Process Excellence Network http://tiny.cc/tpkd0

1. What is Takt Time?
Takt time is the maximum amount of time in which a product
needs to be produced in order to satisfy customer demand.
The term comes from the German word “Takt,” which
means “pulse.” Set by customer demand, Takt creates the
pulse or rhythm across all processes in a business to
ensure continuous flow and utilization of capacities (e.g.,
man and machine).
Why Do We Need Takt Time?
Takt time is more than a metric of time — it’s a whole different way of thinking for running
your operations.
First, Takt ensures that all the capacity in a business is planned and utilized and still
meets overall customer demand. By and large, Takt will help to deliver the right product
(RP) at the right time (RT) in the right quantity (RQ) to the customer. You can achieve
RP, RT, and RQ without implementing Takt; however, this could lead to much waste of
man and machine.
Second, Takt creates a constant pulse across your processes, which will immediately
highlight capacity issues, synchronization issues among processes, quality issues and
many others.
How to Calculate Takt Time:
Takt Time = Production Time Available
Customer Demand
Where production time available = total production time – breaks – maintenance
activities – shift changeover – clean down time and Customer demand = amount of units
required by customer/ time period
Calculation Example:
Total Time: 8 Hours X 60 Minutes = 480 Minutes
Breaks: 50 Minutes
Time Available: 430 Minutes
Customer Demand in 8 Hours: 100 Pcs
Takt Time: 430 / 100 = 4.3 Minutes = 258 Seconds
This example shows that the customer will need one pcs every 258 seconds. However,
you might like to produce a single pcs in little less than 258 seconds in order to
accommodate any variation in process steps, breakdowns, quality issues, etc. It’s
therefore essential that before you implement Takt, you ensure that your processes are
dependable and can deliver good quality, and that your machine has a very high uptime.

2. How to Implement Takt Time
Takt has an easy formula, but it’s one of the most difficult to implement in the Lean
world.
You can start implementing Takt time by first measuring individual cycle times. Insert this
data into the formula in order to calculate Takt time.
To begin aligning your process to the Takt time, start dividing the work that goes into the
process into value adding and non-value adding activity.
Eliminate
the non-
value
adding
time and
balance
the
workload
of the
operators.
Bring the individual cycle
times closer to the Takt
time. Keep the line
balanced. In this case you
will need fewer operators.

3. A Real Life Takt Time
Consider the process of a water delivery system.
The overall demand of water consumption is set by the homes that consume the water
over 24 hours. However, the homes’ occupants do not consume the same amount of
water across the 24 hours: There is a huge peak in consumption in the morning,
afternoon and late evening, but for the rest of the day consumption is very low.
However, the city water treatment plant cannot operate only when water consumption
peaks, as the plant risks wasting much of its capacity. Therefore, the plant designs its
capacity by looking at the consumers’ daily water consumption in liters per hour and also
by considering seasonal fluctuations and the potential increase in consumption over the
years to come.
Based on this data, the plant calculates what the demand is every hour and adds a little
buffer to address fluctuations, breakdowns, leakages, etc. The water treatment plant
operates based on this demand rate so that each process step must deliver the same
amount of water in that period.
If some process is not able to deliver at the same rate, then either the plant needs to add
more capacity or run that process for a longer time. The reservoir in between the plant
and the homes (shown in the figure below) will smooth the impact of demand on the
production process. The reservoir will also help with capacity issues related to the fact
that as the water treatment plant is delivering water at a constant rate, consumption
remains variable over the course of the day.

4. Now the trade-off is between the cost advantage to run the power plant at the same run
rate across the day and the cost of the reservoir. There is no one answer in the real
world. Depending on your cost structure of man, machine and material, you must define
how smoothly you can run your processes across the day, week or month, versus the
inventory you may need to be able to adjust to customer demand variation. On the other
hand, inventory is evil in the Lean world, but you have to look at total cost versus
individual costs.
About Pankaj Aggarwal
Pankaj Aggarwal is the Regional Director for telecommunications giant
Indus Towers. He has nearly two decades of experience working in
Operations, Operational excellence and Supply Chain Management
roles.
Prior to Indus Towers, Pankaj worked for Lufthansa, Delphi Automotive,
General Electric, Suzuki Motors, KPMG Peat Marwick, and Tata Engineering. While
working for these companies he gained experience in the automotive industry, research
and development, manufacturing operations, consultancy, quality management, supplier
development, and auditing. He has worked with more than 300 companies of various
types in various capacities.
Aggarwal is a mechanical engineer and has an MBA in Finance and Marketing. In
addition, he is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, DFSS Master, Shainin
Journeyman, Certified auditor for QS 9000/ ISO 9000 and Lean Leader.
I invite you to join as a member of the PEX Network Group http://tinyurl.com/3hwakem,
you will have access to Key Leaders Globally, Events, Webinars, Presentations, Articles,
Case Studies, Blog Discussions, White Papers, and Tools and Templates. To access
this free content please take 2 minutes for a 1 time FREE registration at
http://tiny.cc/tpkd0
PEX Network, a division of IQPC, facilitates access to a wealth of relevant content for
Process Excellence, Lean, and Six Sigma practitioners. Further enhanced with an online
community of your peers, we will provide you with the tools and resources to help you
perform more effective and efficiently, while enhancing the quality operations within your
organization. As our industry becomes more and more dependent on the Web for
information, PEXNetwork.com has been developed to provide Six Sigma professionals
with instant access to information. Leveraging our strength and foundation in education,
IQPC and the Process Excellence Network are uniquely positioned to provide a
comprehensive library of webcasts gathered from our events, as well as exclusive
content from leaders in the industry.