The second input to takt time is customer demand for the same period you used for available time. If available time is per day, demand must be per day. Most order books do not arrive in neat daily lumps, so you have to convert. A weekly order quantity divided by the number of working days in that week gives a daily demand figure.
Use the demand the customer actually needs, not what the line produced last month and not what sales hopes to sell. Demand is a requirement coming from outside the plant. Overproducing to a bigger number ties up cash in finished chairs sitting in a warehouse. Underproducing to a smaller number means late shipments. Both are failures of pacing.
Demand moves, so pick a planning horizon that fits your business. Many plants set takt from the average daily demand over the coming two to four weeks and review it when the forecast shifts by more than about 10 percent. Short spikes can be handled with a small finished-goods buffer; sustained changes call for a new takt, which Lesson 5 covers.
Standard Procedure
- 1Collect confirmed customer orders or the agreed forecast for the planning period.
- 2Count the working days (or shifts) in that period.
- 3Divide total demand by working days to get demand per day.
- 4Check whether any day in the period is shorter than normal and adjust if needed.
Lesson Summary
- ✓Demand per day = total customer demand ÷ working days in the period.
- ✓Base takt on what customers require, not on historical output or sales targets.