Do your working days seem longer than usual? Like most people, you probably have bottlenecks in your workflow. Bottlenecks consume large amounts of time and energy, and they are not cheap.
According to a 2021 Banco de España survey, 22% of the companies surveyed reported supply restrictions associated with shortages of materials or equipment. This implies that their processes experienced bottlenecks somewhere in their value chains.
But what is a bottleneck? Simply put:
It is a point in a production process that operates inefficiently or at a low level of productivity, delaying operations and limiting the other stages of the production chain.
This leads to the question: how do we detect bottlenecks? Here are four stages to help you find and address them.
1- Plan your processes and find errors before they occur
The best way to make the most of a production process is to document it in as much detail as possible. Workflow management tools are needed to track orders and their progress at all times. Kanban and Gantt charts are particularly useful for efficiently defining, tracing and auditing responsibilities throughout operations.
A bottleneck is the slowest or least productive part of the process. Ask where it is and what options are available to control it.
Note: the speed of the overall process is defined by the slowest point in the chain: its bottlenecks.
These planning systems are complemented by graphical tools that provide a complete picture of the process structure, making subsequent action easier.
Create a roadmap that clearly defines the problems to identify and the sequence of actions needed to reach the objective.
2- Implement the corrective actions considered appropriate
Once a roadmap has been developed, put it into practice according to the previous plan. Actions should follow the agreed sequence and deadlines. If you know your business thoroughly and have completed the first step correctly, you will probably already be aware of some potential bottlenecks. If not, here are some of the most common ones:
– Communication problems and errors in the company’s information flow.
– Machinery with insufficient capacity to meet the workload demanded by the value chain.
– Poor replenishment planning, with supplier relationships insufficiently defined in terms of delivery conditions and timing.
Once the bottleneck has been found, defined and documented, you need to get to the root causes of the inefficiencies. Several tools can help identify the underlying causes of inefficiencies in your production process.
Not every bottleneck has an easy solution. The nature and circumstances of a process may prevent these inefficiencies from being eliminated completely. Management should relieve the pressure and stress on the people affected by the bottleneck. Actions include increasing capacity at that point as far as possible and designing indicators to detect its saturation level. Metrics such as batches/hour or downtime minutes/hour clarify the bottleneck’s limits and therefore the limits of the whole process.
3- Review the performance of the changes
At this stage, compare the planned initiatives with what was actually done in the previous phase. Also assess process performance before and after the changes.
Reviewing the effects of changes is especially important: it shows how decisions affect bottlenecks and helps you assess whether to look for and address others that remain undetected.
Draw conclusions by comparing the plan with the actions actually taken. Delivery times, the sequence of steps and expected performance may be affected by unexpected circumstances, as well as unintended consequences that need to be minimised. This brings us to the next stage.
We recommend reading our article on the six constraints in improvement project management.
4- Act on the conclusions
Develop systems that correct the deviations identified in the previous comparison. Implement and document precisely the organisational changes to be used in future improvement projects.
In this way, your team will develop valuable knowledge about how to implement improvements efficiently in the production process.
For example: a lack of follow-up is identified in deliverables assigned to employees. A project management tool such as Trello is introduced to keep the team aware of requirements and needs. This is supported by better monitoring of work in progress and task reviews.
This four-step guide derives from the continuous improvement cycle. Studying that cycle can help you implement any change initiative with greater control and stronger prospects of success.