How to deal with bottlenecks
In a perfectly designed operation with a stable workload coming in as expected and with no disruptive events during execution, the problem of bottlenecks is not to be expected.
However, as a seasoned manager, you know this is rarely the case. Bottlenecks do occur, and they drag down the performance of the entire plant. So, it is the manager’s job to deal with the bottlenecks and mitigate their effects with the right measures.
The following activities need to be performed for each bottleneck:
- If your bottleneck-process has to perform activities that can be done as part of another process – then move these activities to the other process. This reduces the burden on the bottleneck-process (e.g., if you go on a hiking tour, you will probably not take this 1'000-page novel with you, of which the last chapter is yet to be read, right?)
- Keep your bottleneck always busy – no downtime due to missing input (yes, buffering in front of the bottleneck).
- Don't be penny-wise when it comes to the bottleneck – you are not improving one single process. Any improvement on the bottleneck will lead to better performance of your entire operation!
- Make everyone aware of the bottleneck-process. Only when people know where to focus their attention, ideas will come up on how to improve it! Train your people on resolving simple problems themselves.
- Measure the utilization of the bottleneck – you will be surprised how much untapped capacity is there if you really scrutinize the status.
Suddenly you will notice that the bottleneck does no longer improve, and if you have a flow-oriented reporting in place, you will see that another process has become the bottleneck. Yes, bottlenecks are very mysterious – they travel in your plant, and depending on the composition of the workload, they might appear at different locations.
