Takt Time
Takt time aligns production with customer demand. It establishes the pace production needs to maintain in order to stay on schedule without overproducing.
In practical terms, takt time becomes much more valuable when it is visible on the plant floor. A real-time production target makes it easy to see if production is ahead of schedule, behind schedule, or right on schedule.
Vorne XL uses takt time to automatically calculate and display live Target, Actual, Efficiency, and Downtime (TAED) metrics so operators and supervisors can immediately see how production is performing throughout the shift.
Takt Time in Manufacturing
Matching production levels to customer demand reduces waste by preventing excess inventory while safeguarding against falling behind schedule. This creates a steadier, more efficient manufacturing process.
Why Calculate Takt Time?
Takt time paces production in a way that aligns it with customer demand. It is an important concept in lean manufacturing because it balances the importance of meeting customer demand with the importance of minimizing work-in-process and inventory.
Think of takt time as establishing the “rhythm” or “beat” of your manufacturing process. In fact, takt is a German word that means cadence, rhythm, time, measure, bar, or cycle.
In practical terms, takt time not only establishes the pace of production, it provides an easy way to see if production is ahead of schedule, behind schedule, or right on schedule. How? By using takt time to drive a real-time target for schedule adherence.
A very popular plant floor scoreboard display is:
- Target: how much should have been produced by now
- Actual: how many good parts have actually been produced
- Efficiency: actual production compared to target production
- Downtime: where production time is being lost
This is commonly referred to as TAED.
In practice, takt time is often used to match the pace of production to “normalized” customer demand (customer demand or estimated demand averaged over a longer period of time). Takt time is also an integral part of standardized work, as the whole idea is to establish a predictable and repeatable pace of production (i.e., standardized production).
Takt Time Formula
The formal calculation of takt time is:
Let's take this takt time formula apart briefly and then go into the full explanation below.
Production Time is the available manufacturing time where production is expected to be running.
Customer Demand is the quantity of parts that need to be manufactured over a specified period of time.
Takt Time is the amount of time available to manufacture one good part while keeping pace with customer demand.
Production Time
Production Time is the available time for manufacturing parts. It should only include time when production is expected to be running.
From the perspective of production states (Run, Unplanned Stop, Planned Stop, and Not Scheduled), Production Time only includes:
- Run
- Unplanned Stop
In other words, Production Time does not include any time where the line is expected to be stopped, such as:
- Lunches
- Breaks
- Changeovers
- Planned maintenance
Customer Demand
Customer Demand is the quantity of parts that need to be manufactured over a specified period of time to keep pace with customer orders.
In practice, many companies choose to base Customer Demand on their expected rate of production, where the “customer” is often an internal production requirement rather than an external customer order.
Takt Time
Takt Time is the amount of time needed to manufacture one good part while keeping pace with customer demand (e.g., one good part every 12.7 seconds).
Delving deeper, takt time represents a “normalized” production pace. Sadly, manufacturing processes do not have a magic dial that can be arbitrarily adjusted every day based on customer demand.
Instead, takt time represents what the production process needs to achieve in order to meet customer demand over some “normalized” period of time.
Takt Time Calculation Example
Now that we have established some of the key concepts, let's work a calculation example.
The first step is calculating Production Time.
If the shift is 8 hours with:
- One 10-minute break
- One 20-minute lunch
and there are no other planned stops, then production time is 450 minutes (8 hours x 60 minutes per hour – 10-minute break – 20-minute lunch).
Next, calculate Customer Demand.
Our recommended approach is to pick a longer time horizon, such as one week or one month, and then translate that down to one shift.
For example, if customer demand is 17,500 parts per week and production runs one shift per weekday, customer demand becomes 3,500 parts per shift (17,500 parts per week / 5 shifts).
The final step is calculating takt time:
450 minutes / 3,500 parts = 0.1286 minutes per part
Or approximately: 7.72 seconds per part
This means production needs to complete one good part every 7.72 seconds in order to stay on pace with customer demand.
How to Use Takt Time
Takt time is the most powerful when it’s extremely visible and directly tied to concrete actions on the plant floor.
Here are three practical ways manufacturers use takt time in production environments:
- 1. Improve Production Planning
- 2. Pace Production to Schedules
- 3. Use Efficiency to Win the Shift
1. Improve Production Planning
Customer demand is rarely steady. Manufacturing performance is also rarely steady. They both tend to fluctuate.
When scheduling production, use historical manufacturing information to validate whether the calculated takt time is actually attainable. Historical takt analysis helps identify whether production standards are realistic before the shift even begins.
