Workers In Production Process Research Articles

Lean Companies Employed Assembly Workers Train with New Approches

LM has proven itself the production system that enhances shop floor efficiency. Furthermore, the current environment for production firms is accelerating the pace at which LM is implemented. The manufacture of lean is not easy to introduce. It is constant and complex activity. Assembly workers in production processes are the core of lean manufacturing activity. Training is known as vehicle to aid the implementation process. While the importance of training is known so far, there are only a few options for organizing effective training. The results of the survey of questions conducted inside UK manufacturing companies are examined. This article illustrates the definition of lean production and worker requirements in lean environment.

PENERAPAN METODE SIX SIGMA DALAM ANALISIS KUALITAS PRODUK (Studi Kasus Produk Batik Handprint Pada PT XYZ di Bali)

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the application of Statistics Quality Control in fierce industries. By observing Batik production process at PT XYZ as a case in this work, we applied Six Sigma Method to analyze defective product and their cause while also measure overall quality goodness. Six Sigma is a method to improve a process and reduce defects in productions into 3.4 defects per million productions. We use handprint batik productions at PT XYZ as a case in this study. The method is involving Define, Measure and Analyze (DMA) phases. By using Six Sigma, it was obtained that the quality of handprint batik are quite good with sigma of 3.105 and defect rate of 54.269 million production (DPMO). There are four defect causes of handprint batik namely: ripped fabric, shallowness, perforation, and mispattern which contribute 41,7%, 35,8%, 15%, 7,5% respectively from overall defects. The main cause of defects is the carelessness of workers in production process. Therefore we need to reduce the carelessness to improve production quality.

Endogenous Technical Progress in the Theory of Economic Growth

It is shown that substitutive work, which can be defined as work of production equipment (capital stock) replacing the efforts of workers in production processes, can be considered as a measure of technical progress. The methods of estimation of substitutive work are discussed. The theoretical results are illustrated on the data for the US. economy.

Study of a Mortality Surge among Transport Workers in Japan

The existence of different mortality rates in the various occupational groups is well known. However, looking at the gradients of mortality between 1965 and 2000, we found a surge in the mortality rate of transport workers in 1990, large beyond that of the mortality rate of all workers 1) . We had already reported an increase in mortality from cardiovascular diseases, ischemic heart diseases, stomach cancer and lung cancer in male transport workers in 1990 compared to 1985 1) , and in this paper we focus on the mortality due to accidents (external causes) of which 58 to 67% was occupied by traffic accidents 2) . Age-adjusted mortality rates (based on the 1985 population as the reference group) from accidents and adverse effects (ICD 7‐9th codes 800‐929; ICD 10th codes S00-T98, and V00-V99) for eight occupational groups (farmers, foresters and fishermen; craftsmen, production process workers and other laborers including mining workers since 1990; sales workers; transportation and communication workers; service, sport and recreation workers; clerical workers; professional technical workers and artists; administrators and managers) were available from the reports of vital statistics by occupation and industry published by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, Japan 2) .

Establishment of a Japanese-owned Automobile Company in India and Construction of Its Production System

India, as well as other Asian countries, especially China and Thailand, has experienced a rapid growth in its automobile industry since the 1990s. One of the main reasons for this growth was the implementation of an economic liberalization policy that accelerated a huge amount of direct investment in India on the part multinational motor companies. These companies established 100%owned assembly plants or joint ventures that collaborated with local business groups. In 2002, 12 motor companies, including three Japanese ones, competed for the market shares of passenger cars and multi-utility vehicles. While the total number of vehicles produced in India has gradually increased, the scale of production per company has remained small because of severe market competition. Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), a joint venture created by Toyota Motor Company, Japan, with the Kirloskar Group, India, was investigated in an attempt to explain the small-scale vehicle production system of an overseas Japanese automobile plant. TKM was founded on the Bidadi Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Bangalore in 1997 and started commercial production of multi-utility vehicles in 1999. Its annual vehicle production is approximately 30, 000 units, which is far fewer than those of Toyota-owned overseas plants in North America and Europe. Therefore, TKM is a suitable example for considering the above topic. TKM constructed an efficient factory to achieve cost reduction. Compared with Toyota's factory buildings in Japan, that of TKM is lower in total height and narrower in terms of aisle space. Instead of costly steel-collar robots, it utilizes manual workers in production processes like welding, painting, and body assembling. These processes are mostly automated in Japan. Some of the machinery and equipment were shifted from Toyota-owned factories in Japan or Southeast Asia to maintain a low initial investment. TKM employed an improved, “just-in-time” (JIT) system to adapt to small-scale production and the local economic environment. TKM's parts suppliers are located in agglomerations of the automobile industry in Delhi, Pune, and Chennai, as well as Bangalore. TKM purchases 70% of its parts in monetary terms from Indian branches of Toyota group companies located in Bangalore. These group companies play an important role as core suppliers to TKM. TKM employs the milk run logistics system for parts delivery to perform JIT production. The milk run system has made it possible to minimize transportation costs. TKM established a transportation company responsible for transporting its auto parts. The company travels from supplier to supplier to collect parts along its routes. After arranging the parts in a long deck truck at consolidating stations in Delhi, Pune, and Chennai, the truck is driven to TKM every day. The suppliers surveyed in Bangalore are divided into the following two types. Members of the first type are Japanese owned and established as dedicated suppliers to TKM. Members of the second type are locally owned and their business with TKM comprises a small percentage of their sales. The local suppliers have many customers that vary from vehicle manufacturers to other industrial customers. In India, the business per customer is so small that suppliers need to have many business partners and networks to make a profit. Some of the Japanese suppliers tried to expand their business relations with other customers to meet the small-scale production of TKM.

