Work place and process optimization for improved productivity

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you have a fully optimized work place? A work place which is designed on the basis on principles of Industrial engineering? Simple answer would be, this work place will help extracting most out of the associates working there with greater productivity. This article is aimed to provide a high level procedure to design a fully optimized work place based on industrial engineering principles followed by a case study for the same.

So, how to optimize a workplace? The process starts with thoroughly understanding the current process with each activity performed there. There can be many methods for doing so, but the best I found is the video shooting the process and performing time and motion studies and method studies.

Time study helps in identification of time required for each activity in the process. This helps in identifying non value adding activities (NVA) which we do not want to be in the new improved workplace. Motion study and methods studies helps in identification of unwanted motions like excessive walking, bending, double handling etc. in each activity.

Once we identify all the NVAs in each activity, we can redesign the entire process to accomplish the same result. The key to redesigning a process which needs a better work place to assist the process are the laws of motion economy. Laws of motion economy makes physical work less tiring ad easier to perform. It includes principles such as, use of repeated rhythmic motion, designing workflow which moves naturally, use of motion economy devices such as, jigs, fixtures, lifting and lowering devices etc. Combining all these laws with the principles of 5S adds finishing touch to the new process and new workplace. Once all these steps are completed we can design the workstation/Table/Area according to our requirement.