time-motion study
- noun
- Specialized
:
estudio de tiempos y movimientos
- The company conducted a time-motion study to identify bottlenecks in its assembly line.
Examples
-
Early time-motion studies helped to shorten operations and improve product quality.
Academic text (2012) -
Early time-motion studies would help workers perform operations more efficiently, and quality-control gauges and measuring devices were used to monitor quality.
Academic text (2012) -
Managers insisted that they had made time-motion studies in the field to calculate fair new rates of pay.
Academic text (2002) -
Using a time-motion study, the team analyzed how long each task took to find ways to increase productivity.
-
After completing a time-motion study, they implemented new procedures that significantly reduced wasted time.
Synonyms
1
4.1
A careful check of a job to find faster, easier ways to do it
1
5.3
A careful look at how a job is done to find faster, easier steps
People watch how workers do a job to find the fastest, easiest way to do it
A careful measure of how long a task takes to find faster ways to do it
How Detailed
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
1
5.3
- UK
1
4.1
- Specialized
57
3.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
time-motion + study
The phrase is compositionally built: 'time-motion' refers to timing and movement and 'study' denotes research about that topic, so the meaning 'an analysis of timing and movements' is directly derivable from the parts. Although the term is somewhat technical, it follows the common English pattern 'X study' (a study of X), so a B1 learner who knows 'time', 'motion', and 'study' can infer the meaning.
Etymology
The noun time-motion study comes from two simple ideas, time and motion, meaning timing each action and watching every small movement. One popular story says factory people watched and timed every move to remove wasted steps, so today a time-motion study means checking a job 'to find faster, more efficient ways'.