ReThink Productivity Podcast
Join Simon Hedaux, founder of ReThink Productivity, as he and a focused network of industry leaders and clients share a new playbook for organizational excellence
This is the essential podcast for leaders looking to drive measurable, sustainable performance across corporate, operational, and customer-facing teams
With our new 2.0 approach, we’ve shifted to a highly focused rhythm, delivering two essential episodes per month—giving you less noise and more strategic intelligence
Inside Every Month, You’ll Discover:
1. The Productivity Pulse (Early Month)
- Data-Driven Action: Hear directly from our internal experts—Sue, Simon, and James—who share real-world trends, new data findings, and actionable productivity insights emerging from live projects
- Align & Engage Your Teams: Discover practical ways to connect head office goals with on-the-ground execution, ensuring everyone is pulling in the same direction
- Learn from Real-World Wins: Get tactical advice and success stories from organisations that have achieved transformative productivity across the board
2. Basket & Barometer (Late Month)
- Elevated Insights: In conversation with industry expert Diane Wehrle to move beyond surface-level metrics and tackle complex, data-driven metrics around customer shopping behaviour
For leaders in Operations, Strategy, and HR, this podcast provides the modern tools to build a smarter, more efficient, and ultimately more profitable business
Subscribe now and start truly rethinking your productivity
ReThink Productivity Podcast
Using MTM To Improve Methods, Not Just Set Time
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We explore with ReThink Productivity’s Simon Woodfield and Ed Thompson how MTM drives method improvement, not just time measurement, and share real case studies across logistics, retail food, and warehousing. We show how operator involvement, ergonomics, and clear coding lead to standard work, stronger business cases, and better rollouts.
• Method determines the time, not the stopwatch
• Ergonomic gains from reducing reach distances
• Testing layouts and methods before rollout
• Surprising warehouse findings beyond the scope
• Operator buy-in through iterative coding and trials
• Standard work supported by reusable MTM codes
• Low-barrier adoption using spreadsheets or software
Find out more at the UKMTM Website
#theproductivityexperts
Register for the 2026 Productivity Forum
Find us in the Top 50 Productivity Podcasts
Connect to Simon on LinkedIn
Follow ReThink on LinkedIn
Welcome to the Rethink Productivity Podcast. This is the final episode in our mini-series focusing on MTM. I'm delighted that Ed and Simon are back. Hi Ed.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, Simon. Hope you're doing okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, welcome back. Thank you. Hi, Simon. Hello, Simon. Welcome back to the final one. So, final episode. Hopefully we've kept it as simple as possible for those that have been following really interesting subjects and topics. And we're going to finish on using MTM to improve methods, not just set time. So I'll I'll kind of work these between the both of you because I know you've you've both got some points you want to talk about. So if we start with you, Simon, I think we've we've touched on this in episode one and two, but using MTM as a method improvement tool, not just to generate times for budgeting systems or line balancing or whatever. What are your thoughts on how that works and what do you see?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so as we've we've mentioned in the previous previous podcasts, MTM is a great tool to be able to give us answers to business cases quite quickly and quite cheaply. So if we imagine we've got a logistics setup, we've got a packing bench, and we've got all our tools and accessories all laid out to do our job. We can look at ways of improving and see what the the impact would be simply by moving things closer, making things easier to reach. So you know MTN will look at distances up to 80 centimetres in distance for reach. If you think we're having to do that a lot of times, 100 times a day, there could be an ergonomic risk there. So that'll help on that. And then we can look at what the impact would be by moving it closer together. What's the time saving? Does that make life easy? We can also look at maybe how the tape would be dispensed. So maybe that uh they've got pre-cut pieces of tape on it on a sheet of paper, but they want to look at having tape on a roll that they can pull to length and cut off. So we can look at the impact of how those are, and then we can look at how much the new equipment would cost versus the time saving that it's going to give us, and then we'd be able to come up with a business case for that. And that that'll follow the suit all the way through. And that can look at the amount of times we have to walk from one place point A to point B and we turn back. Or it could be things about how easy or difficult a positioning is. So it could be you know if we we uh change the the the way something is built and we put a chamfer around a hole, will that have an impact on the positioning? Will that make it easier for us? If it does, what's the cost of putting that chamfer in and what's the time saving based on the making of the positioning easier to uh be done? So we can look at that, we can then weigh up when when we essentially move that up hundreds, thousands of times, and then we can uh we can work out what the cost of us is then fitted.
