...in the Workplace Exam I – Sample Question 1. You are the HR manager for a medium sized manufacturing company that produces batteries. Your supervisor has just returned from a conference where she met and spoke with a senior leader from UPS. The topic of time and motion studies came up during their discussion and your supervisor asks what you know about this topic and whether it might work for your company as well. What will you tell her? Time and motion studies involve attempting to determine the most efficient and “one best way” to deliver a service or create a product. This organizational approach began in the early 1900’s and is known as scientific management (Perrow, 1973). Frederick Taylor is said to be the leader of this movement. Scientific management focuses on efficiency and standardization and creating work processes or structures that maximize productivity while minimizing effort and resources. One of the disadvantages of this approach is that people are often viewed as machines. Scientific management fails to consider the importance of employee morale and satisfaction and its relationship to productivity. This relationship was not realized until the 1930’s following the Hawthorne Studies (Perrow, 1973). Although UPS uses the scientific management approach effectively with its emphasis on fast and efficient service, I do not think it would work well in our organization for several reasons. One reason is that we are attempting to create an organizational...
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...CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION a. Background of the Study Academic performance of students may be affected or shaped by a lot of factors to include time management, access to facilities, conducive learning environment, presence or influence of institutional support, and other resources which in one way or another can contribute to scholastic achievement. However, there is not much research, particularly in a local setting, showing focus on the relationship between study time allocation and academic achievement more specifically among fourth year and fifth year engineering and architecture students. It has been observed that among engineering and architecture students, spending much time in studying is not a common practice, or at the very least, is not admitted. There is a question as to whether or not studying does matter especially that such has not been very apparent in the College of Engineering and Architecture. The level of diligence displayed by students of other courses or their devotion to allocating study time appears to be unusual or uncommon in the College of Engineering and Architecture since a substantive level of understanding to the mind-boggling engineering and architecture-related theories and doctrines as commonly expressed in formulas is preferred and is reflected on the degree of intelligence among the students. In other words, analytical intelligence in numbers and figures and not merely diligence defines the students of engineering and architecture. Thus...
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...Are Study Abroad Programs just a Waste of Time? Name Institutional Affiliation Are Study Abroad Programs just a Waste of Time? People have a different opinion regarding study abroad program. Some opine that it is a waste of time while others think otherwise. I think that studying abroad programs are not just a waste of time. These programs provide an opportunity for the students to travel and see the world. Through abroad academic programs, students gain firsthand experience about a foreign country they have never seen before. Traveling in a foreign country for an abroad study programs also provides the student with an opportunity to see other nations neighboring the host country. For example traveling to France for an abroad education programs provides the student with the opportunity to see other European nations such as Italy. Studying abroad is not a waste of time because such program helps improve the social aspects of the student. Academic programs are not confined to a classroom setting only. They involve out of class knowledge such as the social affairs of foreign people. Academic programs are developed such that students relate what they learn in class and the real life events in different facets of life including the social patterns. Study abroad academic programs achieve this purpose when offered through academic institutions. As such, they offer new avenues of gathering knowledge by the students who learn through exposure to different environments. Consequently...
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...Introduction The extent of student’s learning in academics may be determined by the grades a student earns for a period of learning has been done. It is believed that a grade is a primary indicator of such learning. If a learner earns high grades it is concluded that they may also have learned a lot while low grades indicate lesser learning. However, many experiences and studies found out that there are also several factors that would account for the grades. No single factor can be definitely pointed out as predicting grades. It has been interplay of so many factors – gender, IQ, study habits, age, year level, parent’s educational attainment, social status, number of siblings, birth order, etc. In fact, almost all of existing environmental and personal factors are a variable of academic performance. However, at this point in time, the researchers would like to investigate the possible relationship of study habits and the factors affecting it to the academic performance of students of University of Cagayan Valley. The investigation of on this area thus becomes a real and compelling motivation for the researchers to conduct this study. Education as the key to development is mandated to upgrade teaching effectiveness among educators as well as learning efficiency among learners. Many efforts by school administrators have been done to improve the retention of college students. Academic advising, orientations, facility improvements, mentoring, and continuous modifications to curriculum are being...
