TABLE OF CONTENTS The following sections discuss the collection and the subsequent analysis of the observations.
During each observation numerous data was collected to allow analysis of the workforce in many ways. This data included employee identification, craft, supervisor, work category, unit status, date, day of week, hour of day, plus comments regarding certain individual observations. Codes used for craft were M, P, W, H, A, and T for mechanics, painters, welders, machinists, apprentices, and trainees, respectively.
The two previous studies by the paid consultant measured apprentices and trainees but did not classify them separately. They counted them as part of the craft in which they were working. However, between the time of the last study and this study, several changes occurred in the workforce. First, many of the apprentices were promoted to journeyman status. Second, all the journeymen were promoted provisionally to a newly created multiskill technician status. Finally, the company hired a class of eight new apprentices into the workforce. Yet at the time of this third study, work was still being assigned on the basis of previous craft designation. Because most of the new apprentices were less accustomed to power plant maintenance than were previous apprentices and because work was still assigned by previous designations, a decision was made to use the previous craft designations plus new apprentice and trainee designations to classify the workforce.
The study analyzed the observations first on an overall basis with everyone and every circumstance included, then...
