| No. of Operations in the Cycle | No. of Operations that may be observed together | No. observed together that lead to a minimum of labour or is otherwise preferable |
| 3 | 2 | 2 |
| 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 5 | 2, 3, or 4 | 3 or 4 |
| 6 | 5 | 5 |
| 7 | 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 | 4 or 5 |
| 8 | 3, 5, or 7 | 5 or 7 |
| 9 | 2, 4, 5, 7, or 8 | 5 or 8 |
| 10 | 3, 7, or 9 | 7 or 9 |
| 11 | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 | 5 or 10 |
| 12 | 5, 7, or 11 | 7 or 11 |
When time study is undertaken in a systematic way, it becomes possible to do greater justice in many ways both to employers and workmen than has been done in the past. For example, we all know that the first time that even a skilled workman does a job it takes him a longer time than is required after he is familiar with his work, and used to a particular sequence of operations. The practised time student can not only figure out the time in which a piece of work should be done by a good man, after he has become familiar with this particular job through practice, but he should also be able to state how much more time would be required to do the same job when a good man goes at it for the first time; and this knowledge would make it possible to assign one time limit and price for new work, and a smaller time and price for the same job after being repeated, which is much more fair and just to both parties than the usual fixed price.
As the writer has said several times, the difference