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...Making Hotplates 1. What changes in the work situation might account for the increase in productivity and the decrease in controllable rejects? The changes in the work situation that might account for the increase in productivity and the subsequent decrease in controllable defects are the redesign of the work flow and the increase in the work responsibility assigned to each worker. The redesign of the work flow allowed workers to assemble a unit of the hotplate instead of only a part over and over again. This resulted to 'empowered' workers as they now feel that they own the job as shown by the declaration "Now, it is my hotplate." Given the more responsibility, the workers became more empowered and accountable with their jobs and tasks. Each worker was treated as an individual creating a hot plate instead of just a part of the process. I believe the workers gained ownership and pride in their work. The workers took something and made it their own which resulted in a better sense of self-worth and more pride in their work. With a new sense of ownership and pride, the assembly line mentality disappeared. Instead of the same old job, it became personal. The rejects declined because the workers are focused on completing the task that they are now more responsible for completing. Since the hotplate is now their piece, the workers are more precise and accurate in making a piece they can be proud of which eliminates or decreases the rejects. 2. What might account for the drop in...
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...THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY: A Case Study Analysis John J. Head WestCom Group Consulting Inc. School of Communication Telecommunications Management 4480 Western Michigan University 1903 West Michigan Avenue Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008 November 8, 2012 ©2012 John J Head Source: New York Times Co. Table of Contents I. Historical Overview 1 Early steps 2 Diversification 3 Challenges, changes 4 II. Organizational structure 5 Table 1 5 III. Business Operations 6 Table 2 7 The flagship 8 IV. Financial performance 9 Table 3 9 V. Future outlook 11 Branding 11 SWOT analysis and other risks 12 Table 4 13 Demographics 15 Philosophy 16 i Endnotes 18 I. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Special are those instances in business when a slogan becomes so synonymous with a company. Those words, found on the front page of every copy of every edition of The New York Times since 1896, began as a way to define the publication to its readership. That slogan stands to this day, but the newspaper and its parent, The New York Times Company, have grown far beyond the reaches of New York City and its surrounding boroughs. The New York Times Company is a diversified media company whose core purpose is “to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.”1 It is a publicly traded company (NYTC on the New York Stock Exchange) and publishes three major daily newspapers...
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...beings and in order for the business to achieve its goals, the business organization must try understanding and respecting the emotions and satisfying of needs of the workers that are not monetary (Khan, 2008). Scientific management is based mostly on workers working at their fullest potential in order to achieve maximum productivity, Taylor saw the workers as machines that are meant to be given instructions on how to perform tasks without considering their human side. Another difference is the use of time and motion studies scientific management method involves time and motion studies which is basically a method of creating a standard for employee productivity through breaking down of task to its easiest form in a manner in which there is no wasted motion while the exact time for each correct movement is being measured to ensure the task is being done in the best possible way (Enock, 2006) while human relations while human relations method does not involve time and motion study but rather it allows the workers to work at the full potential the fastest way in which they can as it was found by Mayo that through observation and a proper relationship the workers tend to be motivated to...
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...Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and the Manufacture and Marketing of Motion Study, 1908-1924 Brian Price The Evergreen State College Evenaslarge-scale enterprises increasingly integrated manufacture the and marketing mass-produced of goodsin the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientific managers elaborated and popularized their efficiency methods and strategies an attemptto carveout a distinctive in scientificprofessional withinthechanging niche industrial world.No oneworked more assiduously thiseffort thanFrank and Lillian Gilbreth,and no one was in moreconscious theintimate of relationship between manufacture the the and marketing an innovative of product. Indeed, central my argument thattheGilbreths' is fameandreputation is duelessto theinherent quality theirmotionstudy of techniques, to their or achievementspractical in motion study scientific and management installation, thanto theirprolificefforts publicize to boththemselves humane as scientists and their principles and techniques conducive greaterefficiency as to and workplace harmony. In fact, in a periodcharacterized rapidlychanging by business dynamics and troubledlabor-management relations, the Gilbreths found that their motion studymethods, thoughsoundin theory,at best produced partialandtemporary only efficiencies practice, moreoften in and than not exacerbated tensions, onlybetweenthe workersand managers not they were supposed reconcile,but also among scientificmanagers to themselves. Ultimately,...
