Cycle time is the time it takes for a piece of work to go from start to finish. In office processes it usually means the time from when a request is submitted until it is done: an invoice from receipt to payment, a purchase request from submission to order, a new hire from signed offer to first day.
Definitions vary. In manufacturing, cycle time often means the time to produce one unit, and lead time means the time from the customer's order to delivery. Many workflow tools use "lead time" for request-to-done. What matters is to write down which start and end events you use, and to keep them consistent.
Why it matters
Cycle time is the number requesters feel. Measured per step, it also shows where work waits rather than where it is worked on, which is usually where the improvement is.
How to measure it well
- Define the start and end events precisely.
- Measure each step, not only the total.
- Use the median, or look at the slowest cases separately, because a few stuck requests can distort an average.
- Decide whether you count calendar days or business days.
Example
Purchase requests take a median of six business days from submission to order (illustrative). Broken down by step, four of those days are spent waiting for the department head's approval. Raising the manager's limit for routine purchases cuts the wait without touching the steps that matter.
Common pitfalls
- Measuring only the total.
- Mixing calendar and business days.
- Making requests faster by skipping controls.
In Easyflow, Insights shows lead times and late steps per process.