Cycle Time

Cycle time is the total time from the beginning to the end of your process, as defined by you and your customer. Cycle time includes process time, during which a unit is acted upon to bring it closer to an output, and delay time, during which a unit of work is spent waiting to take the next action.

In a nutshell – Cycle Time is the total elapsed time to move a unit of work from the beginning to the end of a physical process. (Note, Cycle Time is not the same as Lead Time).