Takt time
Takt time is the rate at which a process must produce output to meet demand — calculated as available production time divided by customer demand in that time. If a team has 8 hours/day and customers demand 16 cases/day, takt time is 30 minutes per case. Cycle time below takt means the team is keeping pace; above takt means backlog grows.
Takt comes from Lean manufacturing (the German word for rhythm or beat) and translates directly to knowledge work. The discipline: every process step should know its takt and its actual cycle time. When cycle time exceeds takt for any step, that step is the constraint and the whole process throughput is limited by it. The remediation is Theory of Constraints: exploit the constraint (run it at maximum efficiency), subordinate other steps to it (don't pile work in front of it faster than it can drain), and elevate it (add capacity at the constraint specifically).
Related terms
- Cycle time
Cycle time is the elapsed time from when work starts on an item (first commit, status change to In Progress) to when it ships to users.
- Theory of constraints
Theory of constraints is Eli Goldratt's management methodology built on the observation that every system has one constraint (bottleneck) that limits its total throughput — and the only improvement that increases throughput is the one that elevates the constraint.
- Process bottleneck
A process bottleneck is the step in a workflow with the lowest throughput — the constraint that limits the entire process's output.