Chapter 10 – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

OM in the News: The Top 10 Most Dangerous Jobs in America

Every 104 minutes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says an American worker loses their life on the job. While some of us might consider a bad day at work to be a crashed computer or a long class or meeting, thousands of Americans face life-or-death stakes every day they begin their jobs. From the peaks of skyscraper steel to the depths of the Pacific Northwest forests, here are the 10 most dangerous jobs in the U.S. today, according to Industrial Safety & Hygiene News (Feb, 26, 2026)

1. Logging Workers

Fatality Rate: 98.9 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Contact with objects/equipment (falling trees). The Hazard: Falling trees and heavy machinery

2. Fishing and Hunting Workers

Fatality Rate: 86.9 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Transportation incidents (drowning/capsizing). The Hazard: Drowning and vessel capsizing

3. Roofers

Fatality Rate: 51.8 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Falls to a lower level. The Hazard: Gravity.

4. Refuse & Recyclable Collectors

Fatality Rate: 41.4 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Transportation (struck-by vehicle). The Hazard: Being struck by passing motorists.

5. Aircraft Pilots & Flight Engineers

Fatality Rate: 31.3 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Crashes in small aircraft. The Hazard: Mechanical failure or weather in bush/regional flying

6. Construction Helpers

Fatality Rate: 27.4 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Falls and exposure to harmful substances. The Hazard: “The Fatal Four” (Falls, Struck-by, Caught-in, Electrocution)

7. Heavy & Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers

Fatality Rate: 26.8 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Transportation incidents (roadway collisions). The Hazard: Highway collisions and fatigue

8. Grounds Maintenance Workers

Fatality Rate: 20.5 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Falls and landscaping equipment. The Hazard: Equipment entanglement and heat stroke

9. Agricultural Workers

Fatality Rate: 20.2 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Transportation and contact with machinery. The Hazard: Tractor rollovers and silo entrapment

10. Iron and Steel Workers

Fatality Rate: 19.8 per 100,000 workers. Primary Cause of Death: Falls, slips, and trips. The Hazard: Falls and swinging heavy loads.

As we see, logging is the most dangerous profession by a massive margin. Logging workers are nearly 33 times more likely to die on the job than the average worker. The national average across all jobs is 3.3 per 100,000 workers.

While ” Construction Helpers” are No. 6, the broader construction industry saw the highest total number of deaths (1,032), even if their per-capita rate is lower than loggers. Nearly 11% of fatal falls result from a height of 30 feet or higher.

Classroom discussion questions:

Ergonomics is an important part of job design (see Chapter 10 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text). How could it be used to improve safety in these jobs?
Can the physical environment be changed to make any of the jobs safer?

OM in the News: The AI’s Industry 100-Hour Workweeks

The explosive growth of artificial intelligence has forced leading tech companies to rethink their human resource strategies and job design, reports The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 23, 2025). As the demand for rapid innovation intensifies, organizations like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Anthropic are relying on small, highly skilled teams to push the boundaries of AI development. These teams often work 80 to 100 hours per week, far exceeding the traditional schedules we discuss in Chapter 10, as they race to keep up with the pace of technological change.

Several researchers compared the circumstances to war. “We’re basically trying to speedrun 20 years of scientific progress in two years,” said one Anthropic scientist. “Extraordinary advances in AI systems are happening every few months. It’s the most interesting scientific question in the world right now.”

This environment has led to a redefinition of job roles and expectations. Rather than adhering to standard 9-to-5 or even the demanding “9-9-6” (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week) schedules, some AI workers describe “0-0-2” routines—working around the clock with minimal breaks. The pressure is especially acute for those directly involved in developing new AI models, where the unpredictability of research outcomes and the speed of breakthroughs require constant adaptability.

To support these extreme demands, companies are adapting their HR strategies. Some provide weekend meals and ensure continuous staffing, while others appoint rotating “captains” to monitor model outputs and oversee product development. These measures aim to sustain productivity and manage burnout, acknowledging that the traditional boundaries between work and personal life have blurred for many in the field.

Job design in this context emphasizes autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and a sense of mission. Many top AI researchers are driven not just by compensation but by the excitement of discovery and the belief that their work is shaping a pivotal moment in history. This self-motivation reduces the need for formalized overtime requirements, as employees willingly invest extra hours to stay ahead in the competitive landscape.

