Method for establishing employee productivity standards in which (1) a complex task is broken into small, simple steps, (2) the sequence of movements taken by the employee in performing those steps is carefully observed to detect and eliminate redundant or wasteful motion, and (3) precise time taken for each correct movement is measured.
From these measurements production and delivery times and prices can be computed and incentive schemes can be devised. Generally appropriate only for repetitive tasks, time and motion studies were pioneered by the US industrial engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) and developed by the husband and wife team of Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924) and Dr. Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972).
Time and Motion studies were often seen as a tool for the management to exploit the workers. The Time and Motion study - sometimes carried out in secret - could be used to pressurise people to work harder or lose their jobs. It's not surprising that many workers came to resent the whole concept of time & motion.
It needn't be that way. Modern analysis methodologies and software packages have little in common with the old image of a "Motion Man" timing workers with a stopwatch. A Time and Motion study carried out openly with full buy-in from all concerned can be of mutual benefit. Improvements can be made to working conditions and methods that both improve productivity and make working less stressful or reduce fatigue.
The benefits of the study are shared between employer(Grama panchayath) and employee( here NREGS workers)so full cooperation of the engineers and workers is to be ensured. If efficiency improvements are identified then NREGS workers benefiting from accurate data, full wages (Rs.125) etc.
Taylorism
Time and Motion studes have their roots in the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor who in 1911 published his famous article "The Principles of Scientific Management". Essentially this involved getting the best person for each job and training them to do it the best way possible. Although Taylor believed in cooperation between management and workers, "Taylorism" can be seen as formalising the management/worker divide. Management would be responsible for deciding how things were done with workers simply doing what they were told. It was seen as dehumanising, reducing skilled workers to the status of mechanical parts and resources.
Gilbreths
Time and Motion study was refined in the early twentieth century by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. The Gilbreths' preferred "motion study" to Taylor's "time study", however the term "Time and Motion" has tended to stick in popular terminology.
The Gilbreths studied the actions taken by workers at certain task with the aim of streamlining the processes involved. One of their most famous experiments involved analysing the work of bricklayers and significantly reducing the number of "operations" involved. This change benefited both employer (increased productivity) and employee (decreased fatigue).
Therbligs
The Gilbreths developed a categorisation system for the different basic activities which went to make up a task. These were called Therbligs (an anagram of "Gilbreths"). The basic Therbligs numbered around 15 (the system developed over time) and included such actions as "find", "select" and "rest". Each of these was represented by an icon, for example an eye for "find". The activity of a worker could then be plotted on a Simo Chart ("Simultaneous Motion Chart") for optimisation.
Methods-Time-measurement (MTM)
The original Time and Motion Study concepts led during the twentieth century to the development of Predetermined Motion Time Systems (PMTS) such as Methods-Time-Measurement (MTM). This was released in 1948 by Maynard, Stegemerten, & Schwab and is today found in three versions: MTM-1, MTM-2 and MTM-3