SPEAKER_02:Good. So again, I'll just reiterate the point, get get into lots of detail, do lots of creative what if model scenario without having to build the layout or synthesize it somewhere in a in a mock shop. Um and Ed, you've done some real life stuff based on layouts and process improvements using MTM, I believe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we've we use it in quite a few projects now in terms of being able to identify that those methods and and how to improve upon it. It's baked into the entire sort of ethos of what MTM is. So it is methods time measurement. It's based on the method determines the time. Your time is a result of the method, it's not you go and time something and the time's the time it all will feed back to the to the method. Your code should describe a method that can be followed by an operator at the end of the day. So having that ability to look at your code and say, well, this is the method that is currently in place. We can then, as Sand had mentioned, start to look at things and say, Well, what if what if we change where this tool's placed? What if we I mean, one of the examples was making pizzas in supermarkets. It was okay to say, Well, this is how all of the toppings are set out at the moment and laid out. There's no sort of real rhyme or reason to the layout, it is just however the colleague wants to do it. We say, Well, great. Now what happens if we look at the top-selling pizzas for the locations and put the best selling toppings closer to the operator? What does that do to the timings? If that's the most sort of popular pizza that's been sold, lo and behold, you get a time benefit out of that because you're not reaching 40 centimetres to get some salami or pepperoni for your pizza, you're now reaching 20. So it's little things like that that it can be really helpful for.
SPEAKER_02:And in terms of layouts, always, I suppose the the holy grail for people is to work through any challenges before they roll it out en masse to the restaurant, wherever it might be. Again, you've used MTM to look at new layouts, proof of concept layouts ed to see what that might be telling them and where there's room for even more efficiency or productivity gains before they roll it out to a wider estate.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, one one of the things that we've seen recently is actually you can introduce a new layout, but you need to make sure that you introduce a new method to go along with that layout, otherwise you don't see any benefit from it particularly. Which sort of always comes back to the first point on this podcast. Uh we've also used it for it's not just in layouts, but in technology. So you introduce touch screens into a into a process. What does that do versus a versus a keyboard for some of the activities? It was well, the touch screens are a little bit slower, but actually you get a gain from being able to do smaller activities easier on the on the screen rather than needing to use a mouse to drag a cursor somewhere, almost like using a tablet. But it also showed with that one the differences people knowing keyboard shortcuts can make on a PC versus having to go the long way down. So that was an interesting one of you introducing new layouts, new systems. But there's probably things that exist within the business at the moment that you could identify with MTM and take forward and use that as the standard method before you even look at some of these layout trends.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, makes sense. And and Simon, I assume that applies as you kind of move down into workstations in automotive manufacturing and other areas too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we we had a good example actually where we approached by a client to have a look at their warehouse layout. So they were traditionally picking the pallets up out of their manufacturing part of the business from four different locations, and what they wanted to do is have a centralized conveyor belt feeding into the warehouse, so they just had one pickup location within the warehouse. They felt that this was going to give them a massive time saving in putting away the pallets into the racking. We went in and did an MTM analysis for them and actually identified it was only a seven-second saving, which wasn't anywhere near the saving that they thought they were going to receive. However, as we noticed that um there was an activity happening that was outside of the scope of the project, but we still decided to analyse. And that was the fact that the new layout allowed for all different sizes of pallets, whereas the old layout was a pallet size specific per pickup location. The benefit then meant is they didn't have to decant uh some pallets to fit some of the client requirements. So, actually, based on a full articulated lorry load of pallets, there was a potential two and a half hour saving purely on not having to decant pallets down. So that was a great piece of news for them, which they weren't expecting. So it's not just about poor layouts, it's about um other methods that uh can be derived there as well. So that was a particularly good one that actually it didn't achieve what they were expecting it to achieve, but it did from something outside of the scope.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. And from an employee's point of view, are there any concerns, Simon, you typically get challenged with or you have to address from using MTM as a methodology?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think people have always fear of the times that are derived being used as a sort of a bit of a beat-in tool. They're not, they're just a way really for the management to understand how long the process takes, so they can allocate the right amount of resources, they can cost to the client correctly, and they can also make sure that the the line is balanced correctly as well. So quite often the uh the the employees will will slow down or speed up when they know they're being watched. The benefit there for MTM is we're not bother how quickly or how slowly they're working because we will literally just code on what we see, and that is the distance they're reaching, the the the the uh the influence and factors of regards to grass, how far they're moving it, and where they're positioning it too. So and these will all have uniform times. So the benefit there is actually if you do have people that are nervous or skeptical about being monitored or being analyzed, then MTM is a good tool for that because it uh normalizes the uh the actions and the time because it's not based on uh rating or or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. And and Ed, have you got any examples of acceptance or concerns that people have that you've come across?