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...Taylor Motivation By Who – Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1917) Frederick Winslow Taylor is a controversial figure in management history. His innovations in industrial engineering, particularly in time and motion studies, paid off in dramatic improvements in productivity. At the same time, he has been credited with destroying the soul of work, of dehumanizing factories, making men into automatons Mr. Taylor was born at Germantown, Philadelphia, on March 20, 1856, and was graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1883. He won the doubles championship of the United States at tennis at Newport in 1881. He entered the employ of the Midvale Steel Company at Philadelphia in 1878 and was successively gang boss, assistant foreman, foreman of the machine shop, master mechanic, chief draughtsman, and chief engineer. In 1889 he began his special work of reorganizing the management of manufacturing establishments. A plant that he made over was made over from top to bottom. He laid out the system from the duties of the boy who carried drinking water to the unskilled laborers to the duties of the President, giving his solution to the problems of shop, office, accounting department and sales department, and emphasizing the necessity for the humane treatment of labor. Some of the big shops into which he introduced his theories of scientific management are the Bethlehem Steel Company, Cramp's Shipbuilding Company, and the Midvale Steel Company. He was President of the American...
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...acclaimed as the ‘father of scientific management’. According to Northcraft and Neale (1990, p.41), “Scientific management took its name from the careful and systematic observational techniques it used to design jobs and arrange work for the rank-and-file factory worker”. Principles of Scientific Management The techniques, contributions and general principles of Scientific Management Theory are as follows:- 1. Performance Standards F.W. Taylor found out that there were no scientific performance standards. No one knew exactly how much work a worker should do in one hour or in one day. The work was fixed assuming rule of thumb or the amount of work done by an average worker. Taylor introduced Time and Motion Studies to fix performance standards. He fixed performance standards for time, cost, and quality of work, which lead to uniformity of work. As a result, the efficiency of the workers could be compared with each other. 2. Differential Piece Rate System Taylor observed that workers did as little work as possible. He felt that under existing wage system, an efficient worker gained nothing extra. So, Taylor used the differential piece (unit) rate system. Under differential piece rate system, a standard output was first fixed. Then...
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...by the name of Frederick Winslow Taylor would have a major influence on the I/O field. Taylor studied employee productivity and developed an approach which he would later call "Scientific Management." Taylor used scientific management to handle production workers in factories. This approach included four principles which would guide organizational practices. Today, his same ideas are still used. Furthermore, two more individuals had an influence on the engineering side combined with psychology. A married couple, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, studied how individuals perform tasks by combining engineering and psychology. The Gilbreths devised the time and motion study. This incorporated measuring and timing people’s motions in doing tasks with the goal of developing more efficient ways of working. The technique they gathered from this study would go on to help many organizations (Spector, 2008). Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper in which you examine the fundamental concepts of the field of industrial/organizational psychology. In your examination, address the following items: · Describe the evolution of the field of...
