STEP 1

In this first step, you will read carefully the presentation of this unit (phrasal verbs have been highlighted in yellow). A full glossary below will help you understand it better. To get information in Spanish, just place the arrow of your mouse on any highlighted word without clicking.

Hector Grant, Managing Director, is worried about productivity. He has decided to engage consultants, who are specialists in work study techniques, to see how Harper & Grant can improve efficiency and output.
Any good management is keen to improve efficiency, but nowadays this has become a largely specialised field, and outside consultants who are experienced in particular techniques can be called in to study work systematically and suggest improvements and ways of stepping up productivity. When this applies to manual work it is usually called work study, and the idea is to find out the most efficient way of doing something before the formulation of piece rates or incentive bonus schemes.
The study of office systems and paperwork is usually called O. & M. (Organisation and Methods). Work study could, of course, be applied to routine office jobs, such as invoice typing.
Mr. Grant has decided to call in a firm called Smith-Weston Consultants Ltd. Their representative, Mr. Scott, is present at a meeting called by Mr. Grant to explain the service to his executives. Mr. Grant thinks that production methods on the factory floor could be improved, but he has never considered that a check on efficiency might run from the top to the bottom of the firm.

GLOSSARY:
productivity: rate at which goods are produced (productividad);
consultants: professional business experts who, for a fee, advise clients on aspects of their business; they are usually specialists in Organisation and Methods (analistas, consultores);
work study: the detailed study of manual, or semi-manual, work-cycles. Through analysis, non-essential work can be eliminated and operations carried out with maximum efficiency. Sometimes it is called time and motion study. Time study: The detailed study of the time taken to complete a specific work-cycle. Data obtained is analysed to determine the time required to do the job at a standard level of work performance (análisis o estudio de desempeño);
output: quantity of goods produced (producción, cantidad de productos fabricados);
to call in: to ask to participate (llamar a alguien para presupuestar o realizar un trabajo);
to step up: to increase (aumentar, incrementar);
to find out: to search, to investigate (analizar, descubrir, investigar);
piece rates: payments to a workman according to the work done, not by the time taken to do it (trabajo a façon, pago por pieza o unidad terminada);
incentive bonus schemes: An incentive is offered to encourage employees to work harder, and more efficiently. A bonus scheme is a plan for giving extra money to workers in certain circumstances; they will usually receive a bonus if their production rises (plan de incentivos o bonificaciones);
applied to: put to practical use in (puesto en práctica en, aplicado a);
invoice: a list of goods sold with the price(s) charged (factura, facturación);
typing: writing on a computer (tipeado);
might run: could extend (podría extenderse).