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July 6, 2025 26 mins

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Productivity specialist Ed unveils the science behind different types of studies that transform raw data into powerful insights for businesses seeking to optimise their operations.

• Activity studies break processes into elemental detail, identifying best practices and opportunities for simplification
• Efficiency studies use rated activity sampling to categorise tasks as value-add, essential non-value add, or non-value add
• Role studies follow specialists throughout their shift to determine how effectively their time is used
• MTM studies break movements down to microscopic detail with predetermined time values, ideal for revealing small improvements
• The right study depends on client needs, existing process knowledge, and desired outcomes
• Successful studies require proper timing, representative sampling, inquisitive analysts, and thorough scoping
• Real productivity insights often come from the frontline colleagues themselves during observation


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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Rethink Revealed, a podcast series from
Rethink Productivity that willdelve into the minds of our
productivity specialists to askthe deepest of productivity
questions.
And I'm your host, jamesBradbury-Willis, head of
Business Development at Rethink.
I'm a marketing and salesprofessional and I'm keen to get
the inside story from thepeople powering productivity.

(00:25):
On this episode of RethinkRevealed, we're joined by Ed,
one of our brilliant programmanagers.
With six years under his belt,ed's journey has taken him from
analyst to project lead,building models, guiding
insights and now managingproject delivery end-to-end,
from scoping and planning tomaking sure the data gets

(00:45):
captured just right.
Ed plays a key role in ensuringstudies deliver maximum value
to our clients.
In this episode, we dig into thedifferent types of productivity
studies.
We offer activity studies,efficiency studies, role studies
and MTM and uncover when we usethem, why we use them and the
kind of powerful results theydeliver.
If you're wondering which studyis right for your business or

(01:10):
just want a behind-the-sceneslook, at how we capture the data
that powers productivity, thisone's for you.
Let's get into it.
Hey, ed, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hi, I'm good.
Thank you, james.
What about yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, good thanks.
We've had a nice warm stretchhere now, but it's a bit cooler
today, so I'm pretty gratefulfor that.
But I'm excited to get stuck into this podcast with you.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Have you been on a podcast before?
Yes, years and years ago.
I think we did one in 2020where it was the entire T, so I
did one there.
But yeah, it'll be the firsttime in five years.
So see if I've got any better.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Let's get cracking.
So can you tell us a bit aboutyour background and what led you
to start the globalproductivity paradise that is
Rethink?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, if we go back to when I was studying, I did
geography at university andwhilst I was doing that degree I
also had a part-time job inretail.
So that's sort of thebackground that gave me a bit of
a basis for the work that we doat Rethink.
And then, once I'd finished atuni, I went and did something

(02:12):
that's called land referencing,which is a bit of an obscure one
.
It's part of the process thatcompanies go through or councils
go through when they'recompulsory purchasing land.
So think of all of those bitsof HS2 which seem to get into
the news a lot in terms of costsspiralling.
A lot of it was probably mesitting at a laptop working out

(02:34):
who lived where and how muchhouses were worth.
It was that sort of process thatwe did there.
It was good, fun, but it was abit boring, to be honest with
you, in terms of not being ableto see much.
I saw the inside of an office,I saw an excel screen and, if I
was lucky, I got a site visit.
But after being at uni andstudying geography, I wanted to

(02:56):
do more on-site work and see theworld, see different places.
So the opportunity came up in2019 with Rethink, and I went
for it after spending a day withPhil and he very much sold me
the dream in terms of being ableto meet loads different people,
go and see loads differentplaces and so, most importantly,

(03:19):
make a difference to a lot ofbusinesses so in the UK, but
then globally as well.
Right, so a lot of businessessort of in the UK, but then
globally as well.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Great.
So a mixture of adventure andprofessional productivity, that
sounds excellent.
In that sense, then, what's themost rewarding part of your
role?
It sounds like you may haveanswered that already.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
I enjoy seeing the data and I enjoy seeing the
story come together.
You sort of see build as aproject progresses and then
there's the final presentationpiece back to back to the client
, and that's where you see allof your hard work pay off in a
in a sense, because you see howmuch it means to clients to have