But this also raises concerns about sustainability and well-being. While some workers have become wealthy from their efforts, most have little time to enjoy their success or maintain relationships outside of work. The model raises questions about long-term retention and the potential need for more balanced, human-centered HR strategies as AI becomes further integrated into mainstream business operations.

Classroom discussion questions:

Your comments on the 100 hour workweek?
Is this a valid human resource strategy?

OM in the News: Maintenance Issues and Dead Workers

Wayne Rothering was a few months away from retirement when a machine killed him. He worked on a laminator line at a large Wisconsin furniture factory. He stopped the conveyor and stepped inside the line to fix a torn roll of paper. Behind him, powered rollers that fed 5-foot-by-6-foot slabs of fiberboard into the system continued to spin. As Rothering worked, the rollers caught hold of a board on the conveyor and propelled it into his back. Rothering was crushed to death.

Ashley Furniture paid a fine in a settlement with OSHA after Rothering’s death but didn’t admit fault

He was among hundreds of U.S. workers to die over the past decade in mishaps that a regulation known as “lockout/tagout” is supposed to prevent. The concept is simple: Before an industrial machine can be serviced, an employee must shut it down and place a lock over its power source. If that isn’t possible, the employee should place a tag telling co-workers to leave the machine off.

Lockouts are designed to prevent employees from being hurt by machines that start unexpectedly. Every year, an average of 85 people are killed and 364 suffer amputations. Violations related to the lockout standard are the most common safety citations issued by OSHA.

Incidents usually happen because employers fail to implement adequate safety measures, writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 4, 2024). “They take shortcuts, figure it’s too much trouble to lock it out, or they get pressure to keep productivity moving,” said a former OSHA exec. Companies often minimize downtime with alternatives that allow machines to remain powered during minor servicing.

Sometimes machinery is still operating when workers enter dangerous areas. Two years ago, Leily Lopez-Hernandez was blowing dust off a pizza company’s cooling machine. She went beneath the machine and was decapitated. After, OSHA fined the firm $2.8 million for 29 violations, 17 of which were deemed “willful”—meaning an employer purposefully disregarded regulations or acted with indifference to safety.

“It’s easy to blame the working person for failing to heed a warning or follow a procedure, but we know that’s going to happen, not because they are lazy or stupid, but because there are competing motivations,” said an industry attorney. “If the employer emphasizes production above all, so will the employee.”

Classroom discussion questions:

You are the operations manager at a manufacturer. What can you do to prevent such injuries and deaths?
What is the role of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)?

OM in the News: NASCAR’s Pit Crews and Operations

Chapter 10 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text , Human Resources, Job Design, and Work Measurement, opens with a Global Profile featuring high performance teamwork at auto races. In the case of NASCAR, races can cover up to 600 miles, with cars zipping around the track approaching 200 miles per hour. Yet races are often won by seconds, or even slivers of a second, and a slower pit stop can cost teams hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money and potential sponsorships, writes The Orlando Sentinel (Sept. 3 , 2024).

Every second saved in a stop is worth about 20 car lengths on the track. Last season, the average margin of victory was 1.11 seconds, and it was under one second in 19 of the 36 races. The margin of victory was under one second in 10 of the 23 races so far this season.

“While you are fighting for every position on the track, you can gain multiple spots on pit road,” said the president of Joe Gibbs Racing, which has about 50 athletes in its pit crews. “It can 100 percent win you a race and absolutely lose you a race.”

The pursuit of that edge is why Hendrick, Gibbs, Penske and other big race teams invest millions of dollars to hire and train dozens of tire changers, jackmen and gas can carriers who can work in chaotic conditions on race days 38 weeks a year. Teams are building state-of-the-art gyms and hiring top trainers, chefs and yoga instructors. They are also paying hefty salaries — reaching $200,000 — to sign top athletes and lure pit crew members away from rivals.

The athletes, who included a few college lacrosse players and wrestlers, are separated roughly by body type: bigger linemen in one group, lankier receivers and defensive backs in another, and squatter linebackers and running backs in a third. They are evaluated on 12 different skills and tasks. (At a NASCAR minicamp, coaches collect 49 different data points for evaluation.)

