With Takt time you get a smoother and more efficient production

What is Takt time?

Takt Time is the method that became known thanks to its use in Henry Ford’s mass production of the Model T car in the early 20th century. With Takt, you calculate the optimal pulse of production, so that processes and workstations are synchronized. In a  manufacturing production without Takt for example, delays can occur at certain assembly stations, which affects the next station in line. This domino effect increases the risk of long changeover, high production costs and leftover products.

Takt time is part of Just-In-Time (JIT), a philosophy that aims to produce and deliver goods in the exact quantity and time they are needed. With Takt, or so called station time, you can measure your productivity, identify all losses and focus on applying actions on the bottlenecks in the process.

How do you use Takt time? 

The production process is no better than the weakest link. In an unbalanced production flow, the so-called Bullwhip effect causes a lot of stress. In addition, people often tend to work relatively carelessly and unknowingly cause products with poor quality.

With a visible and clear Takt you improve the connection between the production and the employees, which in turn is better connected to the planning, the warehouse and the customer so that all parts contribute to the common whole. You can also save and analyze statistics for continuous improvement.

With a takt clock, a kind of display, the system shows the calculated speed for each task at each station in the production line. By visualizing the Takt time at workstations in real time, your operators do not work too fast (overproduction) and not too slow (causes delays).

With our graphic multi-color LED display BiDisp3, you get a production board that shows real-time results in the manufacturing facility. The board’s easy-to-understand key figures are simple to relate to, such as location, goals and stopping time. The production board is just one of our many smart solutions that motivate your employees, and that create visibility and balance between the task stations.

What are the advantages of Takt, compared to other systems?

Takt time balances and evens out the production flow. By implementing the Takt in your workflow, you can for example: 

• detect deviations
• optimize your capacity to meet customer demand
• make clear to everyone involved what is expected of them
• reduce costs by avoiding overproduction.

The method helps to remove bottlenecks that can occur during line production, and identifies the exact moment that causes a delay. In this way, steps that do not add value are eliminated – and both automated and manual processes are optimized through increased efficiency.

Basic conditions – important in order for Takt to be effective

According to Lean, basic conditions are needed to create stability in a production. In order to use Takt and other Lean principles in an effective way in your business, you need to apply the conditions correctly. These are:

• Standardization – agreeing that what is currently the best known work method in the organization should be used by all concerned. For example, it may be the best way to perform a particular task. The fact that everyone follows an agreed standard gives the business great advantages in terms of quality and efficiency.
• Leveling – is also very important for quality and efficiency in a work flow. Equalizing a flow essentially translates to planning so that the workload is as even as possible for the various resources. In this way, it is possible to move work between different time periods to create a more even workload.

The Lean principles Jidoka and Just-In-Time (JIT) form an improving whole

All parts of Lean are important for improving your production. Together, the principles form a whole where the components interact and give each other full effect. The two main principles Jidoka and Just-In-Time (JIT) have the following purposes.

• Jidoka – is divided into two methods; Built-in quality where the aim is to create conditions to do the right thing from start, to avoid e.g. follow-up quality control. This method contributes to increased predictability and a better ability to deliver on time. The second method is Stop in case of error, where the process is temporarily stopped in case of a detected error, or when the process can´t keep up. The goal is to find a long-term solution that prevents a particular deviation from happening again.
• Just-in-time (JIT) – Takt is part of JIT, which is about creating efficient flows. An efficient flow has a high proportion of value-creating time in relation to the lead time, and the flow can deliver the right number of products to the right quality with a high resource utilization. Through close reconciliations, Takt makes it easier to detect deviations and improve them.

No matter how great a business is, it can always get better

Constantly improving to approach perfection is a fundamental part of Lean. This means that no matter how great a business is, it can always get better.