Lean Six Sigma Academy

8 comments...What do you think?

1. Posted by Scott Williams 29th September, 2008 at 3:56 am

   Thanks for the great video and download. One question. How do you propose I handle things when I have different staffing levels on each shift? We run a small second shift where only a few machines run.

2. Posted by Brian Campbell 29th September, 2008 at 8:18 am

   Thanks for providing the free spreadsheet & video. In your sheet, I do not understand why “lunch time” is subtracted from “Available Time” to reach “Net working time”. Companies do not pay workers for lunch, so why is it figured into takt time?

3. Posted by Jon Miller 29th September, 2008 at 5:27 pm

   Hi Scott & Brian,

   Ron asked me to answer while he is lacks internet access.

   First, the staffing question. Takt time calculation never takes into account staffing or number of machines. It is purely net available time the shop is open for business divided by demand during that time. Takt time is the pace of production required to meet customer demand. The balance of workload on people or machine depends on how many of these resources you have.

   Second, lunch time is removed from available time to show that out of a 10 hour shift (when the shop is open, lights are on) the actual net time available is less. For automated lines or unmanned processes it may not be necessary to remove lunch and break times. If a machine takes a break (for planned maintenance for example) this time would be taken out of available time. Machines are never paid for their time.

   The bottom line is that takt time calculation is not based on manpower, pay rates or paid hours versus non-paid. It’s more of a question of when the operation is running, manned or umanned.

4. Posted by larry stevens 11th April, 2009 at 11:35 am

   Thank you for website like your’s . my question is we work 8.5 hours a day and your formula rounds of . Why is that?

5. Posted by SHEILA 13th May, 2009 at 9:13 pm

   Hi. I just have a follow up question regarding the staffing question raised by Scott…if as you say the spreadsheet that you had on the video does not take into accout the staffing or number of machines and its purely net available time the shop is open for business divided by demand during that time…how would we be able to calculate the staff needed to service that demand? and how would be calculate if the staff’s productivity that we have at present?

6. Posted by Magdy 17th June, 2009 at 2:19 am

   Thank you for this clear presentation. I have a question: if the customer demand is changed day to day or month to month, which value (minimum, maximum or average) of customer demand to be used when calculating takt time? and what is the period taken into consideration when determining customer demand (a day, a month, a year, ….) ?

7. Posted by Ron Pereira 17th June, 2009 at 7:12 am

   Good question Magdy and one that is pretty much impossible for me to answer without having a much better understanding of your business.

   With this said, you should know that some companies calculate takt and crew size at the cell level daily… others re-calculate takt and crew size weekly while others do it monthly.

   Things like the complexity of the task at hand (i.e. will equipment need to be moved if crew size changes to balance the work?) often dictate how often takt is re-calculated.

   Does this help?

8. Posted by How to Determine Cycle Time, Takt Time, Lead Time | Lean Six Sigma Academy 20th July, 2010 at 8:35 pm

   [...] calculate takt time think touchdown, or T/D, since we simply divide the net available time by the customer [...]

What do you think? Join the discussion...