Teams have learned that former football players often make the best prospects for 5-man crews, thanks to their strength, agility and speed. So teams scour college campuses looking for players who didn’t catch on with an N.F.L. team and want to trade their football helmets for fireproof suits. For most of NASCAR’s 75-year history, mechanics, fabricators and others in the shop doubled as pit crews. Pit crews have become on-camera stars featured in Netflix documentaries.

Classroom discussion questions:

Which tools in Chapter 10 could be used in a pit stop?
What change has been made in crew sizes in the past 2 years? Why?

OM in the News: Fried Chicken Chain Cut Worker Steps by 9,000 a Day

Pollo Campero workers at an Orlando restaurant which features the company’s new kitchen design.

Pollo Campero plans to more than double its U.S. store count. But first, it’s halving the number of miles workers walk each day. The chicken chain mapped how workers were moving around stores and revamped its restaurant design to allow people to work more efficiently, reports Bloomberg.com (April 4, 2024). It slashed the number of steps taken by the staff member who ensures orders are delivered promptly and accurately from 18,000 per shift – or 3.4 miles – to 9,500.

“Every step you save adds to the bottom line and saves labor costs,” said the firm’s VP. The reduction can also result in faster service and happier customers. Pollo Campero’s initiative mirrors an industry-wide push for higher productivity as restaurants face elevated costs. While many restaurants now say that staffing and turnover are back to pre-pandemic levels, the median base wage for their workers is 18% higher than three years ago.

These elevated costs have added increased urgency to chains’ quest for efficiency, boosting interest in techniques (such as counting workers’ footsteps), that have been used for years. Higher productivity can help cut costs, the thinking goes, and allow restaurants to serve more customers per hour. Improving the metric — known as throughput in Supp. 7 of our text— can lead to higher sales. Companies looking to boost capacity include Popeyes, which is revamping its kitchens, and Starbucks, which is rolling out machines that brew coffee in 30 seconds.

At a Pollo Campero store in Orlando, the kitchen has a double-sided center island stocked with chicken and sides. Workers assembling orders for the drive-thru stand on the left and those putting together dine-in orders on the right, a setup that prevents them from bumping into each other. Boxes, condiments and napkins are all within reach.

The Orlando location is 2,600 square feet, 9% smaller than the average store blueprint. It also has 20% fewer seats than usual, owing to a shift toward on-the-go eating that has surged. The more compact store requires 10% fewer workers per shift.

Outside, the drive-thru features a digital board that customers can consult before pulling up to the speaker to place the order, helping avoid the “can I get uhhh” when they don’t have enough time to study menus. The goal is to clear dine-in customers in 5 minutes and drive-thru diners in 3.

Classroom discussion questions:

In what other ways could fast food chains increase throughput?
What other chains are moving to smaller stores? Why?

OM in the News: The Danger of Working in an Amazon Warehouse

Nearly half of Amazon’s employees in the U.S. have reported sustaining injuries at the company’s famously fast-paced warehouses, with some workers reporting they have to take unpaid time off from their jobs to recover, reports CBS News (Oct. 25, 2023).

A new study found that 41% of the e-commerce giant’s workers have gotten hurt on the job. Of those employees, 69% had to take unpaid time off to recover from pain or exhaustion in the past month. Amazon workers’ self-reported injury rate is nearly six times higher than what some previous reports.

The survey data in the study of 1,400 current Amazon workers indicate that how Amazon designs its processes — including extensive monitoring and the rapid pace of work — are contributing to a considerable physical and mental health toll, including injuries, burnout and exhaustion. Amazon uses an electronic system to track its warehouse workers’ productivity, using specialized software, handheld scanning devices and other tools to track the time it takes employees to complete their duties.

According to the survey, that system contributes to the pressure some workers feel to work faster, making them more likely to suffer injuries or experience burnout. Previously collected data has also shown that the rate of injuries at Amazon’s warehouses is higher than industry averages. In 2022, one Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) study found that there were 6.6 serious injuries for every 100 Amazon workers. That number is more than double the injury rate at all non-Amazon warehouses, which reported 3.2 serious injuries for every 100 workers. It means workers there sustained more than 34,000 serious injuries that year.

“This is not a ‘study’ — it’s a survey done on social media by groups with an ulterior motive,” said an Amazon spokesperson. The study does note that Amazon has taken measures to prioritize the safety of its workers. Still, many workers suffer injuries anyway, with those who struggle to keep up with the company’s fast pace of operations more likely to be hurt on the job.

