The customer had introduced several small changes in the seat assembly process over time with no change in the production standard. A dispute with the local union over production standards on three specific seat models led to a call for an independent evaluation of the process.

The customer had a long-term business relationship with IET for industrial engineering services so they immediately requested IET’s assistance. An IET engineer met representatives from management and local union leaders to discuss the scope of the study and schedule study dates for IET’s engineer and a union time study analyst to perform simultaneous, independent studies. Four operators performed all the work necessary to complete a seat. IET utilized stop watch time study techniques with pace rating to develop normal processing times for each operator’s work on each seating product. A final report that summarized all time study data, pace ratings, normal times and observations was submitted to management representatives.