THE CONCEPT OF WORK SYSTEMS AS AN AID TO RATIONALIZING PRODUCTION OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS

Throughout this symposium a lot will have been said about intervening in the growth sequences of plants, and protecting them against harmful influences. The purpose of the subjects you are discussing is to impart to potted plants the proper amount of growth-promoting media at the right time, to ensure that first-grade plants are produced for sale.

Whenever one intervenes in the plants' development process, one is carrying out a job of work, and it is my intention to give you an insight into the economic aspects of 'work'.

First of all, what is work? In broad terms it can be described as man's involvement with an object, which is made to undergo a change desired by man. This can be a change in its location or its state, in which case the former can be referred to as transportation and the latter as processing or converting.

In his involvement with the object, man can manage without any aids (for example, picking tulips) (Fig. 1). Often enough, though, his work becomes more efficacious when he supports the limited scope of his limbs with a tool (for instance, cutting roses with shears) (Fig. 2). Man can also have an effect on the tools he uses, which in turn can act on the object (such as tilling earth with a rotary cultivator) (Fig. 3). Finally, the tool can act automatically on the object, so that man only has to supervise the tool (for example, automatic spraying equipment) (Fig. 4).

Figure available in full text only

Modern time and motion study bases operation analysis on work systems, which can be considered individually since each one is clearly delineated from its surroundings. The 'input' into the system are the object plus information and energy, which are to be transformed according to requirements. The 'output' consists of objects which have been thus modified. In this context, man and his tools are the capacities of the system, which transform input into output.

The sequential interaction of man and his tools on the object, in terms of space and time, which is needed to transform the object into the desired output, is called the work pattern.

The work system is related to the environment by physical organisational