Takt time, derived from the German word Taktzeit, translated best as meter, is the average time between the start of production of one unit and the start of production of the next unit, when these production starts are set to match the rate of customer demand. For example, if the customer wants to buy 10 units per week, and the units are produced during a 40-hour work week, then the average time between the start of one unit and the next should be, which, given a steady flow through the production plant, will result in a unit being completed every 4 hours (which equates to 10 units per week). A common misconception is that takt time is related to the time it takes to actually make the product - whether it takes 4 minutes to produce the product or whether it takes 4 years to produce the product, the takt time should be 4 hours in this example (of course, the time it takes to produce the product will impact the magnitude of the number of units actually in production at any point in time).