Measuring Worker Speed in Manufacturing Plant Operations

TL;DR; Focusing on individual worker speed in manufacturing or knowledge work does not improve overall delivery if the system has bottlenecks or delays. True speed comes from addressing system-wide issues, not by pushing individuals to work faster. Development managers should prioritize fixing process bottlenecks rather than measuring or incentivizing individual task completion speed.

Published on 11 March 2025

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

1 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/QnAOVFfFPpx

Imagine a manufacturing plant where someone decides to measure how fast one worker moves a part from their station to the next.

They speed up. They move parts as fast as possible. But downstream, the parts pile up because the system isn’t ready for them. The bottleneck isn’t fixed. Nothing actually gets delivered faster.

This is exactly what happens when you measure individual cycle time in knowledge work. Someone finishing tasks quickly doesn’t mean anything if those tasks sit in queues, waiting on reviews, approvals, or handoffs.

Speed comes from fixing the system, not from pushing people to move faster.

Who’s still measuring individual cycle time in 2025?

Also published on: LinkedIn

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