Lean Manufacturing: Cycle Time Analysis, Variance Tracking & Eliminating Work Stoppages

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The following video is a summary of a project that was run for a small manufacturer were we analyzed their production throughput, performed cycle time analysis and review while also tracking the variances in those cycle times. We use three methods to calculate average in cycle time analysis for this and other projects. These three are the mean, the mode and the median.

The video explains how to calculate manufacturing cycle time averages in these three aforementioned ways. The mean is the one we always associate as average. This simply involves taking all the cycle times in a given sample portion and dividing it by the number of operations or cycle times captured.

The next method of the mode manufacturing cycle time which is simply the cycle time that appears most frequently during the sample portion. Ultimately, the mode is often the one where the work stoppages and downtime are not a factor. As such, it's often the best benchmark for cycle time analysis.

Finally, the median involves re-configuring all the times from lowest to highest and using the following calculation to identify the average time: Median { ( N + 1 ) / 2 } where N is the number of operations. In this case, it's 10 +1 = 11 divided by 2 which is 5.5. Therefore, we isolate the cycle time in-between the 5th and 6th time.

Finally, all of these cycle times are placed on a graph in order to identify the variances in cycle times and high and low points. The idea is to isolate the root causes of high and low cycle times while putting a plan in motion to eliminate causes of work stoppages.

For access to the excel spreadsheet where this example comes from, please click on the link below.

http://www.driveyoursuccess.com/2012/...