Although production has been increased greatly during the last decade by the use of special automatic machinery, conveyors and improved methods, plans for the application of wage incentives to indirect labor have not been widely adopted. Inasmuch as time-studies of some sort of wage-incentive system have served to keep the individual output of direct labor close to its assignment, the assumption is made that the labor of the indirect workers might also be so measured to a standard that the compensation would be governed by the quantity and the quality of the ultimate output.
The advantages and functions of inspection are discussed and a method is suggested for establishing a quality-bonus incentive-plan based on the amount of rejected and scrap material per car and the number of inspectors employed per unit of production. The manner of determining the number of inspectors in use at many plants is explained and the conclusion is reached that this number should be decided after a very thorough study of each department on the basis of scientific job-analysis.
Cam-rollers are cited as an illustration and a detailed description is given of the various inspection operations required in producing this unit. Reasons for the superiority of the direct-reading to the plug-gage method of inspection are given and comparative time-studies are reproduced in chart form.
Justification for time-studies is said to be found in the facts that (a) each inspector knows that a certain amount of work is expected of him; (b) the foreman can check the inspector's output rapidly and economically; (c) the chief inspector can check the output of a department over any given period with very little trouble; (d) the attention of everyone concerned is drawn to the possibility of economizing by better methods, mainly by impressing upon them the extreme slowness of some operations; and (e) a time-study is of assistance in planning the work, for the length of time necessary to keep an inspector on a job is known beforehand.
Flexibility is said to be an essential of an inspection system, and the most economical method, particularly with regard to material purchased outside, to be based partly on the importance of the various dimensions and partly on the general accuracy of each dimension as produced by the vendor.
In production-line inspection, a method of allotting a fairly definite time-interval for a given inspection is to adapt the inspection to a station in the line with a definite inspection-specification balanced in time with the production operations. This method applies particularly to Brinell-testing large castings, such as cylinder-blocks and crankcases in the rough. When an inspection station is placed at the end of a line, the effect is to eliminate some of the machine inspection as well as to speed-up the final inspection.