Labor-Management Relations in Twentieth-Century Japan: A Review Essay

Japanese labor-management relations and production systems, as typified in large manufacturing firms, have long provoked contrary assessments. To this day, the debate is framed by the names and practices of two Americans who attained prominence in the 1910s: Fredrick Taylor and scientific management and Henry Ford and mass production. There are those who emphasize the participatory role of Japanese workers in production processes (most importantly through foremen-led quality circles), at odds with the Taylorist centralization of production control in the hands of management. Others regard the Japanese system as an intensification of Fordist mass production, facilitated by the weakness of Japanese enterprise unions. These recent books provide histories of the contested evolution of labor-management relations in twentieth-century Japan. In taking a longer historical view, the best of these books aim to reconcile the seeming contrariness of contemporary Japanese industrial relations.

Women's occupation and cancer: preliminary analysis of cancer registrations in England and Wales, 1971-1990.

In recent years increasing attention has been paid to examining the relation between women's health and their own occupation. The findings presented here relate to an analysis of 381,915 cancers in women registered in England and Wales over the 20-year period 1971-1990. To explore the value of the data for epidemiological research, five sites (pleura, bladder, stomach, lung, and breast) and two occupations (agriculture and textile) were selected. Associations between cancer and occupation were evaluated using age and social class adjusted proportional registration ratios (PRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Pleural cancer risk was increased in a range of occupations with a potential for asbestos exposure (e.g., PRR 608, 95% CI 381-921 for craft and other production process workers), and the well-established link between bladder cancer and employment in the rubber industry was confirmed (PRR 303, 95% CI 188-464). Associations between "dusty" occupations and stomach cancer were noted (e.g., PRR 198, 95% CI 126-298 for ceramic decorators and finishers), and possible links with lung cancer and smoke in the work environment were highlighted (e.g., PRR 167, 95% CI 147-189 for publicans). As a group, agricultural workers were found to be at increased risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (PRR 164, 95% CI 126-211), and textile workers at increased risk of pleural cancer (PRR 145, 95% CI 111-185). No evidence for an occupational aetiology for breast cancer was found within these data. Occupational information collected at cancer registration in the United Kingdom can be reliably used to identify groups that may be at increased risk of disease.

Occupational mortality of women aged 15-59 years at death in England and Wales.

The aim was to analyse occupational mortality differences among women using follow up data from a large nationally representative sample. Occupational information was obtained from the 1971 census records of women in the Longitudinal Study carried out by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) and related to their subsequent mortality in the period between the 1971 and 1981 censuses. In the Longitudinal Study, census, vital statistics, and other OPCS records are linked for a 1% sample of the population of England and Wales. The women studied in this paper were drawn from the 513,071 persons in the 1971 census who were included in the Longitudinal Study and whose entries were traced at the National Health Service Central Register by 1977. The analysis was based on 77,081 women aged 15-59 years in the Longitudinal Study for whom occupational information was collected in the 1971 census (99% of whom were in paid employment in the week before the census). There were 1553 deaths among these women in the follow up period analysed here. Numbers of deaths in each occupational group at census were compared to those expected on the basis of age specific death rates among all women in the study. "Professional, technical workers, and artists" had significantly low mortality while "Engineering and allied trades workers nec" had significantly high mortality. Among the latter, cancer mortality of electrical production process workers was extremely high. A number of other cause specific associations (which appear to confirm proportionate Decennial Supplement analyses) were suggested by the data; examples include high levels of mortality from ischaemic heart disease among cooks, lung cancer and respiratory disease among charwomen and cleaners, and accidents, poisonings, and violence among several groups of professional and technical workers. By using prospective follow up from the census, occupational differences in mortality can be identified among women in paid employment. As follow up of this study continues, numbers of deaths available for analysis will increase, allowing increasingly comprehensive analyses to be undertaken.

