Bottleneck in a Process

Bottlenecks are not unique to any industry and can make any process become inefficient when corrective measures are not taken. Processes that rely on teams, departments, managers, or others are breeding grounds for bottlenecks to occur. Although it is true that sometimes these bottlenecks are put there for checks and balances, it makes the job harder, especially when the process has to be stopped and checked for quality control purpose. The focus of this paper will be to identify and discuss the main bottleneck in invoice processing by applying Goldratt’s theory of constraints to identify and overcome bottlenecks in processes.

Goldratt’s theory of constraints

Goldratt’s theory of constraints is a popular problem-solving approach for business processes. According to the course materials his theory has five steps. The constraint or weakest link needs to be identified for improvement to happen. Once the constraint is found, every part of the system needs to be aligned to support this constraint even if it reduces the efficiency of nonconstraint resources. If output is not at an acceptable level, more resources need to be put in place so the constraint is no longer a problem. After the constraint is solved, repeat the process to identify new ones because this process is that of continuous improvement (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006).

Applying Goldratt’s theory to invoice processing, one main bottleneck is discrepancies on the invoice. Most of the data for invoices in week one were either waiting for approval, an explanation of why the invoice is not billed to the organization, etc. A bottleneck is defined as any resource whose capacity is less than the demand placed upon it and is a constraint within the system that limits throughput (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006). The constraint has been identified so an improvement needs to be made. What can be done is automate the process so when an invoice date is more than six months, the request...