Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-140).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2002. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ed. S.)--Marshall University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 26 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 20-21).

No description available.

In today’s productivity-driven work culture, many knowledge workers use to-do lists to stay organized. In this study, workers from both the United States and Norway were interviewed about their to-do lists. The interviewees’ to-do lists communicate the various cycles to which they are entrained (non-work activities, colleagues’ schedules), as well as their respective views about the enactments and construals of time. These interviews also reveal how to-do lists serve as memory aids to knowledge workers. Additionally, to-do lists themselves appear to be living documents, changing and evolving as tasks are regularly completed and added. This study also provides suggestions for further research on these enormously popular organizational tools. / text

The semiconductor industry follows what is known as Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law says that every 18 months computer chip storage capacity doubles and the intervals between developments in chip design become shorter and shorter. This is also true for the set dates for construction which are dictated by the semiconductor industry’s needs and production schedule. This paper analyzes the impact of a clean room environment. It scrutinizes daily reports and interviews, based on two data sets that focus on a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility (FAB) construction project. Both data sets involve the same crew working on a FAB construction project in the U.S. Room conditions, however, differ. Aside from such working conditions, all elements for both groups are the same (crew skill level, weather, and season). This research is based on the installation, from February 2010 to January 2011 in Austin, Texas, of an access floor in a semiconductor FAB construction project. The total cost of the project was US$3.6 billion. Generally, a semiconductor FAB has raised access floors because cables and pipes are laid under the floors for maintenance and operation purposes. The data for this paper is derived from the access floor installation. The project manager’s daily progress record documented the changes in labor productivity. The data on the number of crew and work-hours is computed based on this information. Labor productivity is defined here as the relationship between output and the labor time for its production. The formula is as follows: Labor productivity = Output(Quantity) / Input(Work-hours) Eq. (1) This study used Eq. (1) to measure labor productivity for two conditions (working in general conditions and working in a clean room conditions). Labor productivity was computed as follows: the unit of output (quantity) is sq. ft., and the unit of input (work-hours) is hours. The questionnaires and interviews attempted to identify the factors affecting project performance: rework, crew interference, overcrowded work areas, and overtime (Garner, et al., 1979; Tucker, et al., 1980). Each section consisted of yes/no questions and one question seeking the interviewee’s opinion about how each problem was solved. The responses are summarized as follows: The results indicate that, in the clean room environment, labor productivity fell by 28.85%. For future projects, this drop represents additional time and money that should be taken into account in the estimate of costs and the schedule duration. The interviews indicate that labor productivity was affected by other factors such as rework, tool availability, other crews not being finished, overcrowded work areas, as well as access to work area. / text

No description available.

This thesis analyses the impact on productivity, employment, overtime, earnings and costs of shorter working hours with particular reference to the 1989/91 campaign by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU). The events leading up to the CSEU campaign and the reasons for its success are investigated. One result of this union success was the end of national bargaining. The changing role of national bargaining, including why it became a casualty of reduced hours, is also examined. Research on earlier reductions in hours has tended to suggest that productivity rises as a result of reduced hours. A review of this research concludes that the productivity effect of reduced hours has been overstated. It also raises some important methodological issues. The thesis presents research on 20 engineering plants where the 37-hour week was introduced as a result of the CSEU campaign. A variety of managers and union representatives were interviewed. In addition there was a survey of engineering plants. This included plants with unchanged hours. Finally, the effect of unions on working hours in the whole economy is explored using a large data set. The research finds that when engineering hours were reduced hourly earnings typically rose so that weekly pay was unaffected, at least in the short-term. While measures to increase productivity were a feature of collective agreements on reduced hours, there is little evidence that productivity has been permanently increased by reduced hours. The productivity-increasing measures would in general have been agreed without reduced hours, albeit somewhat later in many cases. There is even less evidence that reduced hours have affected output and overtime than there is of a productivity effect. So, increased employment is left as the major consequence of reduced hours. The recession, which was at its most serious when reduced hours were implemented, had a much larger effect on employment. This makes the employment effect of reduced hours hard to observe as it mainly took the form of job retention. Increased costs may well mean that the employment effect of reduced hours is a little less than it would otherwise have been.

No description available.