California passed a bill regulating the use of production quotas in warehouse distribution centers, and Washington state has issued Amazon multiple citations for unsafe working conditions, including the company’s “very high pace of work.”

Classroom discussion questions:

Chapter 10 discusses job design, ergonomics, and work measurement. (See pages 411-413). What tools could Amazon employ to make its warehouse jobs safer?
Why do workers sustain such high rates at Amazon facilities?

OM Podcast #5: NASCAR Pit Stops

Welcome to our latest Operations Management podcast! Today, Jay Heizer and Barry Render discuss the OM side of NASCAR racing pitstops in this 9-minute recording. Chapter 10 of the text opens with a Global Company Profile featuring NASCAR. Racing teams’ use of time and motion studies are great examples of operational efficiency. In the podcast, Jay and Barry also describe how Formula One racing approaches to pit stops have helped a hospital and a pharma manufacturer.

Transcript

A transcript in Word of this podcast is available by clicking on the word Transcript above.

Instructors, assignable auto-graded exercises using this podcast are available in MyLab OM. Contact your Pearson rep to learn more! https://www.pearson.com/us/contact-us/find-your-rep.html

OM in the News: Is My Computer Setup Ergonomically Correct?

As we discuss in Chapter 10, ergonomics is an important element in Job Design and the Work Environment, so it may be a good time to ask “Is My Computer Setup Ergonomically Correct?”. Proper monitor distance, chair height, desk and even mouse placement all make a difference in work performance and stress on the human anatomy.

The Mayo Clinic offers advice in EHS Today (June 1, 2023) on how to set the proper positioning when using a computer in order to avoid some of the health problems associated with seated work, such as neck and back pain and sore wrists and shoulders. The chair height, equipment spacing and desk posture all make a difference.

First, choose a chair that supports your spine. Adjust the height of the chair so that your feet rest flat on the floor. Or use a footrest so your thighs are parallel to the floor. If the chair has armrests, position them so your arms sit gently on the armrests with your elbows close to your body and your shoulders relaxed.

Second, under the desk, make enough room for your legs and feet. Don’t store items under your desk, as that can shrink the amount of available space and make it hard to sit correctly. If the desk is too low and the desk height can’t be changed, put sturdy boards or blocks under the desk legs to raise it. If the desk is too high and can’t be changed, raise your chair.

Third, put your computer keyboard in front of you so your wrists and forearms are in line and your shoulders are relaxed. If you use a mouse connected to a computer, place it within easy reach, on the same surface as your keyboard. While you are typing, using a computer touchpad, or using a mouse or pointer, keep your wrists straight, your upper arms close to your body, and your hands at or slightly below the level of your elbows.

Finally, place the computer monitor straight in front of you, directly behind your keyboard, about an arm’s length away from your face. The monitor should be no closer to you than 20 inches and no further away than 40 inches. The top of the screen should be at or slightly below eye level.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why is this an OM issue?
Did you make any changes in your computer use after reading this post?

OM in the News: Who Should Jack Up the Car in a Nascar Pit Stop?

The pit crew for Christopher Bell in action at Phoenix Raceway

“There are two ways to win a Nascar race,” writes The Wall Street Journal (March 10-11, 2023). The first is to go faster, when you’re in motion, than anyone else. The second is to spend less time at rest than your opponents, shaving away expensive tenths of seconds sacrificed in pit stops, as we illustrate in Chapter 10’s Global Company Profile.

Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has done it both ways—on the track, with star drivers like Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. In the pit, it has brought the business of data analytics to the greasy work of changing tires and refueling cars. JGR’s crews have been either the fastest or second-fastest in Nascar every year since 2014, a span during which the organization has won two Cup Series championships. A month into the 2023 season, three JGR drivers are among the top 10 point earners on the circuit, due largely to the roster of ex-football and baseball players assembled in the pit.

Their ranks include CJ Bailey, a former college running back who has become Nascar’s premier tire carrier, and Caleb Dirks, a former pitching prospect for the Atlanta Braves who now applies his length as a jackman, sprinting out with his hydraulic device and pumping the pitting car airborne. (An experienced pit crew member who works for a top-tier team, by the way, can make around $500,000 per year).

