Cycle time is the actual time spent working on producing an item or providing a service, measured from the start of the first task to the end of the last task. Cycle time includes both value-added time as well as non-value-added time. The key word in the definition is actual, as many companies will use cycle time to describe the expected time spent working on producing the item, and these two times are often not the same. To make things regarding a simply concept even more confusing, people often mistake other time concepts, such as lead time or takt time, for cycle time.