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...which the management philosophies of both Taylor and The Gilbreth Couple, can be compared and contrasted is their respective work on TIME AND MOTION STUDIES, while Taylor was more concerned with ‘saving time and energy’ and focused primarily on the “saving time” aspect and the standardization of tasks, his time studies had to work in unison with the motion studies of frank and Lillian Gilbreth who included the concept of ‘fatigue’ in the time and motion studies. Time study developed in the direction of establishing standard times, while motion study evolved into a technique for improving work methods. The two techniques became integrated and refined into a widely accepted method applicable to the improvement and upgrading of work systems. This integrated approach to work system improvement is known as methods engineering, and it is applied today to industrial as well as service organizations, including banks, schools and hospitals. THE OBJECTIVE OF CONDUCTING TIME AND MOTION STUDIES The main objective of a time and motion study is to determine reliable time standards for the efficient and effective management of operations. Through the establishment of reliable and accurate time standards, companies can better define their capacity or output, thus increasing the efficiency of equipment and obtaining optimum utilization of the workforce. Time standards can be used to investigate the difference between actual and standard performance and take appropriate action...
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...Outline in full the principles of scientific management. What does this theory contribute to management in contemporary organisations? The main objective of management is maximum prosperity for both the business or owner and the employees. Maximum prosperity for a business means higher dividends and the development to its highest state of excellence. For employees it means higher wages than given in other businesses of the same industry and the ability to work at their highest rate of efficiency. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856- 1915) published the book The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, with which he abolished the then present rule-of-thumb method and introduced and entirely new system of scientific management. With ‘time and motion study’ single tasks would be thoroughly studied, timed and then analysed with the goal of determining one best way of performing a job. It dramatically improved productivity in many businesses and therefore helped achieve maximum prosperity. Taylor shows a negative bias towards workers in his book. He alleged that most employees deliberately do as little as they safely can. Reasons for what he called ‘Soldiering’ were; fear that increased output would mean fewer workers would be needed and that increased pay would not increase with productivity. Taylor believed that if his principles of scientific management were applied, this issue of Soldiering would be avoided. In order for the scientific methods to be applied correctly, workers...
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...| MSOCs affect on AT&T | When Information Systems Mislead | | Yondondo Stewart | | | Table of Contents Background…………………………………………………………Page 3 Leveling the Playing Field………………………………………….Page 3 Business Applications………………………………………………Page 4 Developed Applications…………………………………………….Page 5 Impact of MSOC……………………………………………………Page 8 Recommendation for the use of MSOC…………………………….Page 11 Bibliography………………………………………………………….Page 12 Background AT&T was once the parent company the Bell System. In 1984, Bell System was forced to divest there company into eight smaller companies, in reaction to the United States versus AT&T Anti-Trust suit. As a result of the separation and some misguided acquisitions, AT&T saw its value drop drastically. In 2005 Southwestern Bell Corp. (who had changed its name to SBC) purchased AT&T Corp. who in turn changed its name to AT&T Inc. AT&T Inc. is the largest provider of fixed telephony in the United States. They also provide broadband and subscription television services. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT&T) By the end of 2008, AT&T had discontinued and removed all of its pay telephones. With the decline in phone services, including traditional home phones, the company needed to develop new technologies. The company had to strategize a way back into the consumer’s residence. So, AT&T deployed a new media called U-Verse and extended its high-speed internet into rural areas. ( en.wikipedia...
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...done by other men." devised a means of detailing a division of labor in time-and-motion studies and a wage system based on performance. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth101/taylorism_and_fordism.htm Frederick Winslow Taylor is a controversial figure in management history. His innovations in industrial engineering, particularly in time and motion studies, paid off in dramatic improvements in productivity. At the same time, he has been credited with destroying the soul of work, of dehumanizing factories, making men into automatons. What is Taylor's real legacy? I'm not sure that management historians will ever agree. extensions of the four principles of management.[2] 1. The development of a true science 2. The scientific selection of the workman 3. The scientific education and development of the workman 4. Intimate and friendly cooperation between the management and the men. Taylor taught that there was one and only one method of work that maximized efficiency. "And this one best method and best implementation can only be discovered or developed through scientific study and analysis... This involves the gradual substitution of science for 'rule of thumb' throughout the mechanical arts." "Scientific management requires first, a careful investigation of each of the many modifications of the same implement, developed under rule of thumb; and second, after time and motion study has been made...
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