Affixing motion sensors and running JGR’s pit crew through a gamut of high-tech exercises. data analysts logged the fluidity with which they transitioned from one effort to another. A 4-tire pit stop is a frantic 5-man ballet—all tight corridors and heavy equipment, set at breakneck tempo. The difference between a 9.8-second and 10.8-second stop can decide a race and a season.

The analysts isolated biomechanical thresholds that, if met by a prospect, predicted success in a certain role. Prospective tire changers were valued for their baseball hitting background but also for their “arc of hip rotation.” Tire carriers had their relative eccentric force production gauged. One such uncovered gem was Bailey. Their data revealed that he had the precise proportions of upper-body might and nimble footspeed of the ideal carrier. Last season with JGR he was graded as 13.8% more efficient than any other carrier in the sport—the fastest hauler of metal and rubber alive.

Classroom discussion questions:

How do time and motion studies apply to Nascar pit stops?
What methods analysis tools in Chapter 10 can be used to examine pit stop efficiency?

OM in the News: Child Labor Abuse in the U.S.

Throughout our text, we offer chapter-by-chapter Ethical Dilemmas. What would you do in the case of underage workers at a subcontractor’s plant in Viet Nam? Slave laborers making your Nikes in China? But in a New York Times (Feb, 26, 2023) expose, the headline reads “Brutal Jobs Common for Migrant Kids. Well Known Brands Use Vulnerable Labor Force.”

Migrant children gather on a school day to find roofing, landscaping or other work in Florida.

Except the article is about manufacturers in the U.S. It opens: “The factory in Michigan was full of underage workers who had crossed the southern border by themselves and were now spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery, in violation of child labor laws.” In L.A., children stitch “Made in America” tags into J. Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and help debone chicken for Whole Foods. Middle-schoolers make Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama. In Michigan, children make auto parts for Ford and GM. Girls as young as 13 wash hotel sheets in Virginia, 12 year old roofers work in Florida and Tennessee and other underage workers are employed by slaughterhouses in Delaware, Mississippi and N. Carolina.

Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations. The workers are part of a new economy of exploitation: Migrant children, who have been coming into the U.S. without their parents in record numbers. This shadow workforce flouts child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century.

The number of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. climbed to 1/4 million in the last 2 years – three times what it was 5 years earlier. Nearly half are coming from Guatemala, where poverty is fueling a wave of migration. Parents know that they would be turned away at the border or quickly deported, so they send their children in hopes that remittances will come back.

But as more and more children have arrived, the White House has ramped up demands to move the children quickly out of shelters and release them to adults who will agree to house them. Caseworkers say they rush through vetting sponsors, and the government lost contact with 1/3 of migrant children. Caseworkers complained that the U.S. regularly ignored obvious signs of labor exploitation.

Classroom discussion questions:

As a hotel operator, what do you do when you find 13 year-olds working for you?
What is the solution?

Guest Post: Four Day Workweek and Productivity

Professor Howard Weiss, recently retired from Temple U., shares his insights with our readers monthly.

Wendy Smith Born, who co-owns and runs the retail operations at Metropolitan Bakery in Philadelphia, has been using a 4-day work model for well over a year. Her employees say it’s better for their mental health and their productivity.

Some companies use a 10-hour 4-day workweek in order to maintain a 40-hour week. Others use an 8-hour 4-day workweek. A concern is that employees would accomplish less work in 32 hours rather than in 40 hours. However, several companies, like Metropolitan Bakery, claim that productivity is up and that hours worked should not be a substitute for productivity.

It is not only small businesses that are implementing the shorter workweek. At Panasonic and Microsoft in Japan, workers have the option to scale back to 4 days. Microsoft claims a 40% increase in productivity. Shake Shack, Canon (UK) and Unilever New Zealand are currently experimenting with 32-hour workweeks without pay cuts. Toshiba and the city of Morgantown, WV are trying a 4-day 40-hour workweek. KPMG implements a seasonal workweek where workers get Fridays off in the summer.

In some cases, a country dictates the workweek. Iceland is running a 36 hour trial. The U.K., Spain, Scotland, Spain and Ireland have a 32 hour trial. The U.A.E. has instituted a permanent 4.5 day work week for federal employees. Iceland has implemented a 36 hour week without a reduction in pay while Belgium has implemented a permanent 38 hour workweek. Japan recommends a 4-day workweek.

