【Improved!】Cycle Time Measuring Excel Tool: Measure multiple operators simultaneously.
Many viewers gave me comments and suggestions about the Cycle Time and Production Leveling template. So now, A new improved Cycle Time Measuring Tool template has been released! Since some issues have been fixed and an improvement to expand its application has been added, I would like to introduce those points today.
(Duration: 5:52)
DOWNLOAD ← Click this to download the “Cycle Time Measuring and Heijunka Tool v2” template file.
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New Cycle Time Measuring Tool and Production Leveling Tool Template
Hi, this is Mike Negami, Lean Sigma Black Belt.
More than a year ago, I published a video and template about Cycle Time and Production Leveling. Many viewers gave me comments and suggestions about the template. I really appreciate it.
So now, I’ve improved the Cycle Time Measuring Tool template. Since some issues have been fixed and an improvement to expand its application has been added, I would like to introduce those points today. If you haven’t watched the previous video, please click on the link above and learn the basics of Cycle Time and Production Leveling first.
＜＜ Related Posts ＞＞
The image above is the last version of the template’s screenshot. Due to the design layout, it couldn’t be used for a process with more than 10 steps. In addition, I received many requests for a function that could increase the number of attempts. Therefore, I changed the layout like below so that you can increase the numbers of both steps and attempts as many as you need.
The image below is the new template’s instructions. Click on the yellow cell (Cell B17) saying ‘Add More Steps’ in the instructions, then Excel will ask you how many steps you need. Let’s say, enter 15 and click ‘OK’, then additional necessary steps will be automatically added. Type the names of your process steps in this row. You can increase the number of attempts as well with the next ‘Add More Attempts’ button (Cell C17). Also, as you are measuring, when the remaining lines become fewer, Excel automatically adds lines. It’s very convenient.
In the previous version, you could measure only operation times. However, I’ve received requests to be able to record completion times. So now you can select “Operation Duration” or “Completion Time” for the recording format (Cell B23). When you choose “Completion Time”, completion times will be recorded.
The Multiple Operators Simultaneous Recording Function
The following is a major improvement. In the last version, you could measure your process time linearly, but it is more useful if you can simultaneously measure multiple operators or process lines and compare their results easily. Now you can do that in the new version. Let’s look at a completed chart first.
The horizontal axis represents the Operators and the vertical axis represents the Operation Time. The lengths of the bar colors represent the completion times of each step. With this, we can intuitively understand how much time differences there are between operators and process steps.
Let’s try making one right now. ‘Multiple Simultaneous Measurement’ has been added to the measuring method option (Cell B20: See in the instruction image above). Select it. For the recording format, I’ll select “Operation Duration” (Cell B23).
With the other measuring method, we just have ‘Attempt 1′, Attempt 2’ (See the image below). For this method, this column is for operators or process lines. You may want to put their names there.
When the 1st operator starts their process step, double-click on the operator’s line in the table. Then, the start time will be recorded here and you’ll see an orange highlight line. As you click a cell in the table, the highlight moves accordingly. When another operator starts their 1st process step, select the operator and click the “Next” button (Cell D34), then his start time appears. Therefore, the times in the 1st column are all of their start times.
After that, when an operator finishes each process step, select the operator and click the “Next” button to record the time. Repeat this until all operators have completed all the steps. Then you can click the “Stop Recording” button (Cell D36).
With this measuring method, you can also choose ‘Completion Time’ here. The image below is the result of using “Completion Time”. It is suitable for improving an operation that has specific work schedule times.
In order to prepare for the next round of measuring, you can delete the previous data manually, or click this ‘Save and Clear’ button (Cell B39) to copy the sheet and prepare for the next session.
This improved version is very useful and I use this tool to measure my customers’ waiting times in my work. This also seems to work well for race competitions and games. Please share with us what kind of measurements you used this tool for in the comments section.
