Takt time is defined as the rate at which production must occur to keep up with customer demand. How is it calculated?

Takt time is defined as the rate at which production must occur to keep up with customer demand. How is it calculated?

• A. Available production time per day divided by customer demand per day
• B. Time to assemble one unit
• C. Available production time per day divided by orders per day
• D. Customer demand per day divided by available production time per day

Answer: (A)

Takt time is the pace you must produce at to meet customer demand; it tells you how long each unit should take on average. It’s found by dividing the total production time available in a period by the number of units the customer requires in that period. For example, if you have 480 minutes of production time in a day and customers need 240 units, takt time is 480 divided by 240, which equals 2 minutes per unit. This isn’t the same as the time to assemble one unit (cycle time), which is how long a single unit takes to complete and can vary. Nor is it simply dividing available time by the number of orders, since orders may include multiple units and the aim is the total units demanded. And reversing the ratio to demand divided by available time would give units per minute, not the time per unit, which isn’t takt time.

Takt time is the pace you must produce at to meet customer demand; it tells you how long each unit should take on average. It’s found by dividing the total production time available in a period by the number of units the customer requires in that period. For example, if you have 480 minutes of production time in a day and customers need 240 units, takt time is 480 divided by 240, which equals 2 minutes per unit.

This isn’t the same as the time to assemble one unit (cycle time), which is how long a single unit takes to complete and can vary. Nor is it simply dividing available time by the number of orders, since orders may include multiple units and the aim is the total units demanded. And reversing the ratio to demand divided by available time would give units per minute, not the time per unit, which isn’t takt time.