Marking time is not Cycle Time. Does that matter?
Marking time is not cycle time.
"Okay", you might say. "So what? Does that matter?"
The answer is simple. Yes, it does. At least, if a realistic throughput calculation matters to you. For example, in order to validate if you can meet the target output with your equipment, stay within the calculated costs per part, and plan your internal resources such as required production people correctly.
Where is the difference between marking time and cycle time?
To avoid confusion of these terms, let's define first what is meant by marking time and cycle time in this article. That is important because there are many different definitions and understanding of these terms out there. Following definitions are used in this article:
- Marking time is the net time period from the beginning of the laser beam exiting the laser source to the end of marking the material.
- Cycle time is the overall time from start to end of processing your part with the machine including handling and software communication.
Given these definitions, you'll have quickly realized that marking time is a subset of the cycle time. For this reason, using marking time as the basis for throughput calculation can be a serious mistake, when it greatly differs from the cycle time.
So what are the other time-consuming steps in addition to the marking process itself? How to get to cycle time?
There are various possible additional steps, such as:
- (Un-)Loading the part and trigger/start the laser marking process
- Opening and closing the machine door
- Loading/switching the marking job
- Refreshing the marking job, e.g. when it contains dynamic content such as a part-specific DMC
- Moving linear and rotary axes inside the machine
- Opening and closing shutter
- Carrying out vision tasks, e.g. validating readability of a DMC (for example with the optional integrated camera for FOBA lasers)
- Running (workflow) software activities, e.g. logging and writing data to an external database
If needed, your laser supplier should be able to provide you with measured or estimated times for the various steps that are relevant for the cycle time of your specific process. Do not hesitate to ask your supplier for support!
I hope that this article helped you understand the difference between marking and cycle time and what other factors to take into account to calculate the cycle time.
If you have any further questions about this topic or would like to get support for a new project, pls. do not hesitate to contact me.