What is the Cycle Time, in minutes, for a process having a Throughput of 360 units per hour?

Cycle Time is the time required to produce one unit, while Throughput is the rate of production (units per unit of time). These two metrics are reciprocals of each other. The given Throughput is 360 units per hour. To find the Cycle Time in minutes, first convert the Throughput to units per minute: 360 units/hour ÷ 60 minutes/hour = 6 units/minute. Then, calculate the Cycle Time by taking the inverse of the Throughput rate: Cycle Time = 1 / (6 units/minute) = 0.1667 minutes/unit. Rounding to three decimal places gives 0.167 minutes.

B. 0.333: A cycle time of 0.333 minutes (or 20 seconds) would correspond to a throughput of 180 units per hour (60 min / 0.333 min/unit).
C. 0.667: A cycle time of 0.667 minutes (or 40 seconds) would correspond to a throughput of approximately 90 units per hour (60 min / 0.667 min/unit).
D. 1.333: A cycle time of 1.333 minutes (or 80 seconds) would correspond to a throughput of approximately 45 units per hour (60 min / 1.333 min/unit).

1. Hopp, W. J., & Spearman, M. L. (2008). Factory Physics. Waveland Press. In Chapter 7, "Basic Factory Dynamics," the relationship between throughput (TH) and cycle time (CT) is established. For a single process, the maximum throughput (capacity) is the inverse of the processing time per unit. (Section 7.2, pp. 248-250).

2. Jacobs, F. R., & Chase, R. B. (2018). Operations and Supply Chain Management (15th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. Chapter 7, "Process Analysis," defines throughput rate as the output rate and cycle time as the average time between completions of successive units. The fundamental relationship is Cycle Time = 1 / Throughput Rate. (p. 205).

3. MIT OpenCourseWare. (2010). 15.762 Supply Chain Planning, Lecture 2: Introduction to Inventory Management. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Slide 11 introduces Little's Law (Inventory = Flow Rate × Flow Time), where Flow Rate is equivalent to Throughput and Flow Time is equivalent to Cycle Time, establishing the core relationship between these process metrics.