Takt Time – the Rhythm of lean manufacturing
Do you know how long it will take you to read this article? If you glanced at your watch before you opened this article, look at it again when you are done. Then, read ten more articles and take the average reading time. Is that fast? Or is it slow? Should you be reading faster in order to meet your reading goals? Or should you slow down to maximize comprehension and quality of the reading? Takt time can answer this question.
Takt time is derived from the German work, Taktzeit, and can be literally translated to mean “cycle time”. Using the previous example, if your boss came to you and told you to read an article next week, you would know exactly how much time you would have to block out of your day to read articles. If you weren’t feeling well, or thought you were particularly distracted, you could compare your time to the time you just derived.
Traditionally, Takt time is the maximum time per unit that a production line is allowed to produce a quality product in order to meet demand. After it is benchmarked, it sets the pace and the standard for further production from the same line or workstation. It can show managers and quality teams where to focus their attention and resources in attempting to improve the overall process. It can also alert managers to bottlenecks and choke points that need attention to process resources.
The Takt time is computed by dividing the time demand (units required per day) by the net time available to work (minutes of work per day). This will give you a unit of minutes of work per unit required, and provides for a good description of what Takt Time really is.
The end goal of determining the Takt time is to produce products at a pace that mirrors what the customer’s demand is. By meeting the demand from the customer, the inventory is kept to a minimum and thus costs are also minimized. Of course, no machine or person is perfect, and there are inefficiencies in every process, so a good manager and quality specialist will take these variations into account when determining the required rate to run the line at. Sometimes it simply takes trial and error to find the ideal rate to run the line at. Additionally, most companies will have the ability to adjust the required time by adjusting daily working time, increasing workers, and other things that will indirectly affect the line time.
It is very important to realize the difference between cycle time and Takt time. Takt time is only determined by the demand and the amount of time available to work. It actually is not affected by the actual performance of the line or workstation whatsoever. Cycle time, however, is the amount of time it actually takes to complete the production of the unit. They are separate, and most people, particularly those who are relatively unfamiliar to lean processes. While they are not the same thing, Takt time and Cycle time should always be compared to each other for a relative gage of your process’s ability to meet the necessary demand.
When a car company comes out with a new model car, they perform market analysis, surveys, and forecasts that decide what the demand for the new model will most likely be. This, along with the supply chain management team, can determine what the production goals will be for a certain factory, and consequently, the line. For example, let’s say that they will need 30 new models per day.
In order to get the production team off the ground, produce quality products, and provide training to the team, management has decided to limit amount of production time available to the line to 5 hours per day. Therefore, the Takt time is 30 units per day / 5 hours per day, or 6 units per hour required to produce to meet customer demand, and can be further broken down to 1 unit every 10 minutes. This will lead to every car that comes off the line being shipped and no inventory being held at the factory… the ideal way to run the business.
Takt time is derived from the German work, Taktzeit, and can be literally translated to mean “cycle time”. Using the previous example, if your boss came to you and told you to read an article next week, you would know exactly how much time you would have to block out of your day to read articles. If you weren’t feeling well, or thought you were particularly distracted, you could compare your time to the time you just derived.
Traditionally, Takt time is the maximum time per unit that a production line is allowed to produce a quality product in order to meet demand. After it is benchmarked, it sets the pace and the standard for further production from the same line or workstation. It can show managers and quality teams where to focus their attention and resources in attempting to improve the overall process. It can also alert managers to bottlenecks and choke points that need attention to process resources.
The Takt time is computed by dividing the time demand (units required per day) by the net time available to work (minutes of work per day). This will give you a unit of minutes of work per unit required, and provides for a good description of what Takt Time really is.
The end goal of determining the Takt time is to produce products at a pace that mirrors what the customer’s demand is. By meeting the demand from the customer, the inventory is kept to a minimum and thus costs are also minimized. Of course, no machine or person is perfect, and there are inefficiencies in every process, so a good manager and quality specialist will take these variations into account when determining the required rate to run the line at. Sometimes it simply takes trial and error to find the ideal rate to run the line at. Additionally, most companies will have the ability to adjust the required time by adjusting daily working time, increasing workers, and other things that will indirectly affect the line time.
It is very important to realize the difference between cycle time and Takt time. Takt time is only determined by the demand and the amount of time available to work. It actually is not affected by the actual performance of the line or workstation whatsoever. Cycle time, however, is the amount of time it actually takes to complete the production of the unit. They are separate, and most people, particularly those who are relatively unfamiliar to lean processes. While they are not the same thing, Takt time and Cycle time should always be compared to each other for a relative gage of your process’s ability to meet the necessary demand.
When a car company comes out with a new model car, they perform market analysis, surveys, and forecasts that decide what the demand for the new model will most likely be. This, along with the supply chain management team, can determine what the production goals will be for a certain factory, and consequently, the line. For example, let’s say that they will need 30 new models per day.
In order to get the production team off the ground, produce quality products, and provide training to the team, management has decided to limit amount of production time available to the line to 5 hours per day. Therefore, the Takt time is 30 units per day / 5 hours per day, or 6 units per hour required to produce to meet customer demand, and can be further broken down to 1 unit every 10 minutes. This will lead to every car that comes off the line being shipped and no inventory being held at the factory… the ideal way to run the business.
Figure (1) This can be further broken down to workstations. For example, the door installation workstation for the new, 4-door model car would also need to put out one car per ten minutes. However, since there are 4 doors, the workstation will have to install one door every 2.5 minutes. While this may seem obvious, what may not seem obvious is that this is beyond the capacity of a single workstation, and will lead to a bottleneck , and subsequently a focused lean project which will bring the cycle time to the Takt time, leading to an efficient process.
Takt time can be used in many applications that aren’t necessarily the traditional line manufacturing application. It can be used in order processing, call center operation, project management tasks, or anything in a business that can be measured by processing time.
A good tool to have in your toolbox, Takt time will give a company an insight into what the capacity of a method or process must be in order to meet the demand a customer places on it. By doing this, the company can set a benchmark that will guide the company toward the ideal situation of perfect supply chain management.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Anything to say. Please feel free to leave your comment below.