Is Cycle Time the Most Important Trend to Address in 2020?

Customers always want work faster but could the ability to turn work around faster become the most important service an in-plant can offer? In our two previous trends articles we discussed how in-plants can prepare for 2020 by overcoming staffing issues and increasing the in-plant’s value. In this article we will expand on the importance of fast turnaround time and discuss how it can also shield the in-plant from outside threats.

Cycle time or turnaround time is based on your production workflow. How well you overcome workflow issues determines how fast you can turn around work. Workflow issues plague both commercial and in-plant service providers but the most recent research found it is impacting them differently. The KPI | InfoTrends North American Production Software Investment Outlook Study (2019) asked both commercial and in-plant service providers about their production bottlenecks. While both commercial and in-plants listed “Dealing with the high number of small jobs” as their number one workflow issue, the responses changed after that.