Abstract:
This is a case study conducted to determine the effect of the beat of background music
on the productivity of a production line in a leading apparel company in Sri Lanka.
The study was conducted initially by distributing 200 questionnaires to the employees
in seven different sections of that company using stratified sampling method. Data were
collected from each sewing section by playing low-beat, high-beat, and existing types of
music for four hours over three days. For this study, background music over 95 bpm was
considered as high beat. Results were obtained qualitatively and quantitatively. When
analysing the results the chi squared test was used to check whether some factors that
obtained from questionnaires are dependent on or independent of each other. Also the
Kruskal Wallis test was used to check whether the median value regarding each music
type is equal or not. The results of this study highlighted that the employees preferred
music type depends on the each section in that apparel company such as sewing section,
cutting section and RMW. By considering production data in four sewing sections, it
was found that, during the days when these songs played, low-beat background music
increased the productivity by 2.45% compared to the existing music type, and that
productivity during high-beat and low-beat music is also approximately equal. Playing
different beats of background music was taken into consideration by many researchers,
but most of them analysed it using data collected via questionnaires. However, this
study concluded statistically that there is an effect of the beat of background music on
the productivity using collected data within the selected time period. According to the
findings of our case study low beat music increases the productivity of a production
line. The findings of this study can be further improved and the results obtained can
be used to enhance the productivity in apparel industry in Sri Lanka.
