Time and Motion Study is not actually a theoretical concept but is actually one of the most powerful tools for Human Resource Management in organizations which are suffering from over staffing and seek to explore optimal usage of resources and ensure maximum possible utilization .  But in this article i wont focus on the "motion" part but exclusively on Time Study because executing both at the same time is a difficult task.
Ideally best means of conducting time and motion study is always via recording the whole period of study in a video however , to find that much storage and storing that much data may not be possible specially for ordinary individuals like us who use mobile phones for video recording so keeping that in mind and considering the scale of study and number of individuals to be covered , the most effective form of data keeping has to be via pen and paper and use of stop clocks (easily available in mobile phones).
Recently , I had this unique experience of doing Time and motion Study ,this was initially a experiment to gauge % utilization of members but later what i learnt is something much wider and perhaps a single most effective tool to directly control manpower optimization and maybe directly induce the first most important HR dharma ,"Controlling Manpower productivity ".
At a time when most organisations are moving out of Bell Curve and exploring new ways to measure performance , this new theoretical study somehow brings in a new spell of hope and innovation. I know many in HR would still laugh and say "seriously !!! Time and Motion Study ????"
I thought 10 times before writing this article but as always like previous articles i tried once again to explore yet another weapon of Human Resources. Before going deep into processes and formulas and advantages and disadvantages , to give a more holistic view , i must state that before implementing the study , one must try to know about what the business model is like and then use time and motion study results to get to a deeper understanding of issues .
Lets say , for textile industry the end to end process is like :
 
Now lets discuss the study procedure and a few samples .
** Lets take an example of non manufacturing related and non operator role as for manufacturing roles and operator roles it is easy to do the study and not so easy for service functions .
First comes the recording format:
Once you start filling the recordings the final sheet looks like :
Once the observation sheet above is present for about 5 members  in each unique role ,the following analysis can be done :
Comparison of member data with mean data and how many members are having higher data than mean .
** Now if we do activity wise analysis and classify them on priority of activity to role and based on speed of execution which is nothing but how many people having less than average time .( If more than half members are having less than average times then speed is low , if less than half members are having less than average times then speed is average , in case only one member having less than average time then speed is high)Now from the above analysis we get direct insight on which activity consumes how much time and whether we can improve the same or not .
Now this is not all , the best part of the time motion study can be demonstrated on the basis of business tracking in the following way :
The main points of business efficiency is as follows :
1. How quickly a PR is raised after customer Po
2. How much time manufacturing process takes ( the quicker the better)
3. How quickly dispatch happens
Now how ,time and motion study gives answers to the three is as follows:
a. Through time motion study one gets to know which all activity is important and how better optimisation can be done and which activity can be removed
b. It gives direct utilization figures by using the formula ,utilization= touch time/ total period of observation , this figure can be used for manpower optimization and maintaining perfect balance of manpower in roles ( reducing extra manpower )
c. It gives figures for activities like which activity takes how much time on an average :
Eg from time and motion study of packing operator , one can get direct data on how much time a operator takes to pack 100 boxes of towels . Now if i know that say for  packing 100 boxes a operator needs 30 minutes on an average , total of 7 hours per day should yield on an average 1400 packed boxes which can then be similarly linked to output for performance management system.
d. It strengthens performance management and also can be used for compensation part by linking study results with variable pay parameters. (fixing of thresholds)
 However , like all processes this process too has some complexities and difficulties :
1. sample selection ( it is difficult to select the correct sample incase of roles which have more than 20 members)
a. Strategy setting is needed to eliminate effect of high performers and low performers for choosing correct sample and also at the same time it is important to factor in the factor that people under supervision may act better or worse than regular day to day work.(this factor can be factored in by running the study for greater sample )
2. manpower required to do a mass scale study (an organisation can have more than 500 unique roles specially the larger ones  so doing a study with adequate samples requires great amount of dedicated manpower)
 ROI for the study is also easy to measure :
Total Salary lost due to NVA in one month for the above role is Rs 276080 . Possible suggested improvements can be using vehicles for transport , automation by use of cameras in different sites etc.  If we go ahead to find out the yearly impact for just one role as mentioned above , it will be nearly Rs 276080*12 = Rs 33,12,960!!!