Conducting a time-study analysis can provide significant benefits for a company looking to optimize its operations. By carefully tracking the time required for various tasks, processes and workflows, companies can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. Ultimately, the goal of investing in a time-study is to boost productivity, reduce costs, and maximize profits.
There are several key reasons why a time-study makes sense for many companies. First, it provides concrete data on where time is being spent, making it easier to pinpoint waste and redundancies. Second, a time-study analysis identifies processes that may be taking longer than necessary. This allows companies to streamline workflows, set productivity benchmarks, and ensure efficiency.
Additionally, the results of a time-study can inform better scheduling, balancing of workloads, and resource allocation. With quantifiable data on task times and volumes, managers can plan and staff more strategically. Furthermore, a time-study provides justification for process improvement initiatives and investments in automation or technology.
Identifying Inefficiencies and Waste
One of the primary objectives companies have when conducting a time-study analysis is to accurately measure cycle times for essential workflows and evaluate where opportunities exist to maximize productivity. By methodically tracking and documenting the time required for each step along the critical path – from material requisition to finished goods – businesses can uncover non-value-added activities and redundancies that are bogging down operations. These may include delays, unnecessary movement of materials, overprocessing, inventory bottlenecks, equipment downtime, and other forms of waste. A time-study provides the visibility companies need to eliminate NVA activities and streamline essential yet time-consuming processes – like changeovers, set-ups, inspections – to achieve faster cycle times and higher throughput.
Setting Productivity Targets and Benchmarks
A key output of a time-study analysis is empirically-justified time benchmarks or engineered labor standards for given tasks or processes. By determining how long an average operator takes to perform core activities under normal working conditions, managers can set targets tailored to their labor, equipment and workflow design. Standard times also facilitate better scheduling, balancing of workloads, and resource planning to smooth flow and improve productivity across the board. As process improvements are made over time as a result of time-study findings, new benchmarks can be set to drive continuous advancement. In some cases, companies will conduct time studies periodically – say every 1-2 years – to reset benchmarks in light of any changes made.
Justifying Investments and Improvement Initiatives
The data and reporting generated from an in-depth time-study analysis is extremely useful for gaining buy-in for proposed changes that involve significant capital investment. For example, clear metrics demonstrating lengthy changeover/set-up times or bottlenecks at a packaging stage can help justify equipment upgrades or line reconfigurations. By putting hard numbers around existing inefficiencies and quantifying expected time-savings from a new solution, management can build an air-tight business case for infrastructure and automation projects or process re-engineering initiatives.
Informing Accurate Costing, Budgeting and Quoting
In addition to boosting operational productivity, the insights from a detailed time-study enable vastly improved cost accounting across the enterprise. With granular labor time data related to nearly all manufacturing, assembly, logistics and support tasks, managers have a sound basis for constructing accurate job cost models, activity-based costing rates, project budgets and customer quotes. Rather than relying upon subjective guesses or outdated estimates that fail to reflect current realities, critical pricing and budgeting decisions can leverage credible time metrics that link expenses to specific process requirements.
In summary, a time-study analysis represents a vital investment for companies aiming to maximize productivity, efficiency and profitability through quantifying workflow benchmarks, reducing waste, setting targets for continuous improvement, justifying key initiatives and optimizing labor costing. The granular insights produced can transform operations management and budgeting practices across the board.