Rs. 5 per unit. It also supplies power in Delhi through its subsidiary North Delhi Power Ltd. Power generated from Tata Power’s own generation capacity costs around Rs. 3.70 per unit. The demand can shoot up to 150 megawatts during summers, and so do the rates.
If supply does not match demand even after the purchase of the expensive power, utilities resort to load shedding. But since Mumbai is the only city in India to have 24x7 electricity supply, this option is not available to utilities like Tata Power.
Padmanabhan said the proposed sharing of cost savings is part of the company’s plan to implement several demand-side management programmes to reduce peak-hour consumption, which will help the company improve its profitability.
”Over the next five years, we expect (Mumbai’s power) demand will grow beyond 4,000 megawatts and our company is aiming to have a 50% market share of the total power supplied in Mumbai,” said Padmanabhan. The company is planning to invest Rs. 250 crore annually over the next four to five years to enhance its network. Currently, it is using Reliance Infrastructure’s network.
“To introduce such a (savings sharing) scheme, Tata Power will have to put in place information technology infrastructure to monitor the pattern of energy consumption of its customers,” says Ashwini Chitnis of Pune-based think tank Prayas Energy Group, which does research on issues and policies related to the energy sector.
Added Kameswara Rao, executive director and head of the infrastructure, utility and mining practice at consultancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers India Pvt. Ltd, “Such saving schemes can be implemented only for industrial and commercial consumers who are charged much higher tariff than average cost of power supply whereas residential and other consumers are subsidized by these industrial and commercial consumers.”

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