About the TMU CALCULATOR®

Inspiration for development

The factors that drove development of the TMU CALCULATOR® were solutions that were “tried and tested” and complete. Again, these included current methods for preparing MTM analyses and process modules with different types of level II data and their compression previously: documenting processes on paper, typing this into the recording system, verifying with timer modules.)

The fact that the application of the MTM method, which has been very successful up to this point, was by and large spared the continuous improvement process (CIP) can certainly give the impression that the method is clearly practicable, dependable and free of any wastefulness. More specifically, the method can provide scarcely none or no optimization approaches whatever in the sense of CIP.

So in this case, at least the last items of the “7 Types of Waste” (*) are subject to the common “copy instead of understand” principle. Here one just had to turn around the binoculars and ask themselves how can I, as the “process optimizer”, optimize.
Granted, this sentence sounds strange and discouraging, and is certainly the reason why a driver of the CIP process was, up to now, discouraged and preferred to focus his/her complete attention on the “green pastures” and “lean productions” of other parties. However, you don’t have to be an MTM practitioner, corporate consultant or lean guru to know that it’s a lot easier to point third-party “problems” than to tackle one’s own.

What it thinks

The idea in development was therefore not to question MTM as a pre-determined time system, but rather entirely the opposite—to optimize the use of the up to now successful, and rightly so, MTM process for calculating industrial production processes. We did this by shortening the path from process monitoring on site, through documentation of individual process steps on paper, up to their representation on the PC for CIP purposes. In this way, process paths, unnecessary waiting times and quality defects could be reduced to a virtually insignificant magnitude. This in turn would lead to a high productivity increase in preparing MTM analyses.

What guides it

Our goal is to generate an added(-value) service and increase in productivity in work preparation (WP) or manufacturing engineering (ME) which is already omnipresent in production. Our product development process has the goal of providing employees with the ability to focus more on ergonomic workplace design, employee training in accordance with established target processes and implementing possible areas of potential. This will generate added value for the company or the customer, and ensure competitive ability over the long term.

What makes it better

If you consider just the time and effort expended for preparing an MTM-based analysis, the reduction in effort provided by the TMU CALCULATORS® amounts to over 40% as compared to common methods of analysis. This productivity should be of benefit to mid-sized companies that, for reasons of cost and profitability, forego implementation of a performance-based compensation and need to switch to a REFA time recording system or estimated times. For that reason alone, we feel it’s essential to optimize the methods for preparing an MTM-based analysis, and thus keep the costs for MTM implementation low and profitable from a business standpoint.