Josh's Toy Manufacturing is a manufacturer of small toys that are included in children's meals at fast food restaurants. Josh uses plastic injection technology to efficiently produce toys. Price is the main criterion that restaurant chains use to determine whether they will buy toys from Josh's or some other manufacturer.

A toy manufacturing assembly line in Josh has four machines. Each machine requires an operator. Operator skill is important as an effective operator can often make toys twice as fast as an inefficient operator. Josh's four assembly line operators were hired a year ago when the new line began operating. Machine 1 is very noisy, making its operation the least desirable job. Machines 2 and 3 are very similar and require operators to constantly press a variety of levers. Working on Machine 4 is the easiest job, as the operator does little more than monitor progress and push buttons. Currently, the four operators rotate hourly so that each operator spends two hours on each machine during an eight-hour workday.

Supervisors have noticed that production varies depending on which operator is working on which machine. The graph shows this variation.

The analysis suggests that the lower production during Hour 2 is mainly because Fred has trouble working on Machine 1. The noise bothers him more than the others and he often takes short breaks to get away from the machine to recover. the composure. The relatively high productivity during Hour 3 is because Bonnie works on Machine 4. Bonnie finds it especially difficult to work on Machines 2 and 3.

Given their current production process, the four operators produce an average of 2,610 units per day. If they worked all day in the Hour 3 configuration, they could average 3,200 units each day, which would represent a production increase of more than 22 percent.

Questions:

1. Do you recommend that the four machine operators continue to change machines every hour?
2. Would you recommend that operators be permanently assigned to the machines currently operating during Hour 3? 
3. What do you think would be the consequences of the changes you might recommend?
4. How can the principles of the mechanistic approach to work design inform a decision about how to assign workers to machines? 
5. What about the principles of the motivational approach? 
6. The perceptual approach? the biological approach?
7. How could job analysis be used to improve this assembly line?