Cycle Time Bar Chart

Use the Cycle Time Bar Chart to compare the cycle times for multiple operations. This analysis is useful when trying to balance either a cell or a sequential series of process steps. It highlights excessive wait times.

The Cycle Time Bar Chart answers the following questions.

Which operations are more heavily loaded?
How much slack is available in the under-loaded operations?

How-to

This form uses the operation names and cycle times from a process map.

Record your objective.
To create a chart, select existing activities to populate the table. You can enter new cycle times in the form to see dynamic changes to the chart, but note that this will also change the cycle times in the process map.
Record your conclusions.

For more information, go to Add and complete a form.

Additional guidelines

If you have multiple work stations for a single process step, enter the cycle time on the process map as the cycle time divided by the number of stations. For example, suppose that the drilling process step has 4 machines, and the cycle time for one machine is 2 minutes, then the cycle time for that process step is 30 seconds.

To complete a line balance of a proposed cell, you must first create a process map with those steps. You can place shapes without connectors or logic and then enter names and cycle times.