Measurement Techniques

Abstract

The need to quantify in order to control is very well summarised in Lord Kelvin’s well-known comment: ‘When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it: but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.’ There are now a number of techniques of clerical work measurement available. No one technique is necessarily superior and the choice will depend upon the particular situation. This chapter gives a brief outline of those techniques which are most generally used and comments on their merits and limitations. No attempt is made to describe the techniques in detail; several of the books listed in the References contain such information.