Work Interruption: The Moderate Effect of Workload and Queue Length in the Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between process interruption, workload, queue length, and worker productivity. Based on the data from the loading process in a manufacturing enterprise, the Cox proportional hazards rate model was utilized for empirical analysis. By defining two types of stochastic process interruptions (type I and type II), our empirical results found that process interruption harms worker productivity for 30 minutes after the end of the interruption. It was also concluded that the queue length in the loading process strengthens the negative relationship between the two types of interruptions and worker productivity. However, it is a different story for the moderate effect of workload; the negative effect of the type I interruption on worker productivity is stronger under a low workload, while it gets stronger for the type II interruption under a high workload. Our empirical findings firstly validated the strengthened effect of queue length on the relationship between process interruption and worker productivity. Additionally, we also found the different roles of workload on the relationship between different types of interruptions and worker productivity.