Cycle time is the total time from the beginning to the end of your process, as

defined by you and your customer.

Time has become a key success measure in business. Oftentimes, it is
more important than other performance measures. For example, in
marketing a product's success or failure often depends on "time-to-
market," or how quickly a new product becomes available to the
customer. One of many cycle time measures used in management,
cycle time is the measure of a business cycle from beginning to end.
Production cycle time refers to production activities, such as the total
time required to produce a product. Order processing cycle time is
used in the front office to determine the total time required to process
an order. From a financial perspective, terms like cash-to-cash cycle
time describe the amount of time a company takes to recover its
financial investment. From a management perspective, cycle time is
used to evaluate performance in all aspects of a business.

Cycle time has become the key measurement tool for the performance
of a number of leading edge management concepts, including supply
chain management (SCM), just-in-time (JIT) management, enterprise
resources planning (ERP), theory of constraints management, and lean
management. Cycle time improvements in any of these areas have
been linked to reduced costs, reduced inventories, and increased
capacity. The resource areas that are measured by cycle time include
the measurement of financial flow, materials flow, and information
flow. In each case, a delay or failure of any of these measures would
indicate a failure of the entire business process.

1) Cycle time is best illustrated by a few examples. In marketing,

time-to-market cycle time is the critical measure of success in
the fashion, apparel, and technology industries. Companies that
cannot get products to market quickly may get completely
washed out. Time-to-market is the measure of time from idea
inception through idea development, design and engineering,
pilot, and finally production and customer availability. For
example, the United States led the world in the idea phase of
automotive air bag development. However, a slow design and
engineering process enabled the Japanese to generally offer
airbags in their vehicles several years before the United States.
2) Another example of cycle time is the production cycle time. This
is the time from when an order is released on the production floor
until completion and shipment to the customer. For the American
automobile manufacturer this time is measured in weeks and, in
some cases, months. For Toyota this time is approximately four
hours. The repercussions for this are found is the staging of
enormous amounts of work-in-process inventories. The actual
"hands-on" production time in both cases is about the same.
However, since the United States produces in large batch
quantities, it effectively produces hundreds and thousands of
cars at the same time. As a result, there is a lot of inventory
staging and related work space requirements. This example
illustrates the direct relationship between cycle time and
inventory.
3) Another example of cycle time is order-processing time.
Unfortunately, in far too many factories the paperwork time to
process an order is longer than product production time. Order
processing time starts when a phone call or fax initiates the
order, and ends when the order is sent to production scheduling.
This cycle time includes all paperwork-related steps, such as
credit verification and order form completion, customer database
record etc,
4) In finance, performance measures such as cash-to-cash cycle
time reflect a company's cash performance. This is the amount
of time it takes from the time money is spent on a customer's
product for the purchase of components until the "cash" is
recovered from the customer in the form of a payment. In the
computer industry the industry average cash-to-cash cycle time
is 106 working days. For "best-in-class" companies this cash-to-
cash cycle time is 21 working days, and for Dell Inc. it is a three
to seven days. This example illustrates that the average
computer company needs to finance its inventory investment for
106 days, whereas Dell has the advantage of being able to utilize
its customers' cash to earn interest. Dell can then use this
advantage to offer price incentives that the other computer
manufacturers cannot.
A variant use of the term "cycle time" is found in industrial
engineering. In this specific example, cycle time has a number of
meanings—depending on the situation in which the term is used and
the industry to which it is applied.

5) It generally is considered to be a manufacturing term applied to

an environment where a series of activities or tasks (each with a
predetermined completion time known as task time) are
performed in a specified sequence known as a "precedence
relationship." (task time and its elaboration)

The predetermined task times govern the range of possible cycle

times. The minimum cycle time is equal to the longest task time
in the series of tasks required to produce the product, while the
maximum cycle time is equal to the sum of all the task times
required for a finished good. For example, consider a product that
requires five sequential tasks to manufacture. Task one takes 10
minutes to complete; task two, 12 minutes; task three, 20
minutes; task four, 8 minutes; and task five, 10 minutes. The
minimum cycle time for this product would be 20 minutes (the
longest time). As all the tasks can be made during the 20 minutes
because it is the maximum time required to complete one task,
other tasks can be performed simultaneously with that longest
time taking task. Any cycle time less than 20 minutes would not
allow the product to be made, because task three could not be
completed. The maximum cycle time would be 60 minutes, or the
sum of all task times in the sequence. This implies a range of
possible cycle times of 20 to 55 minutes. However, the maximum
cycle time would really only be feasible if there was no waste or
non-value-added time in the process, such as delays between
tasks. Some people refer to the sum of the task times as
throughput time or the time required to move a product
completely through the system

However, the term can be used in the service sector if the

rendering of the service requires a sequential series of tasks. As
these tasks are completed at each operation or workstation, the
product is passed on to the next workstation in the sequence
 until the product is complete and can be defined as a finished
good.

However, in its more general usage cycle time is how long it takes for
material to enter and exit a production facility. Depending on the
industry, this definition is appropriate with slight modifications. For
example, in the automobile collision repair industry cycle time refers
to the time a car enters the facility for repair until the repair is
completed.