time motion study

At work today, we had people who are supposed to do time and motion studies on us as we work. I am a medical transcriptionist, so it's not a lot of glam;)

The young lady said behind me with a laptop, occasionally asking me questions, occasionally typing something in the laptop. I have no idea of what they were supposed to measure, as I was doing a different aspect of the job than the co-worker who just got watched. I couldn't see what she was typing into her computer, but later, when she sat behind somebody else, I could see there was a bar graph on the screen. I have no idea what it was for...

But here's the strange (to me) thing. They have these people wondering around the building and they don't have a basic concept of what the company does. No knowledge whatsoever, nobody explained how the pharmacy & medical records worked together. I have been doing this job a long time (10 years at this company) and I found it difficult to explain. It's like trying to explain what a cat is to somebody who has never seen or heard of cats. She said I helped her out a lot, but I don't really see where I did...but since I don't know what she was looking for, I don't know if she obtained it.

Anybody know anything about time motion studies and how they are done & why the bar graph? (our supervisor just says "it's not a big deal" but why at this point, would they bring somebody in to study us? I presume they must be working on some sort of mechanical replacement for the medical records department....