Timelink—A practical work study management system

Abstract

The principal function of industrial engineering is to determine and optimise, implement, measure and maintain the procedures to be followed in manufacturing. Major problems arise in handling the volume of information originated in executing this function, resulting in skilled industrial engineers being involved in low-grade clerical activities and being subjected to interruption from lay enquirers. Building on experience of discrete computer-aided industrial engineering applications software, TIMELINK was introduced in 1980 and greatly expanded in 1981 to give a computer-aided Integrated Industrial Engineering System which is commercially available and can be implemented on a wide range of mini and mainframe computers. TIMELINK Integrated Industrial Engineering System is a fully interactive system composed of interconnected application software modules, each applying a conventional industrial engineering technique or function including compiling and applying work measurement standard data, analytical work study (MTM-2), estimating, standards application, manual study storage and routing generation. A central access facility allows enquiries to be made of the industrial engineering database created and for the automatic transfer of data to other computer systems, including other TIMELINK installations for networking purposes. TIMELINK is establishing itself as a multi-function system, combining technical computer-aided industrial engineering applicatios with an industrial engineering database and information distribution and enquiry facilities, giving considerable technical and managerial benefits.