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An Example and a Proposal Concerning the Correlation of Worker Processing Times in Parallel Tasks

School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6, Canada
Department of Supply Chain Management, Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824
Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
klschult{at}ualberta.ca
schoenherr{at}bus.msu.edu
dnembhard{at}psu.edu

Models and understanding of line design depend on accurate assessments of the effects of design parameters on human actions. Although equity theory predicts that workers will react to the speed of people around them, experimental work has failed to find this effect in an industrial setting with parallel workstations or a change in coworkers. With the current research we contribute to the understanding of line design by using archival data from a manufacturing line. We show that workers do react to the speed of their coworkers, but that individual reactions vary widely. Because workers are different both in speed and reaction, managerial implications are not straightforward. We model an optimal and a heuristic rearrangement of workers and suggest a modified heuristic that performs well for increasing throughput. Our methodology combines empirical approaches, analytical modeling, and Monte Carlo simulation.

Key Words: organizational studies; motivation incentives; inventory production; policies; capacity; line design; interdependence; equity theory
History: Received: September 7, 2007; accepted: July 27, 2009.