Methods and systems for generating sensor data, wherein the sensor data includes measured transit time information for items flowing through a work process, accessing a set of control data for one or more machine tool workstations and accounting data for the work process, calculating a standard deviation of the measured transit time information, calculating an achievable minimum WIP for at least one of the workstations using current values of workstation performance parameters, receiving input including: information identifying process improvement projects and corresponding predictive performance parameter values, and information identifying resources available for process improvement, for the at least one of the workstations: determining an achievable minimum WIP using the corresponding predictive performance parameter values, determining a reduction in minimum WIP based on the difference between the achievable minimum WIP for the current performance parameter values and the predictive performance parameter values, and determining one or more process efficiency improvements.