Checklist for improving the throughput through a bottleneck

Select a process you want to optimize.
E.g. you could:
  1. Create a visual representation of the process using 2-8 Steps.

    Do not get too detailed.
    If you need more detailed steps than 8 steps you can always consider "zooming in" by selecting a part of the process for your tests and starting over. Or, if you find out, that your detail level is too low, "zoom out".
  2. Write down how many items you can process in each step
  3. Select the step of the process with the lowest number
    This might be your bottleneck. But think about it. Maybe you need a closer zoom level for the process to get more concrete results? Are you really looking at the right process part? Zoom in and out until you find your good answer.

The first step is "local optimization".

E.g. consider the following questions:
  1. Can the resources and/or people that are doing the job right now work smarter?
    Create checklists? Is the process regulated clearly?
  2. Can the resources work harder?
    But please use some kind of common sense...
    Being to hard means loosing people.

Attention: Do not think about spending money yet. You do not get to spend extra money until step "Update".

Find free resources

In this step we find additional potenial resources for free to aid either our bottleneck or to free them for other work in the company, which is worth more.

Look at all the people that increase the inventory of tasks for the bottleneck.
Limit their ability to do that to be just a little bit above the bottleneck capacity, so that the bottleneck will not run out of work but the inventory will not increase either.
These people now gain free time, because after hitting the limit they can do something else. It will not change the output of the process at all.

Look at all the people behind the bottleneck.
They are waiting for the bottleneck and have probably assigned their extra worktime to either chilling or other tasks.
But this extra time can be as well used to help the bottleneck without any extra cost.

Make the bottleneck and the free resources work together

In this step we ask the additional resources if they in fact can help the bottleneck people by redistributing the work or creating optimizations that the bottleneck people can use. Remember: They have free time now.
If they really really cannot do anything for the bottleneck they should be moved to another task in the company, to make sure they do not just create useless inventory.
  1. Can the non-bottleneck people help with steps in the urgent process by preparing or post-processing work?
  2. Can the non-bottleneck people create tools for the bottleneck people?
  3. Do the bottleneck-people have tasks not related to the bottleneck work?
    And do you have non-bottleneck people that can take over the tasks?

Do the right things first

To further increase productivity through the bottleneck check which tasks you are giving to it.
  1. Does the bottleneck really work on the most productive/important tasks first?
    (Big pizza first?)
  2. Are they ways/questions to ask to actually reduce the load of the tasks that arrive at the bottleneck?
    Maybe ways to entirely think out of the box? (Advertise other food than pizza?)

This is the first step in which you can actually spend money.

Is there anything you can buy right now that might help with the situation?
At first we look at short time investments that can help us early.

What can you do in the long term?

When you see that the bottleneck will come back in the future or be a pain on the longer run, consider strategic investments.
Examples:
  1. Can you increase the amount of people with the necessary abilities?
    • Invest in education of existing people
    • Invest in more people
  2. Can technology help out?
    • Make or buy a software/hardware?