Managing Bottlenecks in Manufacturing Processes

Bottlenecks can exist in all types of manufacturing processes, including the job process, batch process, line process, and continuous process. Since these processes differ in their design, strategic intent, and allocation of resources (see Chapter 2, “Process Strategy and Analysis,” for additional details), identification and management of bottlenecks will also differ accordingly with process type. We first discuss in this section issues surrounding management of bottlenecks in job and batch processes, while relegating constraint management in line processes for a later section.

Identifying Bottlenecks

Manufacturing processes often pose some complexities when identifying bottlenecks. If multiple ...

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