While many of us have been raised with a 40-hour workweek, this was not always the case. In 1776, the workweek was typically six 12-hour days (or seven 12-hour days for farmers, with workdays being longer in the summer than in the winter). In the mid-1850s, labor unions emerged arguing for shorter workdays. In the 1920s, Ford adopted a 5-day workweek. During the depression Kellogg’s, Standard Oil, GM and Sears reduced the workweek to 30 hours. This allowed more people to be employed (with lower take-home pay).

Figure 5.2 in your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook (shown here) displays product life cycle but processes also have a life cycle, and clearly, the 4 day workweek is in the growth stage at this point.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. To some extent, students can control their class week by selecting MWF classes or TTh classes. What are the advantages and disadvantages of MWF vs TTh?
2. What are some other industry workweeks and workdays aside from those mentioned above?

OM in the News: Going Crazy with Bitcoin Mining

Cryptocurrency mining requires a lot of resources both in terms of computing power and electricity

The city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, east of Montreal, got a big revenue lift when it welcomed Bitfarms, a company that makes cryptocurrencies. The 500 people who neighbor the company’s computer center got something else: an inescapable drone that is driving many of them crazy. “It’s comparable to torture,” said a city councilor.

Bitfarms makes money by using high powered computers to generate the digital currency bitcoins, explains The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 13-14, 2021). Miners compete to add transactions to bitcoin’s ledger by finding numbers that satisfy a formula; the first to do so are rewarded with new coins. There’s no shortcut, so miners with fast computers—and lots of them— to sift though the possibilities have an edge.

The powerful computers must be cooled by an array of fans. Their whirring noise has left residents who live near cryptocurrency operations in Quebec, Georgia, Montana and other places agitated and frazzled. Some compare it to a giant dentist’s drill, others to a fleet of helicopters in the backyard. “I wear earplugs inside my own house,” said one resident after bitcoin company Blockstream opened in her town of Adel, Ga. She can no longer sit on her porch. She says the noise sounds like 1,000 hair dryers. She has measured the sound levels at 70 decibels from her front porch, as loud as a vacuum cleaner. Indoors, sound levels measured more than 53 decibels, as loud as a dishwasher. The noise has persisted despite the layers of insulation that she put up at a cost of $7,000.

The mining companies say they are putting in quieter equipment and adding sound barriers around the plants. Under a deal with Adel, Blockstream must keep the sound levels 500 feet from the facility’s property line at 60 decibels or below. Blockstream plans to build a 15- foot-high berm to dampen the sound.

As the price and popularity of cryptocurrencies increases, more mines are popping up. Officials in Montana passed new zoning rules that would restrict how much noise and vibration businesses can create. The city of Plattsburgh, N.Y., passed a noise ordinance to deal with bitcoin mines. But the issue isn’t just the level of sound. It is also the frequency, measured by its ability to irritate. The mines resemble the whine of an airplane engine revving up on the tarmac.

Classroom discussion questions:

We deal with the issue of work environments’ sound levels in Figure 10.4(b) in your text. Where does Blockstream fall on the decibel levels?
What are the OM issues facing crypto mining farms?

OM in the News: Amazon’s Way of Measuring Work

Amazon warehouse workers who can’t ‘make rate’ don’t last.

Austin Morreale worked at the Amazon fulfillment center in Edison, N.J.. “It was 10 hours of pretty much mind-numbingly boring work, pretty much standing in the same position for the whole shift,” he said. “But at the end of the shift, I was drenched in sweat and aching like I hadn’t ached since I was playing competitive soccer.” Morreale was slow, he says, and kept messing up the patterns for efficiently putting items on robotic shelves—known as “stowing.” He couldn’t “make rate”: Amazonese for keeping up with the pace of work. In Amazon’s fulfillment centers, writes The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 11-12, 2021), human productivity is measured by an overall pick or stow rate calculated for each worker at a robot-fed pick-and-stow station.

On the job, no one ever stood behind Morreale and barked at him to work faster. But twice a day at a stand-up meeting, his shift managers told the group how everyone was doing. They knew because Amazon’s software, and an assortment of sensors in the warehouse, tracked workers’ every move. Knowing that if you don’t make rate you’ll get a warning, triggered by an algorithm, and if it happens often enough your job is in danger, can be a powerful psychological spur to work harder, and possibly to exceed your physical limits. (In 2019, Amazon reported 5.6 injuries per 100 workers. The average rate for warehouses in the U.S. that same year was 4.8 per 100).

