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IT is important to open this editorial with an affirmation of faith. It is this:

Smiths Industries is to supply the head‐up display system for the Sea Harrier. The company will design, develop and make the electronic head‐up display and weapon aiming computer system for the latest version of the HS Harrier which will operate from Royal Navy ships.

PRODUCTIVITY is a constant awareness of the need to make more efficient use of the production resources, and the efficiency/performance returns in each factory will testify to the thoroughness of work study. There will be those factories where work study is discredited in that production methods have remained static, original study work has not been properly recorded and amendments have gone by the board with the inevitable consequence that standards slip. Any work study findings are no longer accepted as valid with the result that work measurement degenerates to the level of rate fixing.

IT IS an absurd paradox that whereas some firms have the legend ‘Work Study’ on the door, they set their rates along ratefixing lines. With wages soaring and little to show by way of increased output, it is important to keep inflationary rates at bay. ‘Rates’ are intended to imply rates of output irrespective of the mode in which they are expressed. Standard minutes are intended to be earned and their establishment should, therefore, still be in accordance with the equitable principles of a good incentive system. And while it is quite understandable that some practitioners should tend to play safe by ‘loading’ the rate in order to avoid any subsequent shop floor conflict in regard to bonus earnings, the situation should never be allowed to degenerate into one which high bonus earnings—without reference to standards— are to be regarded as a condition precedent to greater effort.

WHEN one considers the fundamental weakness of time study—the personal evaluation of performance—it raises the question whether the predetermined motion time system is going to absolve the time study engineer from future disputes as to standard times. And if it is, then at whose door, may we ask, are these disputes to be laid?

EVERYONE today is busily engaged in devising new methods, bringing about economies in motions, and applying incentives, but is enough attention being paid to the maintenance mechanics, from the human aspect, in these applications of work study?

ANYONE ENGAGED in aircraft engineering who has visited the Air Canada maintenance base at Montreal to observe the layout, equipment and operating system will have bound to come away greatly impressed with the facilities and efficiency of the plant. In the writer's opinion it is one of the most advanced airline maintenance bases in the world.

AS soon as ever possible it is to be hoped that those responsible for looking after the interests of work study technicians will sit at a round table and agree upon what the relative rewards of the various grades of technicians should be.

MUCH has been written about industrial engineering, especially in regard to American practice, but a good deal of confusion still exists about the whole subject.

WORK Study is today a much over‐worked word. Like others of its kind it deserves more accurate definition than it usually gets.