Cycle Time Reduction (CTR). From a cost perspective there is a well known saying that time is money. It is, but more importantly time is the competitive edge in providing war fighters the right systems and services at the right time in the right place as well. Both cost reduction and quality improvements, hence competitive improvement, result directly from the use of cycle time as the primary organizational metric. The basic hypothesis is that "as many as 90% of the existing activities [of a business] are nonessential and can be eliminated." Elimination of these activities reduces cost. To eliminate these activities requires a systemic view of the processes of the organization that leads to improved product and process quality with associated reduced internal waste. Cycle time is addressed from the perspectives of management, traditional operating practices, business flow, productivity, the employees, profits, implementation, and future strategies. Concurrent engineering, quality function deployment, and integrated product deployment are valuable tools for cycle time reduction.