Industrial Worker Pace Variability–A Study with Real Time and Posterior Analyses

Evidence has been reported that the pace of manual workers varies during the working day. Particularly, a wavelike pace variability was noted. In an effort to study this phenomenon a real-time minicomputer system was programmed and installed to record the cycle time of six factory workers and simultaneously display on an oscillograph the moving average of each worker's output. An observer monitored the experiment to determine if work pace variations truly occurred and if so, to establish their nature and identify their cause through observation of the workplace. The computer system proved to be an excellent means of conducting such an experiment. Hourly pace varied around the worker's daily mean with ranges of between 14% to 64%. The wavelike variation pattern was indicated both with low frequencies of between 20 to 80 work cycles and with high frequencies of between 2 to 7 work cycles. Commonly proposed factors of variability such as boredom were observed. Recovery from micro-errors is proposed as the cause of the high frequencies found. However, the pace variability had no consistent pattern per worker or per day.