Measuring Process Performance: Pacing
Measuring Process Performance: Pacing
Measuring Process Performance: Pacing
Pacing
Movement of items through a process is coordinated through a timing
mechanism.
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Productivity
A measure of how well resources are used. According to Goldratt’s
definition (see Chapter 23), all the actions that bring a company closer to
its goals.
Efficiency
A ratio of the actual output of a process relative to some standard. Also,
being ”efficient” means doing something at the lowest possible cost.
Run time
The time required to produce a batch of parts.
Setup time
The time required to prepare a machine to make a particular item.
Operation time
The sum of the setup time and run time for a batch of parts that are run
on a machine.
The cycle time (also defined earlier in this chapter) is the elapsed time
between starting and completing a job. Another related term is flow time.
Flow time includes the time the unit spends actually being worked on,
together with the time spent waiting in a queue. In practice, the term cycle
time is often used to mean flow time. It is important to carefully determine
how the term is being used in the context of the process being studied.
Flow time
The average time it takes a unit to move through an entire process.
As a simple example, consider a paced assembly line that has six
stations and runs with a cycle time of 30 seconds. If the stations are
located one right after another, and every 30 seconds parts move from
one station to the next, then the flow time is three minutes (30 seconds ×
6 stations/60 seconds per minute).
The throughput rate is the output rate that the process is expected to
produce over a period of time. The throughput rate of the assembly line is
120 units per hour (60 minutes/hour × 60 seconds/minute ÷ 30
seconds/unit). In this case, the throughput rate is the mathematical
inverse of the cycle time.
Throughput rate
The output rate that the process is expected to produce over a period of
time.
Often units are not worked on 100 percent of the time as they move
through a process. Because there often is some variability in the cycle
time of a process, buffers are incorporated in the process to allow
individual activities to operate independently, at least to some extent. In
the six-station assembly line just described, consider the impact of having
10 additional buffer positions along the line. Assume that two of these
positions are between the first and second workstations, two are between
stations 2 and 3, and so forth. If these positions are always occupied,
then the flow time would be eight minutes (assuming a total of 16
positions along the assembly line and an average cycle time of 30
seconds).
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Process velocity (also known as throughput ratio) is the ratio of the
value-added time to the flow time. Value-added time is the time in which
useful work is actually being done on the unit. Assuming that all of the
activities included in the process are value-added activities, value-added
time should be the sum of the activity operation times in the process. The
process velocity (or throughput ratio) for our assembly line with the 10
additional buffer positions, assuming the positions are used 100 percent
of the time, is 0.375 (3 minutes/8 minutes).
Value-added time
The time in which useful work is actually being done on the unit.