Observations on mortality in selected working populations

Mortality among employees of selected enterprises in which excellent health care programmes are carried on, was observed to evaluate employees' health levels and to establish objectives for future health care programmes. Also, these data were compared with those for all Japanese and for Japanese employees belonging to the corresponding occupational groups. Seventy-three enterprises which continuously participated in the mortality survey implemented by the Japan Research Organization of Industrial Health Care for the period between 1976 and 1980, were subjected to this study. The observed employees amounted to 3,502,580 person-years. Sex and age distributions of the employees were available for 47 enterprises and the observed employees totalled 2,598,672 person-years. The main results are as follows: Mortality rate (per 100,000) is stable between 140 and 150 throughout the observed period and the average value is 145.0. The average mortality rate for males, aged 40 to 54, is 272.6. Malignant neoplasms were the main cause of death and account for 37-38%. In second place and below are heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, accidents, suicide and liver cirrhosis. Malignant neoplasms, especially of the stomach, lung and pancreas, show a trend to increase, and cerebrovascular diseases and liver cirrhosis show a trend to decrease. Among heart diseases, ischemic heart disease accounts for about 40% and shows no marked fluctuation. Among cerebrovascular diseases, the relative frequency of subarachnoid hemorrhage is increasing. Comparing the mortality rates for males aged 40 to 54 by industry, "Iron, steel & nonferrous metal manufacturing" and "Electricity and gas supply" show significantly higher values, and "Finance & insurance" and "Communications" show significantly lower values than the total. The distribution of main causes of death for males, aged 40 to 54, was compared by major occupational groups using Proportional Mortality Ratio (PMR). A significantly high frequency of malignant neoplasms (especially of the stomach) is observed for "Professional & technical workers, managers and officials" and that of suicide for "Craftmen, production process workers and labourers" and that of cerebrovascular diseases (especially cerebral hemorrhage) for "Protective service workers." Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR) for males, aged 20 to 54, from all causes of death, calculated on the basis of all Japanese males in 1978 is 0.57. SMR for this population from malignant neoplasms is 0.89.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

A SOCIO-MEDICAL SURVEY ON PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS CASES NEWLY DIAGNOSED

A socio-medical survey was carried out on 603 cases of Pulmonary Tuberculosis who had been diagnosed by means of X-ray examination at Health Centers and the Clini of the Seoul Branch of the Korean National Tuberculosis Association During the period from 5 September to 5 November, 1965. 1. Newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis cases were more prevalent in 30~39 years of age group with 29.2%. Regarding extent of the pulmonary lesion among the newly confirmed 603 cases, 25.7% were in the minimal stage, 34.7% moderately advanced, and 39.6% far advanced according to U.S.A. - NTA classification. 2. Among the total number of patients, laborers and production process workers showed the highest rate with 18.2%. 3. The majority of the patients(about 85%) were living in poor economic conditions and 47.9% patients had families to support. The type of house in which the majority of cases were living was board-framed and the typical Korean type of dwelling house was accounted with 30%. 4. The majority of new TB cases had heard or read some information on tuberculosis from Health Centres, newspapers and magazines. 5. the patients who had been initially diagnosed at Health Centers without previous TB history were 47.4% of the fottal TB patients. Among the reasons for visiting Health Centers, hospitals and clinics etc., the patients with symptoms were accounted with 45.9%. 6. Cechst pain was the most frequent symptom; 42.6% among those patients had their symptom and 29.2% had no symptom. 7. It was confirmed that 10.3% of the patients already had precious TB history among their family and 3.5% had some members of family who had died of TB. 8. Among 603 cases, 145 TB cases had 2,851 family members who were living in the same rooms and those who were sharing alone in one room was 5.8%. 9. As the extent of the disacase was advanced hose-hold contacts among these patients were more numerous. It was found that 42.4% of family members were in contact with far advanced cases. Among children under five years of age living with patients, contacts with far advanced cases occupied 4.8%. 10. It was demonstrated that 17.4% of the patients wished to pay for treatments, and 11.1% for home treatments. Furthermore, 54.4% desired free treatments through the authorities concerned.