The Goal

1. What are the methods described in The Goal for identifying a bottleneck?

Bottleneck is defined as any resource whose capacity is equal to or less than the demand placed upon it. To identify a bottleneck, Rogo and the team tried several methods：

1. From brute force data analysis. They firstly tried to calculate the demand for the product going out of the plant. Then, they tried to find out how much time each resource has to contribute toward filling the demand. Stacey suggested trawling through the data for each work area (pg142) , but with the changes and shifts in labor, could consume a lot of time

2. From experience. Alex asks his team if anyone ‘has a hunch’ as to where Herbie could be, using Herbie as an analogy to bottleneck

3. Talking to expeditors. The logic is that the area in which expeditors visit most frequently for parts (and comes back empty) is where the bottleneck is

4. Observe inventory in front of process. The theory is that whichever process contains the largest pile of inventory, just like how the space between students is largest between Herbie and the next in front of him, that inventory most likely is the bottleneck

5. Root cause analysis. After the team identifies NCX10 and the Heat treatment as bottlenecks, Alex, with the help of Jonah, asks a serious of question as to why say, \ Why is the the NCX10 idle for 50 minutes… etc. All these questions lead to his identification of the Union contract that requires workers to take a break after working a certain duration, which he negotiated out and increase NCX10, and consequently the plant’s capacity. The same trail of questions led him to identify heat treatment and marketing as a bottleneck.

2. After bottlenecks have been identified, what are the concrete factory floor-level actions described in the book for improving overall system performance?

After identified bottlenecks, Rogo considered move the bottleneck part to the beginning of the process but was unable to do so....