ABSTRACT
In Chapter 4, we learned about the standardized work chart (SWC) and how it can help us better understand the relationship between the geographic layout of the process steps and the impact that this can have upon the various work components as well as our customer’s requirements. During this time, it was also necessary to learn about how a standard time, whether takt time (TT) or desired cycle time (DCT), was necessary to use as a basis for comparison in order to determine if we were indeed making progress in our continuous improvement efforts. It is entirely possible that some of our improvement ideas could actually 60make things worse, so the standard time is used to serve as a point of reference to not only reduce variation but also serve as our basis for evaluating whether we are improving or not. We also discovered that in order to measure the observed cycle times (OCTs), the two basic types of stopwatches both had methods that would allow us to use their capabilities for our improvement efforts.
