The value of workers’ expertise applied to quality in assembly lines

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the value of the experience and expertise of assembly-line workers. For many decades, It has been thought that this value is high and that product quality and the productivity of the workers is due to the repetitive nature of their activities. However, the potential value that could be created on the basis of repetition could find itself up against worker resistance. The hypothesis has been analyzed using two assembly lines. The first of these did not require specialized workers, but the second one did. The conclusion reached is that if we change expert workers for others who are less skilled, product defects would only increase when the jobs require the worker to be highly specialized. The value of experience would not lead to improving product quality but to the workers being able to perform their job more comfortably and easily. Therefore, assembly line management needs to review the seniority and specialization incentives,because workers prefer to use the value of their experience for achieving greater levels of ease and comfort rather than improving the quality or productivity of the company.