Method and time study at Van Hool
Van Hool, the Belgian vehicle manufacturer, opened one of its production sites to a Methods Engineering and Work Measurement class, and the assignment was to do what a shop floor engineer would do with a stopwatch and a clipboard: find out how a workstation really works, and make it work better.
The project had three parts:
- Methods study. A critical look at the existing workplace, and a reasoned argument for which technique the work should use.
- Time study. A direct time study to establish a standard time, plus a work sampling study as a cross-check, with a discussion of the accuracy each method can support.
- The future state. Proposed and quantified improvements, delivered as a proper optimized standard work method: an operative instruction sheet with a well-grounded standard time, not a set of suggestions.
Two site visits did most of the work, one to learn the process and one for the tablet-based measurements, with presentations in between and a written report at the end.
Two things stick with me about industrial engineering in a company like this. First, the observed method and the intended method are rarely the same thing, and the gap between them is where most of the available time is hiding. Second, a standard time you cannot defend is worse than no standard time at all: the whole point of doing the study properly (allowances, work sampling, accuracy discussion) is that the number survives being challenged by the person who has to meet it.