Takt is a German word for the baton used by maestros. Just as musicians must be synchronized with the conductor, the rate of production within an organization must be synchronized with the rate of its delivery.

In a nutshell, takt time is a theoretical figure that indicates how much time is needed to finish one product. The goal is to precisely define takt time to meet customer demand, and then run the production line to meet that takt time.

Once takt time is defined, the processes of the entire organization should be adjusted to keep up with it. If any process exceeds the takt time, there will be shortage of product, if it is faster than takt time, there will be product surplus.

A simple way to find takt time is to divide the total production time by the number of units required by the customer. This can be expressed in seconds, minutes, or hours per produced item, depending on production speed. To achieve the ideal takt time, it is important to take into account all the irregularities that are part of each step of a process.

References

Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Low-Cost Approach to Management, by Masaaki Imai (McGraw-Hill, 1997)

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