töökäike

Töökäike is a term used in Estonian manufacturing and operations management to denote a single cycle of a work process—the sequence of tasks required to produce one unit of output, from the start of the process to its completion. It is a functional concept used to describe the time and steps involved in completing a unit of work within a production system.

Etymology and scope: The word combines töö, meaning work, and käik, meaning cycle or turn. In practice, töökäike can encompass the full cycle that a unit undergoes on a production line, including setup, processing steps, and finalization, depending on the context and the level of detail in a particular analysis.

Usage and applications: Töökäike is used to measure cycle time, identify bottlenecks, and inform line balancing and scheduling decisions. By analyzing the duration and sequence of tasks within a töökäike, engineers seek to improve throughput and reduce idle time. In documentation and studies, it may be defined narrowly as the time for a standard unit, or more broadly to include variations for different product types or batch sizes.

Examples: On an assembly line for a consumer product, a töökäike might include parts picking, assembly, inspection, and packing, totaling a specific number of minutes per unit. In software-assisted production planning, töökäike data help set takt times and evaluate efficiency targets.

See also: cycle time, takt time, production planning, line balancing, time and motion study.