The growth in service-manufacturing interactions clearly is one factor driving the growth in services. First, the share of services activities necessary or complementary to the production of manufacturing goods is likely to have increased. Producing a car, for example, requires a growing range of services activities, such as market research, technical research and development and design, human resource management, control and business consulting. Second, the past two decades have seen a trend towards the outsourcing of business related services, such as research and development, financing or logistics. Such services are either contracted to existing specialised service providers, or are provided by a newly created firm or spin-off from a manufacturing firm.
Despite the high growth rate, there is strong evidence emerging that the services sector is largely responsible for the slowdown of productivity growth in the Western world during the 1990s. This is not so much just because of the continuously increasing size of the service sector in combination with the traditional view that services productivity growth is weak by definition (the Baumol hypothesis). In fact, the United States has been very successful in raising service productivity growth, and also some service sectors in Europe show accelerated productivity growth. But the picture is very heterogeneous across countries and sectors.
In our opinion there are three suspects that may explain the productivity slowdown in services. These are measurement problems, lack of innovation and rigid markets.
The MTM Organizations are reacting to this trend and have developed systems that are no longer limited to the “classic” industries. Already in the 80‘s, MTM was used in the catering trade. MTM project engineers analyzed and evaluated basic activities in a cafeteria kitchen for Horten AG. For the first time the MTM Organization had shown scientifically that the output produced in the catering trade can also be objectively described and evaluated with systems such as MTM-UAS.
The same goes for analyses that MTM specialists worked out for businesses in the commercial cleaning industry. Here, a considerably higher potential for improvement could be demonstrated which, depending on the work method, significantly varies the effort in cleaning. With methods optimized by MTM, increases in productivity were reached beyond 100 percent – while also increasing the quality of the cleaning.
Using these resources in other areas of the industry also has evident advantages. The MTM Organization could already prove that considerable cost-cutting potential exists in hospitals. Here especially, cleaning services are an extremely cost-intensive factor. In times of political discussions about sinking hospital and nursing charges, it is all the more important to reduce costs.
The examples illustrate that the service sector also has areas of extensive standardization in work processes. A high potential for improvement is waiting to be realized. With its products, MTM is in the position to do just that.
To a great extent, DaimlerChrysler took this opportunity in reorganizing its Mercedes Benz Customer Assistance Centre (CAC) as well as in the administrative service area. Opened in 1998 in Maastricht, the CAC is a service centre with a remarkably broad scope of responsibility. The European control centre assists all Western European customers and interested individuals with inquiries, breakdown service, and complaints by telephone, letter, fax or e-mail around the clock. There, special telephone software recognizes from which country a call is being made and directs it to the appropriate CAC country team. Overall, 750 employees from 26 nations handle up to 6,000 inquiries per day. With the MTM process, time data could be gathered for all plan-able processes, work content for staff training could be described and work processes could be evaluated. The MTM system MTM Office Specialist Data (MOS) was used. The work of the MTM Organization leads to numerous improvements – and considerable cost-cutting potential. The exact description of work processes is today the basis for qualifying and training staff. Numerous weaknesses are located in the hardware and software equipment, internal communication is significantly improved and work processes are designed more efficiently.
These effects are also revealed in the use of MTM in the bank and insurance industry. There is also a great need for action here regarding beneficial optimization potential as the possibilities for economizing staff with, say, IT solutions have been almost completely exhausted. The focus for value-adding measures must, therefore, be directed at those processes in which people play the central role.
Within the framework of further alignment in the service sector, the MTM Organization is currently modifying analysis methods aimed specifically at the needs of the industry. Banks and insurance companies are being subjected to an enormous structural adaptation in order to maintain a positive output. Based on business process analyses, MTM delivers elements that, depending on market parameters, determine work extent, and, therefore, personnel demand in each function. Questions as to how things can be rationalized or how it should continue afterwards can only be answered adopting a bottom-up approach.Lasting success needs a business culture in which business goals are clearly formulated and transparent connections and defined processes facilitate efficient cost management.
MTM in a global industry (Partnership with industry)
Ever more groups of companies, medium-sized businesses and also small businesses have additional locations on the other side of the national border and are conquering new markets Worldwide. Therefore, it is crucial that uniform standards for designing work systems, work stations and output standards are equally valid at all locations.
The MTM process is the answer. Properly used, MTM offers a process language for describing, evaluating and optimizing business processes; it is internationally uniform and is understood everywhere in the world. Equally, the MTM standard output represents a reference that is the same at all locations. The MTM organizations have been working closely together for a long time through membership with the International MTM Directorate in order to guarantee the worldwide uniform use of MTM and also to promote the development of new systems.

Thus, developing a series of analysis systems was only possible through the international cooperation. The goal of the mutual efforts of the MTM organizations is to strengthen further the position of the industries in the global arena. More and more, MTM organizations are interested to further intensify their cooperation in the future and to further combine their strengths.