Method study is the process of subjecting work to systematic, critical scrutiny in order to make it more effective and/or more efficient.
It was originally designed for the analysis and improvement of repetitive, manual work, but it can be used for all types of activity at all levels of an organisation.
The process is often seen as a linear, described by its main steps of:
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Select (the work to be studied);
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Record (all relevant information about that work);
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Examine (the recorded information);
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Develop (an improved way of doing things);
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Install (the new method as standard practice);
- Maintain (the new standard proactive).
Although this linear representation shows the underlying simplicity of method study, in practice the process is much more one of iteration around the above steps with each dominating at a different stage of the investigation.