Time and Motion

Time & Motion

Time & Motion is such a wonderful and exciting term, although it is hard to separate it from Just In Time methods since they both go hand in hand with each other. I never worked for a company that really used Time & Motion, but I have worked in maintenance that used operating procedures that are similar to it. When we had equipment come in for repairs, we had to follow a procedure of how to fix the equipment with being able to skip certain repairs so we can do the repairs at a speedy pace.

The procedures included things such as telling you where to look at, what systems to check out, what tools to use, and what faults you might encounter. They were normal flow charts from an electronics technician stand point, but I can see now how they come from an aspect of Time & Motion. It got down to the point that those of us who were the lead technicians knew exactly how to move about the equipment, the tools to use, and even the faults without looking at the flow charts. This was able to save us even more time while working.

I can see how Time & Motion can be such a valuable method to develop. Say an action that you take uses up 30 seconds for every hour of work. In an 8 hour day, that is 4 minutes wasted. In a 40 hour week, that is 20 minutes wasted. With this compounding, it could add up to it being far too much wasted in loss of production. In order to maximize profits, the management needs to ensure that all workers are using their time to produce the best output of products just as the Japanese Industry has been able to do.