7QC tools, 6S, 4M, 3R, Poka Yoke, Kaizen, CAPPA, PPM, UPH, and cycle time are all important concepts in production engineering.

• 7QC tools are quality control tools used to identify and solve production...read more

There has been an interesting discussion thread on “Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) Experts” group on LinkedIn over the last few weeks on the differences between takt time and cycle time.

This is one of the fundamentals I’d have thought was well understood out there, along with some nuances, but I was quite surprised by the number (and “quality”) of misconceptions posted by people with “lean” and “Sigma” in their job titles.

I see two fundamental sources of confusion, and I would like to clarify each here.

“Cycle time” can mean the total elapsed time between when a customer places an order and when he receives it. This definition can be used externally, or with internal customers. This definition actually pre-dates most of the English publications about the Toyota Production System.

It can also express the dock-to-dock flow time of the entire process, or some other linear segment of the flow. The value stream mapping in Learning to See calls this “production lead time” but some people call the same thing “cycle time.”

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