Takt Time

Takt Time is defined as "The rate at which the end product or service must be produced and delivered in order to satisfy a defined customer demand within a given period of time. It is calculated as :

For example, if a process runs 24 hours a day and the market demand is 240 entities per day then:

In Lean Sigma terms, the processing time is known as the Global Process Cycle Time. Thus, if the Global Process Cycle Time is above the T.Time, the process falls behind Customer demand.

Likewise if the Global Process Cycle Time is less than the T.Time.

For example, five minutes, then the process is cycling faster than Customer demand and building inventory or spending one minute in every six waiting, to avoid creating unused inventory.

If the work period is less than 24 hours per day, then the process has to go proportionately faster during those times that work is actually done to meet the daily market demand.

For example, if the work period is 12 hours per day in the preceding example, then the new Takt Time is now three minutes, because there is only half the available work time and the process has to cycle twice as fast. So, if the Global Process Cycle Time is not three minutes, the process is not balanced with the demand.

Most processes deal with more than one products , and if this is the case, then the Takt Time must be adjusted to take this into account.

For example, if a process has two main products:

Product "A" currently has demand for 350 a month
Product "B" currently has demand for 525 a month

Then the total demand is 875/month.

If the business runs a two-shift operation, 5 days/week, 4.2 weeks/month

5 days x 4.2 weeks = 21 available days
21 days x 16 hours = 336 hours

And so monthly available time is 336 hours x 60 minutes = 20160 minutes

How to calculate Takt Time :

Step 1.	Identify the process(es) for which the Takt Time is calculated. Takt is process-specific and should not be aggregated across multiple lines unless they generate the same entity types.

Step 2.	Select the time period for which the Takt is calculated usually a week or a month. For the time period selected, identify the true time available to produce units within that period. If using Monthly demand, then the time available per month is (#Days/Month x #Shifts/Day x #Hours/Shift x #Min/Hour) If using Weekly demand, then the time available per week is (#Shifts x #Days/Week x #Hours/Shift x #Min/Hour) The available work time should be calculated based on the full-shift time and not a depleted time that might have deducted the following: Wait for information or material time Rework time Equipment breakdown time Regular labor break time Fatigue/rest time It is done this way because the above elements are NVA activity in the process. If the Takt is calculated around them, then they tend to be overlooked as opportunities for capacity increase. The process still has to be generating entities every Takt increment and thus the drive should be to discover how to actively manage that.
Step 3.	Identify which entities likely flow through the process during the next time period. Unless absolute booked work is available, then this can be taken from a historical perspective; the assumption being that the pace of the process in the coming period should be close to that of the last period.
Step 4.	Calculate the total demand for this process for all of the entities identified in Step 3. This is a unit count of entities. As in the preceding example, if the demand is for 350 units of Product A and 525 units of Product B, then the total demand is 875 units.
Step 5.	Calculate the Takt Time from the work time calculated in Step 2 and the demand calculated in Step 4 as

Takt Time update

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