Emaar (Clothing) Enterprises PLC manufactured shirts, trousers, and other items for major retail customers worldwide. Among its customers were famous brand names in North America. Europe and Asia. It also supplied genetic garment wholesalers.

A group of workers in a Sharjah factory in the UAE were responsible for assembling casual and dress shirts. A number of different models of shirts were made. Each worker assembled part of a shirt: one sewed together the side, another put on the buttons, another sewed the collar, and so forth. Each partially completed shirt was passed form one assembly station to the next. When a shirt was completed an inspector checked it over to ensure that it met quality standards. Then the two last workers ironed the garment and placed it in the packaging.

The garment assembly, line had been carefully balanced by industrial engineers, who had used a time and motion study to break the job down into sub-assembly tasks. Each requiring about fifty seconds to accomplish. The amount of time tabulated for each sub-assembly had also been ”balanced ”so that the task performed by each worker was supposed to take almost exactly the same amount of time. The workers were paid a flat hourly rate with no bonuses. However, there were some problems. Morale seemed to be low, and the inspector was finding a relatively high percentage of substandard garment. Controllable rejects -- those 'caused' by the operator rather than by faulty material --- were running about 23 percent:

After discussing the situation management decided to try something new. The workers were called together and asked if they would like to assemble the whole garments individually. The workers decided they would like to try this approach, provided they could go back to the old assembly line if the new scheme did not work well. After several days of Pairing, each worker began to assemble the entire garment.

The change was made at about the middle of the year. Productivity climbed quickly. By the end of the year, it had leveled off at about 84 percent higher than during the first half of the year, although no other changes had been made in the department or its personnel. Controllable rejects hat dropped from 23 percent to 1.5 Percent during the same period. Absenteeism hat trooped from 8 percent to less tar I Percent The workers had responded positively to the change, and their morale was higher. As ore person put it” Now, it is my shirt”

1. What changes in the work situation might account for the increase in productivity and the decrease in controllable rejects?

2. What might account for the drop in absenteeism and the increase in morale?

3. What were the major changes in the situation? Which changes were under the control of the manager? Which were controlled by workers?

4. What might happen if the workers went back to the old assembly line method?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 The thing that worked in enhancing the productivity and decrease the controllable rejects was the ... View the full answer