(03:58):
this data.
In a few, quite a few instances, it's the data that we produce
is what they've been waiting forto enable key decisions within
the business or to take businessonto sort of the next level ed.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
We're gonna go on to the highly anticipated quickfire
questions round now.
I don't want any long answers,it's quick fire.
Let's get through these reallyreally nippy, really fast quick
fire questions.
So first of all, what's moresatisfying finishing a slick
data capture scoping plan orpresenting the final results?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
something I've already answered, this one
haven't.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
I've already presented the results back for
me if you can swap roles withone of your rethink analysts for
a day, where would you go andwhat would you study?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
um, I would go to ireland.
I can tell you that I love itover there and I love studying
over there because the peopleare great for in terms of what I
do I'm not that first, maybediy store, because they're quite
varied in terms of what youdeal with.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
I thought you're going to say you'd like to study
a fishing spot of some sort.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I was trying to work out how to get that in.
They like fishing in Irelandand they like Guinness, so I'd
be sorted.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Good man, good man.
Yeah, Would you rather have aperfect Wi-Fi on every site
visit or an extra day to prepevery project?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'd go extra day every time.
You can never have too muchtime really on the setup piece
and there's always a McDonald'saround the corner, that's got
free Wi-Fi if you buy coffee.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Let's move on to the general Q&A and bit of
discussion.
Rethink offers severaldifferent types of study.
Activity, efficiency, role andMTM are typically some of the
core ones that that we offer.
Can you walk us through thepurpose of each of those and
when you would typically usethem.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
If we start with the activity study, then this is the
sort of study that springs tomind when someone says time and
motion in terms of its directobservation.
You follow in a process fromstart to finish and you get a
time for that process at the endof it.
It really excels in determiningthat time for a process and you

(06:13):
can do it across the sort ofbusinesses it's in its entirety
or you can just focus onindividual processes that are of
interest at that sort of momentin time.
That's the core piece of workthat it does, but you can also
use it for a little bit ofdifferent methodologies.

(06:34):
So we've used it before tofollow customers and follow and
capture customer journeys.
So when different things havebeen implemented and introduced,
it can help validate orhighlight issues with those sort
of new ways of servingcustomers that stand out for
that.
Self-checkouts and using it toidentify how long a journey

(06:58):
takes through a self-checkout,how many interventions happen
per transaction, and you can getthat sort of data from it as
well.
The benefit of using it reallycomes down to the level of
detail that you can get from it.
So each task is broken downinto individual bite-sized
chunks that we'll refer to aselements, and that elemental

(07:19):
detail allows you to identifybest practice really easily, and
it also allows you to identifyopportunities for process
simplification as well.
So, rather than getting a timefor how long it takes to serve a
customer, the activity studydata will give you.
Well, this is how much time ittakes to say hello to the

(07:41):
customer, to scan the products,to take payment, to say farewell
and give them a receipt, soyou're able to really deep dive
that process, see which areasare taking the longest and
potentially then where yourfocus should be to make some
improvements in that process.
Then efficiency studies.
This is utilising a techniquethat's called rated activity

(08:04):
sampling, and it's completelydifferent to the activity study
because we're not following aprocess.
We are in a location for bestpart of eight hours and within
that eight hour period wecontinuously do laps of a
location and during those lapswe're recording what people are

(08:28):
doing, where they are within thelocation and how effectively
they're working.
And that's sort of the threefundamental pieces of the rated
activity sampling.
Alongside that, we'll oftencapture customer data as well,
in terms of how many customersyou've got in a location or if

(08:49):
you're in a warehouse it mightbe you're tracking the number of
forklifts that are on charge orin operation so you can capture
data in in sort of that way aswell.
That layers on top and combineswith the sort of core of those
efficiency studies and theseones are really great for
getting an overview of anoperation and identifying areas

(09:12):
to focus on and zoom in on tooptimise, so you could identify
areas from a efficiency studythat you're then wanting to go
and do an activity study on,because you know that takes the
biggest proportion of time.
What's also really valuablewith the efficiency studies is
the ability to we call thembucket book group the different

(09:34):
tasks into value add, essentialnon-value add and non-value add
chunks so you're able to see thevalue add which is directly
contributing to the business andprofit and turnover, the
essential non-value add that'sgot to be completed to be able
to do the value add piece, andthen the non-value add, which is

