Apparel manufacturing is highly labor-intensive, making accurate and consistent time standards essential for product costing, capacity planning, resource allocation, production balancing, and performance management. However, many manufacturers continue to rely on conventional time studies or commercial Predetermined Motion and Time System (PMTS) software to establish operation time values.
Time studies are based on observed performance and can therefore embed existing method deficiencies and internal performance conditions into the standard. Commercial PMTS solutions provide greater standardization but can be costly, may not cover the entire manufacturing value chain, and are often applied without sufficient understanding of the underlying MTM motion sequences used to construct elemental time values and methods.
These limitations become increasingly significant as apparel manufacturing shifts from conventional batch production toward Lean-Agile manufacturing, one-piece flow, team-based production, smaller orders, greater product variation, and more frequent changeovers. Under these conditions, balancing complete operations alone is insufficient. Effective flow increasingly requires the ability to analyze, decompose, redistribute, and rebalance work at the motion and activity level.
This workshop develops the technical capability to establish an enterprise Predetermined Time System (PTS) based on MTM principles and adapted to the specific manufacturing methods of the organization. Participants learn how to understand and apply MTM-1, MTM-2, and MTM-3, analyze motion sequences, develop standardized elemental activities, determine appropriate allowances, and construct reliable time standards covering processes from cutting through sewing to finishing and packing.
Particular emphasis is placed on using predetermined motion-time knowledge not only for establishing product time values, but also as an engineering tool for method design and micro-motion balancing. This enables manufacturers to engineer work for Lean-Agile flow, balance team-based systems more effectively, improve multi-skilled workforce utilization, and establish an internally controlled PTS that can evolve as products, processes, technologies, and manufacturing systems change.
The ultimate purpose is to move the organization from simply assigning time to existing methods toward the capability to engineer the method, establish its predetermined time, and use motion-level standards to design and balance more effective manufacturing systems.
