A Time & Motion Study is a technique for producing labor standards and identifying opportunities to improve work processes. It helps retailers gain a realistic account of what it takes to operate their stores and can be used to provide valuable insights into process efficiencies.
Typical methods used are:
- Application of a predetermined motion time system (PMTS) to established process steps, in support of building engineered labor standards for repeatable tasks.
- Direct observation of employees/customers, in support of process improvement initiatives and customer/employee experience studies.
Axsium recommends using the PMTS method to develop process-based labor standards, as it enables a more accurate and efficient approach compared than classic stopwatch time studies:
- With time studies, it is easy for the observer to inaccurately capture the task or skew the results with their own bias; with PMTS, the process is modeled after an established SOP.
- With time studies, many observations are needed to accurately measure a task and variations need to be measured separately; with PMTS, each variation of the process only needs to be observed once.
- With time studies, tasks need to be remeasured when they change, which generally requires revisiting the entire study; with PMTS, only the process change itself needs to be observed, and only once.