(09:57):
all of your lost, unproductiveand waiting time.
So that can be good atidentifying low hanging fruit
and ones to really make abeeline for.
But it can also be helpful toshape how you move some of that
essential non-value add intoyour value add time and then
increase your profit as a resultfrom that.
It also offers the ability tobenchmark across competitors or

(10:21):
different industries as well,which can be, again, helpful
insight to take businesses tothe next level in terms of what
it is that they're doing.
Role studies these are sometimescalled production studies, or
definitely would have been whentime and motion was really
popular in factories.
We call themday-in-the-life-off studies as

(10:42):
well, or they can occasionallybe week-in-the-life-of studies
as well, or they canoccasionally be
week-in-the-life-of studies.
These would typically spend theduration of a shift with a
specialist role, or eight and ahalf hours, whichever one comes
soonest and we're getting a feelfor what that specialist does
on a day-to-day basis.

(11:03):
So these are often the roleslike managers, supervisors, team
leaders, but they can be rolessuch as pharmacists as well,
where there's less definitionabout what it is that they're
there to do, but there's anexpectation that they're
managing or they're doing tasksthat only they can complete.
Analysis can be great to shinea light on actually how much of

(11:31):
that essential time that onlythey can complete are they
focusing on versus how much timedo they get pulled into
everyone else's processes, andit can be good to get that to
see the challenges that thoseroles face and also to help
define various sort of almostjob descriptions for those roles
and see how closely one matchesthe other.
So how close those real lifematches, the, the theoretical,

(11:56):
that you want that person to do.
And the last book, by no meansleast, is you mtm studies, and
these are a form ofpredetermined studies.
When we say predined, it'sbroken down into movements and
these movements already have atime value attached to them,
whereas all of the otherprocesses, all of the other

(12:18):
study types that we're doingit's we're capturing the time
value as it's happening.
So it almost flips themethodology on its head in some
respects.
It's designed to really breakdown and get into the
nitty-gritty of processes thattypically have shorter cycle
times, but you can use it forlonger processes as well.

(12:39):
It just takes a little bitlonger to do the analysis.
But what it's amazing at isprocess improvement and
identifying it.
Because you're breaking it downinto such a small level of
detail, you're able to makesmall incremental changes to a
process that build up to a bigtime saving at the end of it.
So that's where MTM reallycomes into its own and I think

(13:01):
that's everything covered, isn'tit?

Speaker 1 (13:02):
I think.
So you've absolutely smashed itout the park head.
Yeah, I was.
I was here just taking notesand I was just like crikey.
That's why it's so good to haveyou on to talk us through all
of it.
You really say it in a niceconcise way.
So, in terms of MTM, obviouslyfor someone who's never come
across it before, you'vedescribed it briefly what it is.
But in terms of the data thatwe get out of it, how does it

(13:28):
differ from the other studies?
I know you said you kind offlip it on your head, but if you
were considering, say, anactivity study versus an MTM
study, what would be your like?
How would you find thedifferences between choosing
those two?

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I'll start off by signposting you to an earlier
podcast, so another one that wasdone back in 2020 with simon
taylor, and if you're interestedin mtm after listening to what
I've got to say, then go backand listen to that podcast
because he will explain itbetter than I ever could in
terms of the actual theorybehind it and where it comes

(14:03):
from.
The easiest way to signpost thedifference is on a time study,
we will be typically getting ina in a minute window, depending
on the process you're looking at, sort of between between three
to 20 elements normally perminute, depending on the.

(14:25):
On the process, you're 20 sortof at the top end of what can,
what you can really achieve andget accurate ratings and things
like that.
I discussed that mtm is sort ofbreaking it down into smaller
chunks.
We measure in mtm in somethingthat's called a tmu, which is a

(14:46):
value of time.
But to give you a perspectiveof how much detail MTM gives you
versus the time studies, thereare 1,666 TMUs in a minute
versus our normal studies whereyou're sort of looking at 20, 30
elements max.
So that sort of gives you a bitof a feel for the level of

(15:06):
detail that you get down to Nowto get to that level.
Mtm is based on individualmovements and it's not like, oh
you know, going from onelocation to another and picking
something up.
You might say, oh, that's amovement MTM.
For a lot of people, a movementfor MTM is actually like the

(15:28):
closing of fingers or theextending of an arm over a
couple of centimeters.
So it's really breaking it downinto that level of detail In
terms of those movements is theneach of those have got TMU
value attached to it.
So you're unlikely to get oneTMU values, but you'll have a

(15:49):
movement like a pinching or agrasping that might be seven or
eight tmus.
We don't have to time thatbecause you just can't.
It's done in the blink of aneye.
But all you've got to be ableto do is identify that movement.
So if you can spot someoneclosing the fingers, then almost
you can do some of these MTMprocesses.