SPEAKER_01:Probably one of the best examples of it was uh with a client that I spoke to a couple of years ago, and it wasn't where they were working currently, but it'd been where they've been in contact with MTM in in previous jobs. And they were to get the acceptance, they would go in, do the recording, do the coding, they'd go away, they'd work it all all through, and they would present the method that they've come up with from the watching the videos and doing the coding. They'd give that method to the operator and say, right, yeah, we've we've coded it, we've worked it through. Can you try it in this this way working? And by doing that, you can get the employee or the the operator's buy-in because it gives them a chance to almost instant feedback if you're not introducing a new layout or you're just changing the method. It soon highlights where you've changed things because you think they'd be more effective, but actually has a unattended uh sort of a knock-on effect that you weren't necessarily gonna have foreseen when the operator, when they come to do it, all of a sudden spots it. So they were getting the buy-in that way of actually doing multiple multiple codes and tweaks with the operator's input. So that the operator felt like they had a bigger stake in the process than potentially they would do if they were just given a uh a method and given a layout and been told to complete the task. And it comes back again to what's at the core of NTM is it's about a better method for the individual who's completing the process. And the result of that is the times are going down or your output goes up. It's not about taking the output and the times and using them to steer the process. It all stems from that. You want the the best method for that operator to complete so they can do the best job possible and you get the outputs you want.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. We'll finish question for you both again. So again, we'll just continue with you, Ed. So MTM supporting continuous improvement and and standard work. I think we've touched on some of that, but have you got anything else to add there?
SPEAKER_01:Because you're at that level of detail, if you are making any changes to the process, there is a necessity to go back and look at that that coding. So you almost get that continuous improvement every time you're gonna make a change, you'll go back and look at the coding again. Um being able to standardize the work, you're looking at the codes, they'll be easily sort of replacing you'll be able to replicate them easily between colleagues because sort of at that level of detail, there's not much ambiguity in there. So that all helps within sort of standardizing processes where potentially they're not not standardized beforehand. Otherwise, I think it's just again, it's part of MTM, part of the way that you train to think is always about what can I change, what can I make better. So it is just embedded in the in the process that you go through as you as you code in a video.
SPEAKER_02:And Simon, your finishing thoughts on so finishing thoughts, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think for for me, any business should explore the the option to use MTM within their workplace to not only gain times but to look at continuous improvements within the business. Um certainly when you've got repeatable tasks, very, very useful. It can work alongside your your lean and six sigma methodologies. It can also be integrated into a lot of different software options as well. So certainly very utilizable. And if you don't want to invest in any any software, it can work perfectly well on Excel spreadsheets as well. So it's very, very easy to do. Uh as I say, it um will help move your business forward quite quickly, I think. And uh the investments of just a couple of weeks' worth of training, I think it's certainly something then any business should look for.
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. Well, thank you both. Really appreciate your thoughts and time on all three episodes. If people want to find out more, then you can visit the UK MTM website, which we'll put a link through in the show notes or the rethink website. Or you can find myself, Ed, or Simon Woodfield on LinkedIn, and again we'll put all our profiles on there and always happy to talk all things MTM and find the the right methodology that works for you to deliver the outputs you're looking for. Just leads me to say thank you, Ed, once again, and thank you, Simon, and we'll catch up soon.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you very much for the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
