Learning Center

Lean & Six Sigma tools for the plant floor.

Interactive guides for plant managers and CI engineers. From takt time fundamentals to QRQC implementation — built to complement what TaktClock shows you on the floor.

Lean Fundamentals

Core concepts

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Lean

What Is Takt Time? A Plant Floor Definition

Takt time is not a pace target — it's the maximum time available per unit to meet customer demand. Most plants confuse it with cycle time. Here's the difference and why it matters.

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Lean

Building a Yamazumi Chart from Real Data

A Yamazumi chart is only as useful as the data behind it. This guide covers how to build one from actual session times — not estimates from a time study conducted months ago.

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Lean

Theory of Constraints on the Assembly Line

TOC applied to discrete manufacturing. How to identify your constraint, exploit it, and subordinate everything else — using real-time data instead of assumptions.

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Lean

Standard Work: Writing It for Subprocesses

Standard work documentation at the subprocess level — the format that connects to TaktClock's subprocess standard hours for accurate takt tracking.

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Lean

Schedule Adherence vs. Hour Adherence: What Each Measures

Two metrics that sound similar but measure different failure modes. Understanding the difference tells you whether your problem is pace or planning.

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Lean

Line Balancing: Moving Work Between Operators

How to use Yamazumi data to rebalance a production line — which tasks to move, how much to expect, and how to validate the improvement.

CI Tools & Methods

Improvement tools

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Tool

SMED: Reducing Changeover Time in 5 Steps

Single Minute Exchange of Die methodology adapted for complex assembly environments. How to classify, externalize, and eliminate changeover steps.

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Tool

Kaizen Events That Stick: A Practical Framework

Most Kaizen events produce a great week and no lasting change. This guide covers pre-work, execution, and follow-up that connects to production data.

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Andon

Andon Systems: Principles and Digital Implementation

Andon is a signal, not just a cord. How the stop-at-first-defect philosophy translates to takt-based alerting in a digital monitoring system.

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Tool

Downtime Pareto: Categorizing and Prioritizing Loss

How to set up a downtime categorization system that gives you actionable data, not just hours lost. Which categories matter most and how to prioritize.

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Tool

Skills Matrix: Building Cross-Training Flexibility

A skills matrix that connects to your takt data — so when a bottleneck appears, you know in seconds which operators can cover it.

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Tool

Shift Handover: Structured Information Transfer

What gets lost between shifts and how a structured handover process prevents the incoming supervisor from starting blind.

Quality & Response

Quality tools

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QRQC

QRQC: Quick Response Quality Control on the Line

Stop at the first deviation. Investigate immediately. Close the loop before the shift ends. How QRQC connects to takt monitoring for real-time response.

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Six Sigma

Process Capability: Cp, Cpk, and What They Actually Mean

Capability metrics explained for production managers — not statisticians. How to read Cp and Cpk and what action to take when they're below 1.33.

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Six Sigma

Value Stream Mapping: Current State to Future State

VSM for complex discrete manufacturing. Mapping material flow, information flow, and time data from a system like TaktClock to build your future state.

Video Library

Video tutorials — coming soon.

Short video walkthroughs of each TaktClock feature and lean concept. Sign up below to be notified when they're available.

Setting Up TaktClock: 10-Minute Install

Estimated: ~12 min

Reading the Live Yamazumi Chart

Estimated: ~8 min

Connecting TaktClock to Infor M3

Estimated: ~15 min

Apply What You've Learned

See these concepts running live in TaktClock.

30-minute demo. We'll walk through the Yamazumi Chart, Bottleneck tab, and QRQC-aligned alerting on your production configuration.

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