(16:11):
And you say, right, I've seenthem close the fingers.
Therefore I'll code it as thisand get a time value attributed
to that.
So what you end up with is yourepeat that for an entire
process and you're left with along, really detailed
descriptive analysis that youjust would not get from a, from
a time study and it's evolvedover time.

(16:34):
So actually you get thatdescriptive method but you can
apply it to different processesas well.
So traditionally it's great forwidgets in factories, but
actually now they've wrapped itup to a level that means
producing cars.
You can apply a different setof building blocks to that.
You can apply a different setof building blocks to a

(16:58):
warehouse and picking.
You can apply a differentmethodology again to um, to even
retail or food production.
Where you've got a fixed andsort of fairly well-defined
process.
You can use MTM to actuallybreak that down as well.
It's tilt transactions peoplehave used it for.

(17:18):
People have used it for burgerassemblies and things like that.
So it's got applications thatare sort of wide and
far-reaching.
But it's based on that.
Everything's a basic movementand everything's predetermined.
So the it goes back to thatsort of core building block of
mtm.
And the last bit just tomention is that because you've

(17:41):
got that level of detail andthat descriptive level, you're
able to really identify smallprocess improvements that then
build up to a big picture.
So things like counterweightingtools to reduce the weight of
them that could have an impacton the, on the total time, and
things as small as whetheryou're using a phillips

(18:06):
screwdriver or flatheadscrewdriver can have an impact
on the codes, which will thenimpact your your time.
So it can get down to that sortof level for you, for your
improvements that it generateswhat I'll do in the show
description.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
If I can find that podcast, I'll link it in.
And also, I think people shouldprobably, if they're interested
in the mtm.
I think we've got the uk mtmassociation, so it's uk mtmcouk.
Let's go and check them out andfind out a little bit more.
So, ed, I think, in terms ofwhen you're scoping a new

(18:39):
project, how do you determinewhich study or potentially a
combination of studies quiteoften is the is right for the
client?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
so the main thing for this is being able to see a
process and you can build itfrom from there in terms of what
the what the requirementsreally are.
But it's what level of insightpeople are after plays a role,
plays sort of a role in in that.
So if people are after sort ofa high level overview and don't

(19:08):
have a huge amount of detailalready on a process, then those
efficiency studies are reallyuseful.
Otherwise, if you've alreadygot a process and people are
wanting a time for it, thoseactivity studies sort of come
into their own as well.
That's the main sort ofstandout points in terms of what
helps define each of them.

(19:29):
It's a lot of yeah, a lot ofwhat the client's sort of
looking for and then picking themethodology that will match up
with that.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
From your experience, what kind of impact can the
right study have on a client'soperation?
I guess in your mind what's astandout example that comes to
mind when trying to talk toclients about finding the right
study.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
It's a little tricky because each of the studies have
their own strengths so youcould actually have multiple
studies that really work for aclient and it's the combination
of the work In a way.
The worst case scenario is youget data that you already knew
or already had.
So there's never sort of onewhere you think, oh, I've done a

(20:14):
study and things have gonebackwards or regressed off the
back of it.
The activity studies they canbe great at quantifying
opportunities and quantifyingadditional steps added to
processes, find additional stepsadded to processes.
Shrinkage has become a bigthing in in retail, especially
in the last sort of three orfour years.

(20:34):
It's definitely sort ofincreased in people's minds and
one of the results of that istagging has increased the
activity studies.
We've done some in the pastwhere we've just timed people
tagging products and what that'sgiven is sort of the actually
the visibility of how much timeand how much cost goes into
tagging products versus how muchcost is being lost through

(20:58):
shrink.
So it gives you that sort ofoffset and the ability to go
back with a proper business casefor all of this tagging that
somebody's decided is a goodidea because shrinks too high If
actually it costs you more insomebody tagging everything.
You're not really willing, areyou?
So that can be really valuablefor those sort of operations.

