Tempus Cycli Non Est Promissio Capacitatis

In emptione machinae purificationis sunt duo numeri. Unus est tempus cycli, mensuratum ad secundum et scriptum in contractu. Alter est output, qui apparet in casu commerciali et deinde in relatione mensuali. Inter eos est circa viginti percentum, et nemo ad hoc subscripsit.

Credo tempus cycli esse rem inadvisabilem ad ponendam in contractu, et volo argumentari id rite potius quam tantum queri de eo.

Numerus Quem Omnes Subscribunt

Tempus cycli facile definiri potest, facile mensurari potest, et facile de eo disputari potest, quae sunt tres bonae rationes cur in documento acceptationis finiat. Machina centum partes percurrit ad intervallum specificatum, horologium id confirmat, et machina signatur.

The difficulty is that the sign-off condition is a machine with nothing else happening. Parts arrive on time, nothing stops, the correct variant is loaded, and every part passes first time. None of those four conditions is true for a full shift, and all four are outside the definition of the cycle.

What It Leaves Out

Four things, and each of them is normal rather than exceptional.

The machine stops for filters, for a bath dump, for a nozzle set, for a jam. On a washer these are short and frequent, which is exactly why they get underestimated: no single event looks like a breakdown.

The machine changes over to another variant and waits for the first-part check. During that time it is available and producing nothing.

The machine rewashes parts that did not pass. Each of those consumes two cycles and returns one part.

The machine stops for a few seconds because a part was presented at the wrong angle or a sensor needed a wipe. Nobody records those, and collectively they take a real share of the shift.

Take a 450-minute shift and a 60-second cycle. That is 450 parts on paper. Deduct half an hour of stops, twenty minutes of changeover and a five percent rework rate, and the same machine delivers around 360. The cycle never changed. The capacity did.

Why A Washer Loses More Than Most Machines

Three properties make this worse on cleaning equipment than on a machining centre.

There is no buffer of finished parts. A machining centre that stops leaves a queue nobody needs yet. A washer that stops starves assembly immediately, because the parts it was going to make are the parts assembly is waiting for. Its downtime costs more than its own lost time.

Maintenance is frequent by design. Filters, nozzles, bath chemistry and pump seals are all consumables on intervals measured in shifts. Individually trivial, together the largest availability loss on the line.

Rework is invisible in reporting. A rewashed part does not appear as a defect; it appears as a part that was produced. A line running five percent rework has lost five percent of its capacity and has no record of it anywhere.

When Cycle Time Really Is Capacity

I am not arguing the cycle time is meaningless. It is the right measure in three situations.

When the machine is the constraint and everything else has slack, the cycle is the throughput. When the line runs one part for weeks, changeover disappears from the arithmetic. When the process is stable enough that rework is below one percent, the third loss is noise.

Problema est quod plerique fabricae supponunt omnes tres conditiones veras esse antequam ullam earum mensuraverint, deinde lacunam in primo productionis trimestri inveniunt, non in negotii ratione.

Mea Positio

Contractus pro machina purgandi quattuor res, non unam, specificare debet: cyclus cum suis limitibus tractationis declaratus, tempus transmutationis inter duas variantes nominatas, intervallum expectatum inter stationes manutentionis, et dispositio filtrorum quae mutationem sine lineae cessatione permittit.

Haec quattuor quid machina ad producendum confert describunt. Cetera lacunae ad modum pertinet quo fabrica eam regit, et suppeditator non debet rogari ut id garantiat.

Emptor qui solum cyclum specificat numerum emere conatur qui implebitur, et capacitatem quae non implebitur. Hoc non est culpa suppeditatoris, nec post ordinem corrigi potest.

Si Unum Solum Mutare Vis

Duas listas a primo productionis mense serva, et manu eas serva si opus sit.

Primum est omnis arrestus, cum causa sua: filtrum, dyspensatorium, lavacrum, impeditio, fores, sensor. Secundum est omnis pars quae bis transiit, cum ratione sua. Illae duae listae explicare possunt fere totum intervallum inter exspectatum et reale effectum, et nihil eis constat praeter disciplinam scribendi eas.

Cum habueris mensem illarum listarum, disputatio de tempore cycli desinit esse interessans, quia videre potes ubi exacte viginti percenta abierint.