Accelerating the generation of work measurement standards through automatic speech recognition: a laboratory study

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is an emerging technology. As often is the case with new technologies, there is little guidance available on the considerations accompanying its incorporation into industrial settings. This paper presents the steps and factors to consider for successful integration of ASR systems into industrial environments. In particular, this work shows the successful application of ASR within the context of the generation of work measurement time standards. The generation of time standards is a time consuming process that has always slowed the work measurement task and increased its costs. It is shown that by using ASR the work analyst can develop more efficient, more reliable, detailed time estimates in real time, without the need for a keyboard or paper. In laboratory experiments, time reductions of 70% were demonstrated in generating time standards for common manual labour tasks. In two field studies, positive user satisfaction was expressed in the application of ASR for generating time standards.