More than a century ago, Henry Ford pioneered systems for speeding up work that we take for granted today (see Chapters 1 and 10). What Morreale experienced was Amazon’s 21st-century, algorithm-driven successor to Fordism. It’s a mix of surveillance, measurement, psychological tricks, targets, incentives, sloganeering, and an ever-growing array of technologies. This system of technologically supercharged management can be benevolent, or sinister, or both.

Imagine the delight of Ford, if he could know, to the millisecond, how long it took every worker to complete a task, every day, in every facility he owned. Imagine what early time-and-motion experts Frank and Lillian Gilbreth could have accomplished had they been able to discard their film cameras and replace them with millions of hours of video captured from the digital cameras that watch every station at Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. How would the use of time studies, detailed in Ch. 10, be impacted by the Amazon approach for setting standards?

2. What are the responsibilities of operations managers in dealing with productivity and safety at their warehouses?

OM in the News: China’s “996” Culture

In Chapter 10, “Human Resources, Job Design, and Work Measurement,” we discuss quality of life and work force motivation. But many of our OM students are not cognizant of the cultural differences in workforces outside the U.S. So let’s examine workers in our biggest competitor, China.

To understand work culture in China, start with a number: 996. It’s shorthand for the grueling schedule that has become the norm at many Chinese firms: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. The term originated in the technology sector 5 years ago, writes The New York Times (Aug. 2, 2021), when the country’s nascent internet companies were racing to compete with Silicon Valley. At first, workers were willing to trade their free time for overtime pay and the promise of helping China match the West.

The first major pushback to 996 came in 2019, as China’s economic growth slowed and tech workers began questioning their work conditions. Online protests followed, but the movement faded under government censorship. This year, 996 shot back into the news after two workers died at Pinduoduo, an e-commerce giant. Officials promised to investigate working conditions, although it’s not clear what has come of that. Since then, some companies have taken steps to improve work-life balance. Kuaishou, a video app, just ended a policy requiring its staff to work on weekends twice a month. Tencent began encouraging workers to go home at 6 p.m. — though only on Wednesdays.

Many are willing to endure the working conditions because of the competitiveness of the job market. The number of college graduates in China rose by 73% in the past decade, a stunning achievement for a country that had fewer than 3.5 million university students in 1997. As a result, more people are competing for a limited pool of white-collar jobs.

But it’s also clear that many are sick of the rat race. Some Gen Zers have turned to reading Mao Zedong’s writings on communism to rage against capitalist exploitation. An online craze this year called on young people to “tangping,” or “lie flat” — essentially, to opt out. Still, some in China’s working class dismiss the complaints as elite griping; after all, tech workers are highly paid and educated.

Classroom discussion questions:

How does the “996” culture compare to that in silicon Valley?
What makes the U.S. different from Chinese work patterns?

OM in the News: Wearable Technology in the Warehouse

“Your next load of groceries may be moved by a modern-day bionic man or woman writes,” The Wall Street Journal (June 30, 2021). The U.S. supply-chain arm of supermarket chains Stop & Shop and Food Lion is expanding its use of a newer type of wearable robotic technology that workers strap on to help ease the strain of lifting heavy boxes all day.

exoskeleton2

The devices known as exosuits (shown in the photo) are a tech-filled step beyond the back belts that blue-collar workers often wear, laced with sensors and algorithms that detect how workers move and help them lift and load as they work though warehouses.

The devices are the latest entry in a distribution sector wrestling with concerns over worker safety and health in warehouse operations that have boomed over the past year as consumers under pandemic lockdowns have turned to ordering goods online.

Amazon.com has stepped up injury-prevention programs amid criticism of working conditions in its big fulfillment centers and warehouse operators are testing other technology aimed at reducing injuries from repetitive tasks.

Companies have turned to more use of robots in warehousing operations but many tasks requiring fine-motor skills still must be performed by people. Cambridge, Mass.-based Verve Motion says its battery-powered devices can reduce 30% to 40% of the strain from lifting, helping relieve workers’ backs without restricting their movements.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why are Amazon and food warehouses implementing exoskeletons in warehouses?
What are the disadvantages of such devices?