Using historical information when creating the production plan gives you an opportunity to amend your production standards to ensure that the plan is met without:
- Missed shipment dates
- Unplanned overtime
- Overproduction of parts
- Excess work-in-process inventory
In other words: happy customers, happy supervisors, and happy plant managers.
Make everyone happy with takt time!
2. Pace Production to Schedules
Use takt time to drive a real-time plant floor scoreboard.
Each time the takt time elapses the target counter increments. Converting takt time into the real-time Target count makes it easy to instantly see whether production is ahead of schedule, behind schedule, or right on schedule.
If production of good parts falls behind the real-time target, operators and supervisors can respond immediately instead of discovering the problem after the shift is already over.
If production is considerably ahead of the target, manufacturers may choose to redirect time toward activities such as:
- 5S
- Cleaning
- Preventative maintenance
- Changeover preparation
3. Use Efficiency to Win the Shift
Efficiency is calculated as:
Sometimes manufacturers intentionally run slower than their ideal cycle time. This can negatively impact Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), while still allowing production to stay on pace with customer demand.
Rather than focusing operators on OEE, many manufacturers focus operators on efficiency: the ratio of Actual production to Target production.
This creates a simple goal for the shift:
- Stay on pace
- Recover quickly from downtime
- Finish at or above target
Use takt time to align your rate of production to customer demand. It is an excellent tool for hitting the sweet spot of meeting customer demand without overproducing (without creating excess work-in-process and inventory).
Specifically, use takt time to drive real-time manufacturing targets for your plant floor team. In practical terms, this helps operators “win the shift.”
TAED Displays: Turning Takt Time Into Action
TAED stands for:
- Target
- Actual
- Efficiency
- Downtime
TAED makes reaching plant-floor goals possible by making them visible.
In contrast to a manually updated whiteboard or a simple pace timer, XL continuously updates production targets and actual counts in real time. This creates a live production scoreboard that helps operators understand exactly how production is performing against expectations.
- Target shows where production should be right now.
- Actual shows how many good parts have been produced.
- Efficiency compares actual production to target production.
- Downtime highlights where production time is being lost.
This creates a simple but powerful visual management system that helps teams stay focused on pace throughout the shift.
Takt Time Tool Comparison Chart
The chart below compares takt time tools and highlights why the Vorne XL Productivity Appliance™ excels at takt time applications. We like to think of XL as the ultimate takt time tool!
| Advantage | Takt Board | Takt Timer | Vorne XL Productivity Appliance™ |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  | |
| Affordable | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Highly Visible | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Engages Operators | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Automates Data Capture | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Real-Time Information | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Historical Analytics | ✔ | ||
| Browser-Based Reports | ✔ | ||
| Multiple KPIs | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Takt Count Down | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Converts Takt to Target | ✔ | ||
| Takt Overage | ✔ | ||
| Takt Compliance | ✔ | ||
| Takt Efficiency | ✔ | ||
| Count Metrics | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Rate Metrics | ✔ | ||
| Cycle Metrics | ✔ | ||
| Production Time Metrics | ✔ | ||
| OEE Metrics | ✔ | ||
| Six Big Loss Metrics | ✔ | ||
| TEEP/Capacity Metrics | ✔ | ||
| Target Metrics | ✔ | ✔ |
Start a Free Takt Time Trial Today
The Vorne XL Productivity Appliance™ captures production data automatically and turns takt time into live, operator-owned targets – so your team can win the shift.
With XL you can easily:
- Convert takt time into real-time Target vs. Actual on the plant floor
- Track Efficiency live and escalate Downtime the moment it occurs
- Gain instant access to 140+ real-time and historical metrics including OEE, Six Big Losses, Downtime, Labor Efficiency, and TEEP
- Empower operators to “win the shift” with an integrated real-time scoreboard
- Provide immediate insights for supervisors and managers with 50+ out-of-the-box reports
- Curate the exact information you want, formatted the exact way you want it, with an unlimited number of custom dashboards
- Push alerts and email reports to key individuals to deliver the information they need when they need it
- Escalate alerts to proactively call attention to emerging issues
- Visualize all your production lines in a single view
- Improve your OEE score by seeing it from a perspective that transforms OEE from a benchmark to a family of actionable metrics
- Add context to any production events with integrated comments
Our most popular model is $4,690 and includes unlimited users, unlimited reports, free software updates, free technical support, and an industry-leading 3-year warranty. There are over 42,000 XL installations across 45+ countries, and we encourage you to start with a free 90-day trial.
Book a one-on-one webinar, and one of our product experts will be happy to explore the specifics of your application.
Already have XL? View the newest XL features for more information about what you can accomplish with Vorne XL as your production tracking system.
