Time Study

What Is a Manufacturing Time Study?

A manufacturing time study measures how long a task, operation, or production process actually takes under normal working conditions.

The goal is not simply to make people work faster. A good time study helps establish realistic expectations, identify bottlenecks, understand where time is being lost, and make better decisions about staffing, equipment, layout, workload, and production planning.

What a Time Study Looks At

Cycle Time — How long does it actually take to complete one full production cycle?

Individual Work Elements — Which portions of the job consume the most time?

Waiting & Delays — Where is the operator or machine waiting for material, information, equipment, tooling, or another process?

Operator & Machine Time — How much of the cycle requires hands-on labor versus automatic machine operation?

Material Handling — How much time is spent retrieving, moving, positioning, loading, unloading, or staging material and parts?

Variation — How consistent is the process from cycle to cycle, and what causes significant differences?

Why Manufacturing Time Studies Matter

Without reliable timing data, production standards, staffing decisions, capacity estimates, and improvement efforts can easily be based on assumptions.

Time studies can help:

• Establish realistic production standards
• Identify bottlenecks
• Balance workloads between operators and stations
• Reduce unnecessary motion and waiting
• Evaluate staffing requirements
• Compare process or equipment options
• Support capacity planning
• Evaluate opportunities for automation
• Measure whether a process improvement actually worked

When a Time Study Makes Sense

A manufacturing time study is especially useful when:

• Production consistently misses expected output
• Staffing requirements are unclear
• One operation appears to be holding up the process
• Work needs to be balanced between operators or stations
• New equipment or automation is being considered
• Cycle-time estimates are based on assumptions
• Production capacity needs to be verified
• A process improvement needs to be measured before and after implementation

BrewerMade’s Approach to Time Studies

BrewerMade looks beyond the stopwatch.

The goal is to understand why the process takes the time it does—including layout, material handling, equipment, work methods, waiting, unnecessary motion, and operator-machine interaction—so the study can lead to practical manufacturing improvements rather than just another production number.