What is Bottleneck analysis? Understand with example

Bottleneck analysis?is one of the key concepts in Lean manufacturing. An identifying bottleneck in the process is essential because it leads to an increase in waiting time in different process steps, loss of customers, and also loss in the company revenue.

A single bottleneck in the process can become responsible for the production of poor-quality products.

That's the reason figuring out and fixing them is most important in order to maintain the continuous flow of the process.

In this article, we are going to understand what is?bottleneck analysis?in detail along with its types and benefits.

We also going to understand how to conduct this analysis using one case study example. In the end, you can be able to perform this type of analysis for your process. Now let's start...

?What is the bottleneck?

The?bottleneck is any constraint in the process that limits the ability?of a process to produce goods at a regular rate.

It is the point in the assembly line or production system that occurs when the workload arrives too quickly for the manufacturing process to handle.

It can have a massive impact on the entire flow of the assembly line or process and also increases the time and cost of manufacturing.

Let's understand this with a simple example, suppose we have 5 step production process from raw material to process steps 2, 3, and 4 and in the end, the last step is finished goods.

Let's say material enters into the process as a first step, and then from process steps 2 to 4 our resources or activities that are being performed to transform the input raw material into the output final product.

And if process step 3 is working slower than the other processes then that is nothing but the bottleneck in the process.

This slow 3rd process step limits the ability to produce the final product at a regular rate. Hence process step 3 is the bottleneck of the entire process.

In order to improve the efficiency within any process and operate that process in a consistent manner, this type of bottleneck must be fixed.

To fix that we have to conduct?bottleneck analysis, which helps in understanding the root cause of bottlenecks in the process, how to find them and fix them, also prevent them from occurring in the future.

Generally, there are two causes of bottleneck because of which it occurs i.e. bottleneck caused by process steps and bottleneck caused by people.

When one process step is operating at a faster rate than the other or slower rate than the other then this type of bottleneck is caused by process steps in the line.

Similarly, the overall operating speed of the process gets reduced because of a lack of effective training for employees and operators who are working close to the process, this type of bottleneck is caused by the people. Before conducting?bottleneck analysis?you need to be aware of these two important causes.

Bottleneck creates a problem in the entire workflow, major interruptions to work productivity, delays the production process steps, also affects the takt time that because of a single bottleneck the entire process fails to keep up with the rate of customer demand.

Types of a bottleneck-

You need to also understand the two important types of?bottlenecks.....

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