Multiple Activity Chart,

Construction of Chart and

Travel Chart
Article shared by Smriti Chand

Multiple Activity Chart, Construction of Chart and Travel Chart!

Multiple activity charts are the process charts using a time scale. It usually
comes in picture when work study man wants to record the activities of one
subject with respect to other on a single chart. Subject may be the worker,
machine or equipment.
Now, the type of multiple activity charts to be drawn depends upon
the type of job, important types are:

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(1) Man-Machine Activity Chart-when one operator is working on one

machine.
(2) Multi-man Activity Chart-when a group of workers are working on a
machine.
(3) Man- Multi machine activity chart- when a single operator is working on
a number of machines.

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(4) Multi man- Machine chart- a group of operators working on a common

central machine.
This type of chart is generally used for enabling maintenance and the
similar work to be organized so that the time expensive equipment out of
commission can be reduced to minimum. Obviously, the complex
processes can be recorded in a simpler manner. It finds its applications in
planning team work and construction jobs also.

Construction of Chart:
First of all, separate bars or columns are allotted to each subject. These
subjects are placed against a common time scale. Activities of worker and
machine are recorded by shading the respective bars or columns. Time
studies conducted previously provide the time values for each activity. Now,
the activities are plotted in sequence against the common time scale. A
man-machine activity chart explaining the process of reading a deck of
cards in card reader is drawn in Fig. 4.8.

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After constructing the chart, the first task is to analyse the idle time and
always it is tried to minimize it to minimum. Operations should be simplified
to their maximum. There after work distribution should be optimized
between the machines and the operators.
Other aspects like to examine the inter dependency of activities, to decide
the number of workers in a group etc. are also discussed on the basis of
multiple activity charts. Always, the aim of the work study man is to develop
a better and improved method.

Another example of a multiple activity chart in man-man chart. The purpose

of this chart is to utilize two or more workers on the same job without loss
of time by any one of them thus improving production or increasing
productivity of the system. Chart is shown is Fig.4.9.
For the early morning concurrent activities common activities such as
preparing breakfast for all, taking breakfast, warming all the distends,
dressing up. Closing the apartment are performed simultaneously. It can be
seen that all of them take same time of 45 minutes and get ready at the
same time.

Travel Chart:
A travel chart is a tabular record for representing the quantitative data
regarding the movement of workers, materials or equipments between
different stations during a given period of time. Though string diagram is a
very effective technique of recording for critical examination of the
movement of man and material but string diagrams take very long time to
construct.
Moreover, when the complexity of movements increases. It becomes
difficult to interpret any information. So, when the pattern of movements is
complex, the travel chart is better technique for recording the movements.
Travel chart consist of a square, which itself consists of a number of
squares. Now, each small sequence represents a work station. A diagonal
line is drawn from top left to bottom right. Say, a workplace or a workshop
consists of 10 workstations and the movement of the worker is to be noted
down, then the travel chart will be like this (as shown in Fig. 4.10).

A big square in drawn and it is divided into 1010 small squares. Each
square represents a work station. Now, the movement of the worker from
any station to other stations is shown in the travel chart. Movement of
worker form station 1 to station 3 is shown in chart.
Similarly, movement of worker from station 1 to station 7 is also shown.
Two tick marks are done so as to indicate that two times, the worker has
moved from station 1 to station 7. All the movements and journeys are
recorded in the same way.
Critical examination of the above drawn travel chart shows that worker
travels 5 times from stations 2 to station 6 Another busy route is from
station 2 to station 4 as worker travels 3 times from station 2 to station 4.
Thus 4-2- 6 is most busy route. So, it will be better to locate these stations
next to each other. In this way, a new work layout can be produced, which
will be economic in amount of distance travelled.