(21:20):
Role studies we've done a few inthe past three years where
actually they've really helpeddefine a role's description and
be able to sort of build fromthat description into where do
we want that role to be in thefuture.
So for a for that sort ofmiddle in again in a store or

(21:44):
warehouse, typical structures isyou've got the manager,
assistant and supervisor.
There's been a trend of maybede-layering some of those and
especially in some of thesesmaller retailers.
Then the role studies help sortof define what that new
intermediate role is going tolook like and what they should
cover.
We did one, we did a revisit ofa role study this year on a

(22:10):
trial of a different way ofsetting up so that they got the
most out of that role in termsof the time they spent managing
people.
And it was amazing to see thedifference between the pre-study
we did and the post, to see howthe change had impacted those
roles for the better and led tothem spending a lot more time
managing and a lot more timebeing productive as a manager

(22:32):
and not backfilling intocolleague task or chasing and
the efficiency studies.
They can help guide clientstowards a more consistent
approach and ensure that acolleague's experience or a
customer's experience is goingto be the same if they go into a
store in London or if they'reworking in a warehouse down

(22:56):
south, versus if we took thatsame operator and put them in
Ireland, put them in Scotland,put them in the northeast.
They'd have the same experiencein terms of the level of work
that they complete and the typeof work they complete as well.
That can be one of the benefitsyou get out of that efficiency
study side of things as well.

(23:17):
I think it's also important tosay that none of the studies
will give you a magic solutionor a golden bullet to all of the
problems that that businessesfacing.
What we do tend to get isactually whilst we're on site
studying.
Some of those magic solutionsare given to us by the actual

(23:37):
colleagues that are in theseorganisations.
But it does give you thatability to leverage powerful
data and answer questions offthe back of it, and I think all
of the studies have the abilityto to give that um, to give that
sort of facility to whoever'sgot that data now it's time for
top three tips based on yourexperience running activity

(24:01):
studies, role studies,efficiency studies and even,
obviously, mtm projects.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
What three pieces of advice would you give to ensure
a successful study and scopingthrough delivering the results?

Speaker 2 (24:14):
In three.
There's very little value instudying a process that's been
in place for a week, let's say,because nobody's used to it.
So making sure that studies arehappening at the right time and
in the right place or with theright people as well.
So if we do a study that is in anew store that's all brand,

(24:34):
spanking, new, shiny, everythingworks, but that doesn't
represent the rest of the estate, or we're studying a store full
of high performers or awarehouse full of high
performers where they've gotamazing pick rates, I can time
that and get you a time for it,but actually how does that then
relate back to the rest of thebusiness?

(24:55):
So getting those middle of theroad sites or getting a variance
of some of the high performers,some of the low performers,
most in the middle, is reallyimportant to making sure that
you get a useful set of resultsat the end and nothing that's
misleading either one way or theother.
In number two, you definitelyneed a good team of analysts as

(25:18):
well that are willing to thinkabout processes and ask why a
lot?
So why are people doingwhatever it is that they're
doing?
Do they need to and have thatability to talk to colleagues,
talk to team members and findout more about the processes and
their experiences from workingon it day in, day out.

(25:39):
That can be really valuable atthe results stage for us as well
.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
And number one tip.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Number one would be that scope.
It's got to be done and it'sgot to be thought about and set
up carefully, because that'syour one big chance to influence
what the outputs are going tobe in terms of how easy it is
for analysts to then go andcollect the data.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Ed, that's the end of your episode of Rethink
Revealed.
I hope you have enjoyed yourexperience and I wasn't too mean
to you or anything.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
No, it's been good fun, thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
You're very welcome.
It was great to have you on andI'll catch up with you soon.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, great.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Thanks, james, take care, bye-bye.
Well, that's it for RethinkRevealed.
I hope you found it insightfuland, like me, you learned
something new.
You can find great podcastsfrom Rethink Productivity on our
website, which I'll link in theshow description, along with
the music we used today.
I'll hopefully catch you againsoon for the next episode of
Rethink Revealed.

(26:41):
Until then, bye-bye.
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