When working on a project, you need to track for estimating the exact rate of manufacturing of the products. Being a project manager, you should know everything to avoid the problem and manage the resources and production rate.
Most business companies have been using different methods to deal with resource and product proportion. Takt Time is also one of those effective methods that can keep track of the quantity of the resource you will be using in how much time. In simple words, you need to get an idea of demand and the exact time to reach that demand on time.
A complete guide on what is Takt Time?
To meet the customer's product demand on time, you need to know about what is Takt Time and how does it help you as a project manager manage all the things by estimating them before time.
What is Takt Time?
Takt Time is a method of measuring the rate of manufacturing of products on the customer's demand. It demands you to be good at observational and analytical skills to have an idea of customers' demand for your product. If you get an order of 400 products each after 8 hours, you need to work on that rate to meet the demand before the next 8 hours.
The word Takt is a German word that means rhythmic or beating. So, the contextual meaning also reflects the essence of the word Takt. You need to be in rhythm means in continuous sequence and organization to meet the accurate results per the customer demand. So, before you start working on it, you need to know what Takt Time is actually and how much it is beneficial.
Toyota Used the Takt Time method and created a live example.
In the 1930s, a German airplane manufacturing company used the Takt Time method. Toyota is a vehicle manufacturing company that also used this method to meet customers' demand after a few years later. It proved that nothing is worthless if you do it wisely and manage the time. Now, we see vehicles of Toyota n every road of almost every country. It all happened that they recognized the demand for the product and found out ways to supply it all over the world.
Steps to calculate Takt Time
When you have come to know what is Takt Time and how much important it is, by considering the example of the world's most famous vehicle company, you need to learn the ways of calculating Takt Time. Takt Time is not a single-step process. If you keenly observe its essence, you need to divide it into three basic purpose steps to get the actual Takt Time value. So, here we go with the ratio of available production time and customers' demand.
Takt Time = Manufacturing time of products/customer demand
This relationship shows that a product manager can find out Takt time if he identifies and grabs out the customer demand by taking the survey and knowing the reviews of customers about the product you are selling.
Here are the steps needed to follow for calculating the exact Takt Time.
The manufacturing time of the product
This is the starter of working on the product manufacturing that needs to be planned in the sense of time and workers required to meet the demand of customers. The production time is not too much linear as it seems.
Suppose you are dealing in the manufacturing of garments and working for 8 hours per day in the factory using the machines and workers.
It is an approximate time to measure but not exact as there will be a lunch break of one or more than an hour or during a meeting. It would help if you subtracted this extra time from the total available production time.
According to this, the rough time you are considering is 8×60=480 minutes. The machines and the workers will not be consuming these 480 minutes, but some minutes or hours will be free during break time, maintenance, or availability of staff.
Here, you need to count the hours and minutes when the manufacturing plant will not be working during these 480 minutes. Like if you take a break of half an hour and daily machinery maintenance time is 30 minutes and 30 minutes, respectively, then the total product available production time will be 480-60=420 minutes.
So, to calculate the exact product rate, you need to understand what is Takt Time and how to follow its step to get efficient results.
Customers' demand
The second step that leads to what is Takt Time is the customers' demand. Customers' demand refers to product availability for the customer on a daily basis. It defines how much your product customers are using daily and how much you need to produce to avoid problems in the sales chain. The customer demand needs
Market survey
Check records of previous sales
Look into the more orders when the product is unavailable or out of stock
Suppose, the product demand is about 200 dresses each day that you have to complete each working day (420 minutes). These working hours are required for an efficient production rate to meet the customer demand.
Takt Time calculation
Takt Time = Required product manufacturing time
Customers’ demand
Takt Time = Required product manufacturing time (480 minutes) = 8 pieces each minute
Customers’ demand 60
So, your Takt Time will be 8 pieces of garment each minute if you want to achieve the target. You will do arrange the resources, machinery, and workers on the required demand of workload and target to be achieved on time. Being a project manager, you need to be calculative if you want to make good products and do not want to get your boss annoyed in the end.
Why do we know what Takt Times is?
A project manager needs to know what is Takt Time and what is its purpose. By knowing this he will be able to know the actual function of the Takt Time. The prominent purposes to get knowledge to know all about what is Takt Time are explained below.
To estimate the capacity of product manufacturing
Being calculative does not mean that you compromise on the quality of the product. If you just focus on the number of products that you will be producing you won't be able to maintain the quality and customer satisfaction is on the stack now. But Takt Time helps you to even estimate the quality production capacity with maximum numbers.
To estimate product time
You can also get to know the production time by Takt Time. By doing this you can easily estimate how many employees you need to meet the customer demand and satisfaction level.
To identify and filter the bottleneck
The third and last important purpose of learning what is Takt Time is to identify e bottleneck means you will highlight the tasks or things that are threatening your working speed and time. You can identify and filter them through proper working. Otherwise, these bottlenecks will make you disturb all the time and keep you away from the actual target.
Benefits of knowing what is Takt Time and its implementation
Like cycle time and other project management methods, this project management method is quality and product worthy with a lot of benefits some of which explain in detail below.
Enhance the production efficiency
Takt Time method of production management helps you to define your goal by going through different processes and letting them arrange in sequence. This helps you to identify the customer demand, plan the strategies, and execute each step mannerly You would be able to catch the desired and efficient results by focusing on the areas where you need more improvement.
Better time management
To get your goal and make the mission successful you need to manage time in a better way and it happens in Takt Time methodology. Time management helps you to reach the goal of product manufacturing before reaching time.
Removal of waste
Every step of Takt Time methodology is to get rid of extra and unnecessary tasks like during product manufacturing. The production rate disturbs the production rate that restricts to reach of the goal of a number of products and also the quality. When a product manager is not looking at the factors causing hurdles in the production rate, it will keep you away from the actual point. Takt time will help you to identify the bottleneck of you and your team and do needful to get rid of those bottlenecks.
Conclusion
Dealing with the projects needs a lot of care and a series of steps to reach the goals of product manufacturing. The production rate only can be enhanced when you are keeping a record of each step, arranging the strategies needed, and leaving things that are causing hurdles during working time. x
