For labor-intensive sewing industry, productivity could be enhanced with the proper utilization of standard time system. This paper develops a standard data for sewing operations through three stages. The first is to identify the manual motions from sewing operations. The second is to simplify the MTM-1 data considering the frequency and the nature of basic motions occuring in the operations. Finally we synthesize the standard data using the simplified MTM-1 by the film analysis of the actual operations pictured in the field. The standard data developed is shown to be easier and faster with reasonable accuracy in determining the standard time compared to the MTM-1.