How many a have done operational time studies? Are there industry standards or benchmark studies of how long it should take to perform a specific task in machining and assembling? I'm in the process of trying to define those parameters. It seems like there should be some industry data out there.

I think the AWI was doing that at one time

Thanks Pat I'll look for the information on the AWI site.

Sorry, I posted this topic on the wrong forum.

I don't know if AWI has recent operations for different equipment and methods.

For us each labor operation consists of:
setup time based on different factors
Labor curve to where you can get any more efficient with a spike at a tooling change or adjustment.

Then a so much for each additional occurrence ,or foot, or box or whatever.

Once you have organized what you want to track then you need to consider there are two way of estimating process time.

Lets say a machine takes exactly 1 minute to load a part, machine a part and unload a part. 8*60 would tell us we should produce 480 parts a day. Yet we produce less than that every day and each part only takes a minute.

Time studies find that you lose about 1.5 hours a day with breaks, bathroom time, talking to the foreman, getting water etc, all stuff the employee does in a regular day that is productive or paid time and not wasting time.

So the Choice is base your time on 400 parts or whatever your real throughput is or adjust your labor rate to capture the "loss time"

Try not to measure too finite unless you are doing 1,000's of the same part or product.

Its better to group operations into groups by machine area and for assembly maybe assemble base or assemble base with drawer or assemble drawer stack and let that catch all the small stuff. You need to make tracking simpler on the floor

I tend to round hours for estimating, or days for install
The attached list is of a bunch of operations I have used over the years and a different sample of another method.

We don't use a lot of the ones on the list anymore, that's over 34 years. I created a bunch of these operations because when I used the AWI cost book 35 years ago, there was no data on modern 32MM casework, flat panel machines didn't exist, very few had CNC.

Some were created for 1 of a kind larger fixture jobs.

This forum is fine for this question

AWI used to have a cost book with tables that were averages of hundreds of shops, basically a guideline to create your own times and use the tables for the unusual items.

You need to adjust your times about once a year or when you get new equipment. Its important to know that 80 hours of production time used to be 120 hours before certain machine so you know whether to lower your price or increase your margin

A-

Click the link below to download the file included with this post.

samples.pdf

Sorry,
A bunch of the pages were blank

Click the link below to download the file included with this post.

sample_list2.pdf

Alan,

Great information, thank you for uploading the PDF!

Robert