Also called takt, customer demand rate
What is takt time?
How often you must finish a part to keep up with what the customer is actually ordering.
What else it is called
- Other names
- takt, customer demand rate
- In French
- temps de cycle client
Related entries
Understanding takt time
Available production time divided by customer demand over the same period. The customer sets it, not your equipment. That is the difference from cycle time: cycle time is how fast you can go, takt time is how fast you have to go. The word is German, from the beat a conductor keeps, and it entered manufacturing through the German aircraft industry in the 1930s before Toyota adopted it.
The practical use is as a comparison. Measure the cycle time of every station, draw them as bars against a takt line, and the stations poking above the line are the only ones whose improvement changes your output. It is the cheapest diagnostic in lean manufacturing and most plants have never drawn it.
How it is calculated
Takt time = available production time ÷ customer demand over the same period
Available time means time the line is genuinely able to run: subtract breaks, scheduled meetings and planned maintenance, but not breakdowns or changeovers, which are problems to fix rather than time you never had.
In practice
One shift of 450 productive minutes against an order of 90 units gives a takt time of five minutes. If any station in the line runs longer than five minutes, that station decides your output and no amount of effort elsewhere changes it.
Frequently asked
Is takt time the same as cycle time?
No, and confusing the two is the commonest mistake in capacity planning. Takt time comes from the customer: it is how often you need to finish a part. Cycle time comes from your process: it is how often you actually do. A line is balanced when every station’s cycle time is at or just under takt time.
What happens if cycle time is faster than takt time?
You build faster than the customer wants, which creates finished goods inventory, ties up cash and hides problems. Running deliberately at takt rather than flat out is counter-intuitive on a floor measured by output, and it is the correct answer.
How often should takt time be recalculated?
Whenever demand moves enough to change the number materially - for most plants that is monthly, and quarterly at minimum. A takt time calculated against last year’s order book is a line balanced for a demand pattern that no longer exists.