Cycle Time Metrics

Hi, According to me for the current situation on controlling the waste in the process the first pass yield and throughtput yield studies of process is good.

This studies will give clear picture about of cost of poor quality in the process and this will be the fundamental/basic step in order to start any project.

If i understand correctly falling behind in your queries suggests that there is a cut off/ target timeframe within which the waste has to be processed. If that’s a case then in that case you can use %age of Waste processed before cut off as a metric which will be a reflection of cycle time in Discrete form

@MBBinWI At Motorola we had the famous 6up charts that reported 5 metrics per month on each product and/or process that was being reported (one square was empty). I can’t imagine why you would create some obtuse metric driven by nothing more than the desire to have only one metric.

Just my opinion.

@ColinMcNicholl MBBinWI Lets start with “Second I believe it is better to have just one or two metrics for a team to focus on. More than that may suggest there has not been enough work done on the Voice of the customer to determine what is really important.”

Why do you believe that? I may be a little off on this but what customer cares about how fast and how much waste you process? That sounds a lot like an internal customer or Voice of the business (those always sound like such inane terms). Who outside you business cares about these metrics?

Mike,
Outside the business the customer who returns the waste cares because for larger cylinders the customer does not receive final verification of who much his bill will be (or credit) depending on the confirmed quantity and condition of the waste after it has been transported to the processing site and then gone through initial process steps. The customer will also care (or at least should) regardless of size of cylinder because under the waste regulations the waste producer (often the customer) cannot pass on responsibility. In other words the customer should be getting verification that the waste has indeed reached its final destination and been appropriately dealt with. In addition the waste enforcement authorities should care that the company it has issued a licence to is eg not loosing the waste in transit and not looking like it cannot cope with the waste processing and therefore for example building up a mountain of waste that may get the neighbours concerned.

Sriram,

Value stream mapping exercise has been undertaken. One of outputs is it shows how much the overall cycle time is made up of non-value added waiting (WIP between major process steps) and how little of the cycle time is actually hands on the waste doing something with it.

Regards,

Colin.