How do you calculate takt time?
Short answer
Takt time is the net available production time divided by customer demand for the same period. Subtract breaks from the shift length, multiply by the number of shifts, convert to seconds and divide by daily demand. If takt is 80 seconds, one unit must be completed every 80 seconds to meet demand, and each work station's task time must fit inside it.
Takt time sets the pace of a line. It comes from demand, not from what the line can do: it is the interval at which a finished unit has to leave the line for the day's demand to be met.
What is the takt time formula?
Takt time = net available time per day × 60 ÷ demand per day, in seconds per unit, where net available time per day (in minutes) = (shift length − breaks) × shifts per day.
What does a worked example look like?
One 8-hour shift has 40 minutes of breaks, and customers need 330 units a day.
- Net available time = (480 − 40) × 1 = 440 minutes.
- Takt time = 440 × 60 ÷ 330 = 80 seconds per unit.
If the tasks add up to 410 seconds of work per unit, the theoretical minimum number of stations is 410 ÷ 80 = 5.1, rounded up to 6.
How do you check how good the balance is?
Assign tasks to stations in order, respecting which tasks must come before others, and make sure no station's total exceeds takt. Then:
- Line efficiency = total work content ÷ (number of stations × longest station time).
- Balance delay = 1 − line efficiency.
With 6 stations and a longest station of 78 seconds, efficiency is 410 ÷ (6 × 78) = 87.6% and balance delay is 12.4%.
What does takt time leave out?
It treats task times as fixed. Walking time between stations, changeovers and ergonomic limits are not part of the calculation, and a takt time is only as good as the demand figure behind it. When demand changes, recompute takt.
The assembly line balancing calculator computes takt time, checks each task's station against its predecessors and reports efficiency and balance delay.