Estimating savings from measured handling time

Estimate handling-time savings by measuring current work, forecasting the human work left under a proposed change, and applying the difference only to eligible cases. Account for review, correction, exceptions and shared monitoring. The result is a forecast of staff capacity; a reduction in spending needs separate evidence.

Define the case and the time measure

Choose one unit of work, such as a complete request resolved or an order checked. Fix where measurement starts and ends.

Handling time here means the minutes people actively spend on that case, including necessary checking and rework across teams. Elapsed time runs from the case's start event to its result and includes waiting. Record it separately: reducing five minutes of handling may leave an approval queue unchanged.

Use recent, representative cases from the route the proposal would change. Include straightforward cases and those needing correction. If case types take different amounts of time, measure them separately.

Record the sample period, volume, case mix and unusual conditions. A small or unrepresentative sample calls for more measurement or a wider forecast range.

An observation sheet can record the case reference, type, team, active minutes by activity, rework minutes and outcome. When two people work on a case at the same time, count both people's labour minutes; elapsed time is measured separately.

Handling Time vs Elapsed Time

Calculate eligible hours

For each case type, use:

Forecast hours released = eligible cases × (measured current minutes − forecast future human minutes) ÷ 60.

Add the results across case types. Estimate future human minutes from the proposed route and state the basis for that estimate; it is not an observation of a change that has yet to happen.

Include review, exceptions, corrections and work passed to other teams. If shared monitoring cannot sensibly be assigned per case, subtract its forecast hours separately. Apply the saving only to cases the proposed route could handle.

Consider a hypothetical team with 1,000 eligible requests a month. Current handling averages eight minutes per request. If the proposed route is forecast to need three minutes of total human handling per request, the calculation is 1,000 × (8 − 3) ÷ 60, or about 83 hours of capacity per month.

These invented inputs explain the calculation; they are not observed savings. If shared monitoring adds ten hours a month outside the three-minute estimate, the net forecast is about 73 hours. Count that work once.

Keep the money claim separate

An agreed internal hourly cost can express the value of capacity for comparing options. Multiplying hours by that rate does not show that payroll, contractor spend or overtime will fall. State how the released time would be used. Identify any budget reduction with the budget owner; show avoided future expenditure separately, including the cost that would otherwise be needed.

Test the assumptions that have the greatest effect. In the hypothetical example, if only 700 requests are eligible, the same five-minute difference yields about 58 hours before shared monitoring. If exception work also rises, forecast it in the future handling figure or as a separate line, without counting it twice.

Before using the estimate in a business case, confirm the work boundary with the process owner and check with receiving teams that correction work has not simply moved to them. Keep the observations and forecast assumptions available for revision.

Pros and Cons of Using Measured Handling Time in Business Cases