If you asked a painter to recreate the Mona Lisa, estimating the time required would involve various methods of time measurement. Assuming the painter possesses the necessary skill and knowledge, and avoids errors, the task remains daunting. To estimate the time, one would consider the number of minute movements and gestures, and the intricate brush and paint techniques. Each brush stroke could be timed, but predicting the exact duration of each stroke is challenging. While painters might not typically engage in such precise time measurements, imagine a scenario where you’re tasked with building a car. Here, time measurement becomes critical, as every component of the assembly process needs careful timing for efficiency and effectiveness.

The main challenge of industrial engineering is trying to make everything move at a certain speed (i.e. time), and designing processes to meet that goal. This can be easy with machines, as they are designed to be consistent, but the complexity of human motions makes them difficult to predict. Throughout the majority of human history, industry could only make best guesses as to how long human motions take. That is until a group of scientists and statisticians were able to crack the code and create a universal standardized system to account for the time of human movement. That system was called Methods-Time Measurement, or MTM.

The Need for Efficient Human Action Timing in Manufacturing

Before we explore what MTM is, we need to understand why there was an issue in the first place. As stated before, there was a need to understand the time human actions take, but that doesn’t fully explain the problem. Before MTM, there were, and still are, methods of figuring out how long a process involving humans could take.

The Initial Investment Problem in Manufacturing Processes

One can of course, simply create the process and measure a standard time over multiple operators. The issue is in the investment required to create a process and then refine it. By creating the process first, then continually timing, and possibly correcting the process over and over, a lot more resources are used than if the process could have been predicted in the first place. Especially if the process is very resource heavy. Designers of production lines are often investing millions into a space just a few hundred feet long. Mistakes, or a knowledge gap in human timing, can seriously jeopardize that investment.

During the Second World War, there was an enormous push to increase the efficiency of manufacturing. The initial investment problem was on the minds of everyone as factories originally designed and perfected for civilian goods were being mass converted for military measures. This is the crucible under which MTM was first created in the 1940’s.

The Birth of Methods-Time Measurement (MTM)

In an attempt to solve the investment issue, a group of industry consultants, H.B. Maynard, JL Schwab, and GJ Stegemerten, under contract with the Westinghouse Brake and Signal Corporation, began measuring the time that workers of the corporation took to complete certain tasks. They did this using movie cameras, breaking down each movement frame by frame.

The Lego Kit for Manufacturing Processes: TMU

Repeating this process continually, they were able to determine a basic set of motions that could be used in any manufacturing process. Using statistical analysis to find a universal average, the base set of motions were then each assigned a time value under varying conditions (such as the length of a motion) in a new unit called TMU (Time measurement Unit). 1 TMU being the equivalent of the time captured in one frame of the camera. Finally, the engineers created a set of rules and conditions upon which certain times should be applied to each specific motion.

The Impact of MTM on Manufacturing and Labor Negotiations

In 1948, Maynard, Schwab, and Stegemerten published their work and user manual under the title of Methods-Time Measurement. Thus MTM was born, and the initial investment problem was solved. Not only that, but MTM has also provided a standard by which companies and organizations can normalize their processes across the board. No longer would individual factories or lines have their own standard, but instead they could all be measured using the same criteria. Service providers and labor unions would also be able to use these standard times as a non-biased way to measure labor requirements during contract negotiations.

MTM’s Role in Modern Industry

Much like Google being the term for any search engine, today MTM has become so prevalent it’s a become a common colloquialism in industry. Many use the term MTM to describe any time-motion system without knowing the true origins of the acronym, or what the acronym even stands for.

There have been multiple competitors to MTM that have arisen over time trying to improve on the initial data set and rules, some large manufacturers even maintain their own “MTM”’s. The original study and data has evolved as well, with multiple iterations of the original system, as well as new industry specific systems, being created. Today, MTM as it was originally conceive is owned and shared through the MTM Association, a private company that provides consulting and teaching of the system.

How MTM Revolutionized the Manufacturing Industry

Even if Industry may have forgotten its origins, the original time-motion system, MTM, has had a profound and hidden impact upon our daily lives. It continues to provide an effective way to create new manufacturing development, and is an effective tool for improving existing processes. It has revolutionized almost every industry, and has made the products we love more affordable for all.