Capturing Work Stoppages in a Work Cell: Tracking Cycle Times and Defining Benchmark Times in Manufacturing

Today, I thought I would revisit a project I ran a little over a year ago with a small manufacturer here in Montreal. When I first started adding YouTube videos to my site, I did a video about this very same project. However, I didn’t give it the attention it deserved. More importantly, I failed to explain and outline three simple steps to defining your benchmark cycle time in a given work cell, work station or across your entire shop floor. Next, you track your variances against that ideal time.

Three Steps to Tracking Cycle Time Variances

The ultimate goal of this exercise is to define the ideal cycle time, one with no downtime, no work stoppages and no flaws. Analyzing these times in person is critical. That goes for whether you manage your shop floor with manual processes like time sheets or excel sheets, or whether you have a real-time data tracking software like an MRP.

One of the issues I see with manufacturers using an MRP system is that they take the data emerging from their system as gospel. They don’t question it and rarely take the time to understand the data itself. In this case, there is no system that can tell you what your cycle times should be. All they can do is report on what they are right now. It’s merely a tool and no tool can think for itself the way you can. It can't tell you how to lower your times or what those ideal times should be. You need to do that for yourself.

Simply put: Identify your benchmark cycle times and then track the variances against that time within your software.

 

This video and graph above is taken from the post: Cycle Time Tracking & Variance Analysis in Excel for Small Manufacturers

The video above outlines three critical aspects of cycle time analysis. It explains how the times are gathered, what is included in the times and the importance of tracking cycle times with multiple operators over different shifts in order to define an ideal time.

Next, it explains why simply relying upon an average as a benchmark does nothing more than lower the bar in manufacturing – not raise it. Finally, it explains the importance of putting these values into a graph and analyzing results.

Ultimately, the goal is for you to question why your cycle times are what they are. You want to know why you have higher than normal times. Most importantly, you want to track the incidence of these times, their causes and how best to remove them as going concerns. 

If you want to a sample excel sheet, like the one above, where you can track the causes of work stoppages, then please go to the following article: Small Manufacturer’s Sample Excel Sheet for Cycle Time Analysis