1. INTRODUCTION
One of the tenets of lean management concept is to produce the goods according to actual consumption or customer demand. In the manufacturing systems, this is accomplished through a wellknow concept of takt time. Usually the takt time calculation is made for some period, for example, for one moth, two weeks, one week, or just one day, and is then fixed during this period. The fixed takt time works well in those manufacturing systems where either an automatization is vastly used or where it requires maintaining rigorous, steady material flow. This is typical for the automobile, machine, or electrotechnical industries. In other words, the fixed takt time is important for keeping a steady pace of work. However, in the manufacturing systems where automatization did not penetrate intensively, where these systems depend largely on the labor work, having fixed takt time for some period would cause problems because humans have difficulties to keep a steady pace of work during longer period and thus getting the required productivity. So where the manufacturing systems depend largely on the people activity, like sewing industry, we have to change the pace of work according to situation and hands-on knowledge even during the same shift in order to maintain production plans and productivity. The focus of this paper is to explain how the pace of work, or takt time, can be changed even during one production shift, so that the company with labor-intensive manufacturing system can still maintain production plans, and thus being efficient and productive. The concept of changed takt time will be explained on the case study example of the manufacturing company that produces shoes in the Slovak republic.