Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Current State: Cycle Time

Chao, Raul O., Gol...

Technical Note

Current State: Cycle Time

Chao, Raul O.; Goldberg, Rebecca

OM-1646 | Published September 18, 2025 | 2 Pages Technical Note

Collection: Darden School of Business

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Product Details

This technical note is part of a set that focuses on on understanding and learning how to describe the current state of a process, including resource availability, cycle time, and an introduction to capacity. While designed to be used together, these three notes can also be used as stand-alone documents to support particular learning objectives. The other two notes in this set are “Current State: Resource Availability” (UVA-OM-1645) and “Current State: Capacity 1” (UVA-OM-1647). These materials form one module in our collection of introductory operations management topics, and all are appropriate for an advanced undergraduate- or graduate-level introductory course on operations management. The complete list of the materials in this collection is available in the teaching materials included with this technical note.

1. Present the concept of resource availability, as well as how this value is measured differently when resources are independent or dependent. 2. Discuss the concept of cycle time, including how and why this measurement is used to describe the current state. 3. Introduce the purpose of capturing capacity measurements at each process stage, building upon the concepts of resource availability and cycle time.