Conducting Time-Motion Studies with the WISER Locator

The WISER Locator helps quantify time and motion for nearly any use case. Delivering immediate updates on the whereabouts of a person or an object, this real-time location system (RTLS) powers all sorts of studies of motion over time. The results give end-users key data to bolster efficiency.

The problem: Understanding and optimizing work processes

Managers and employees in all kinds of workspaces struggle to understand how best to optimize their efficiency, including their use of floor space. Maintaining unused space is expensive, and empty corners or areas without regular traffic can contribute to misplaced inventory and other forms of clutter.

Non-optimal processes can also add project delays and waste valuable time and effort. For instance, highly congested spaces can create workflow bottlenecks or slow tasks down generally—such as when Station 1 and Station 2 are separated because of arbitrary layout decisions or space constraints, or when multiple forklifts need to navigate the same small area simultaneously. Worker or vehicle traffic can also add new dangers to the workspace, especially in environments where people or equipment move quickly. Collisions, injuries, or simply dropping time-sensitive or valuable items in a shuffle are all causes for concern, whereas minimizing the distances traveled by people and machines saves time and assures that valuable or limited assets are being used efficiently.

Many organizations try to use time and motion studies (sometimes simply called time-motion studies) to address issues like these. However, just conducting these studies can be a major technical challenge.

Computer vision systems provide useful data, but this typically requires a large number of cameras, active lighting, and a clear line of sight. Analyzing the data poses many challenges as well. Many companies also consider these systems disruptive and intrusive, especially where employee or customer privacy is concerned.

Furthermore, many companies want to implement time and motion studies only for a short duration before shifting their processes or changing things in their workspace. This means that any permanent installations of equipment could be made obsolete after only a few weeks or even days. As a result, time and motion studies usually need flexible equipment with deployments that can be moved, adjusted, or dismantled as the studied space is adjusted as well.

In the end, many organizations are left to conduct expensive manual studies by shadowing work processes, diagramming them manually, and recommending improvements based on these manual observations. Others, due to a lack of time or money, simply estimate, approximate, or guess how their employees use their space and accomplish their tasks.

The solution: WISER’s Real-time location system

One popular U.S. restaurant chain wanted to study how their workers moved in real time. They hoped to get a better understanding of work processes in both their kitchens and their serving areas. For example, they wanted to look at situations where workers needed to switch stations or go around each other to see if these repetitive processes could be better optimized. Even with very conservative estimates, saving just five seconds per meal made could save this organization more than $5M per year just in low-wage work, not to mention any new revenues that could be added.

The restaurant chain’s plan to make this kind of optimization possible was to study work processes at a single location for only a day or two before moving on to another branch to conduct the same time and motion study. After wrestling with equipment that was ineffective and painstaking to install in each location, they discovered WISER’s ultra-wideband (UWB) approach to RTLS powered by Redundant Radio Localization and Tracking (RRLT) technology.

WISER’s RRLT Locator system allowed them to study employee motion in a typical restaurant with less than a backpack’s worth of wireless equipment. Installation and setup took only a matter of minutes because the WISER Locator does not require manual measurements or laser calibration. Removing the equipment afterward was even simpler, and none of the setup or takedown process required an electrician or an IT expert.

The only requirement for individual workers was to wear or carry a WISER device about the size of a USB flash drive. Also, the only data reported was timing and position data—not personal metadata.

The results: Increased efficiency

The WISER Locator delivered granular time and motion data on how employees moved to fulfill their tasks, including how long key tasks took as people moved across the space. This data was invaluable for optimizing work processes and space usage, promoting better employee training, and greatly improving efficiency based on real data and not just guesswork. The WISER Locator system helped the restaurant chain save more than $5M per year by reducing the time it took to complete tasks and reducing employee congestion.

By using WISER Locator's real-time location system, organizations can better understand their work processes and optimize their space, ultimately saving time and resources while improving efficiency.