What is Takt Time and what is its importance? Even though Takt Time is a simple concept, it can be a very powerful tool for project managers who need a more creative strategy. Knowing the exact production rate of a project will help you avoid running out of time or resources. It will also help your organization increase profits and better meet customer needs. In this article, we’ll answer all of your top questions about time takt, along with examples, benefits, and more.
What is takt time?
Take time is a formula that enables you to manage every step of the production process efficiently and without waste. Its total represents the time required to produce a product to meet customer demand. This does not include unsupervised work time such as lunch breaks or scheduled maintenance.
Takt time is a German term coined by aircraft manufacturers in the 1930s that means “setting the pace” or “playing music,” which makes sense given the symphony of complex steps required to complete most projects.
Manufacturers use this formula to control the speed of their production lines. But it can also be used by project management offices and marketing managers to speed up plans.
This formula allows businesses to supply effectively without leaving too much inventory on the market. Lead time also shows how much the final product will be produced, which improves the accuracy of project planning and sets clear expectations.
In addition, lead time helps to monitor the efficiency of the production line after its start-up as well as the performance of the entire process to ensure that waste is eliminated.
Overall, it is useful both for time management and for predicting future production problems. Time tracking can be used at any stage of project planning to improve productivity.
Because time takt makes it easier to adjust the schedules of competing projects without losing progress on each, managers often use it to maintain a steady flow of products without wasting any resources.
How to calculate take time
It is important to know the exact Takt time of your product to avoid wasting it. The good news is that calculating takes time and is relatively simple.
Knowing the time needed to respond to customer demand is not that difficult. This data can be extracted from the project management tool’s reporting features to help you make informed decisions about how to manage your team’s workloads across the entire portfolio of active projects.
Monitoring takes time and can make a significant difference in success throughout the project lifecycle. For example, when the demand for takt time increases to the point that it must be reduced, managers can reorganize activities to fit into a shorter takt time.
A simple formula that you can use to accurately calculate the takt time is:
Takt time = total number of working hours available divided by customer demand.
Tip: To get the most out of the lean process, it’s important to break production down into smaller cycles. Then, compare the take time for the entire project with individual cycles to get a more accurate estimate.
An example from Takt’s time
Using the Takt time formula, we can look at a simple example of how to calculate and understand the results:
Suppose there are eight working hours in a day. Currently, customers request a product that takes eight hours to make. Take time is equal to one working day.
Some divide those hours into minutes and calculate the minutes to produce each product. In this example, eight hours would be 60 minutes or 480 minutes of take time.
If there are interruptions, meetings, administrative tasks, or work unrelated to the direct outcome of the project during that eight-hour period, you must subtract the average minutes from the total to calculate the time taken.
What are the benefits of taking time?
Takt time is a popular project management tool for a reason. Whether you want to master leads and delays or manage incoming work requests without slowing down progress in other areas, Takt Time is for you. Here’s a look at the tech time benefits you can get regardless of your industry:
Create efficient processes
Time Takt helps Scrum project managers accurately measure the amount of production time needed to meet customer demand. With this in mind, they can find new ways to schedule, plan, and execute. Instead of overhauling the entire process, they can instead focus on the areas that need further improvement and continue on their way to achieving their goal.
Eliminate or reduce waste
At Takt, it’s all about the efficient use of project resources. When you focus on improving productivity to meet a specific time goal, it’s easier to identify which resources can be used in smarter ways. If you use a project management tool, this can look like finding roadblocks ahead of time or sending automated notifications to team members as soon as it’s their turn to start a part of the project.
Strategic inventory management
Customer demand declines throughout the year for many industries. Using lead time, managers can accurately forecast their production to match customer demand, saving time and money.
Smart time management
Takt time is best for deciding where to invest more or less time as a team. Many managers who use take time often find and eliminate bottlenecks in their process that they might not have found otherwise.
Set the appropriate speed
Takt time helps managers to generally set the pace of multiple ongoing projects. As you receive work requests, face delays, and manage client expectations, you may find that some projects need to be slowed while others are rushed to adjust. With Tact Time, you can get the schedule right while keeping everything on track.
Are there any time limits?
Takt time, like any project management strategy, has limitations. During an active project, the task hierarchy should be leveled to ensure that tasks do not pile up against specific phases. This hinders the flexibility of the operating plan created from the takt time calculation.
Also, the concept of taking time does not take into account the human factors that occur during certain processes, such as a team member’s need for a longer lunch or paid time off. This means that demand must be leveled to make processes more efficient.
The difference between take time, cycle time, and execution time
While cycle time and take time are both commonly used by lean professionals, they measure different things. Cycle time is the time it takes for a team to complete a task or order from start to finish. Lead time is the time it takes to complete a product to meet demand.
For example, if a customer orders a new product every hour, the team must complete it in an hour or less. This means that the test time should be less than one hour. If the team takes more than an hour to complete the task (cycle time), then the process should be simplified or minimized to align with the take time.
People also confuse the terms cycle time and lead time, both of which are pure metrics. Fulfillment time is the time required to fulfill the customer’s order. As we mentioned earlier, cycle time is the time it takes for a team to complete a task.
For example, if a customer order takes only five hours to complete but the team needs six hours instead, it must adjust its schedule to meet the customer’s demand (take time).
Unlike lead time, which refers to meeting customer demand, lead time focuses on fulfilling an individual order.
Still not sure what the difference is between take time, cycle time, and execution time? Here is a useful summary for better understanding:
- Lead time = how long it generally takes to fulfill a customer’s demand
- Cycle time = how long it takes the team to complete an order or project
- Fulfillment time = how long it takes to fulfill a customer’s order
Frequently asked questions about taking time
My tick time and cycle time are the same, so everything is going well, right?
no The problem with this assumption is that everything has to go perfectly, which doesn’t happen in the real world. It is recommended that your takt time be between 5 and 17% longer than the cycle time.
There are many reasons for this. For example, does your company occasionally hold all-staff meetings or supervisor meetings during work hours? Do staff sometimes have personal issues that prevent them from working 100% at maximum efficiency? Is one of the devices experiencing temporary issues causing minor slowdowns, or perhaps down for a few hours for maintenance? Does time count for the occasional rework problem?
Give yourself time for the time-consuming problems of everyday processes and try to make your cycle time a little less than the takt time.
- My process produces in batches, so is the takt time the amount of time between batches?
When working in batches, you need to take the time between batches and divide it by the quantity in the batch to get the takt time, because the takt time is the time between individual pieces.
- My client wants a lot of things that need to be delivered immediately. How can I calculate the take time when the customer asked for it yesterday?
The customer may want things now, but there is an absolute time when they become angry, feel negative about the relationship, and end up looking for a new supplier. Even in today’s fast-paced world, an immediate production is rarely an option for some types of orders. You must use your judgment as well as social cues from your relationship with the customer to correctly set expectations for the actual delivery date when the customer does not provide an exact date.
- Is takt time what I should be using to measure office environments?
While the use of time is very common in manufacturing and construction, it is an equally valuable tool to use in the office environment. A key issue in using takt time in an office environment is how much time is used for each task, document, or service, which sometimes makes it difficult to know the actual amount of time available to use in the takt time formula.
Conclusion
Take time is an important criterion for manufacturers. As factories become more digital, takt will become easier to measure and track. More than ever, organizations can use tech time to improve their operations.
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