From the course: Operations Management Foundations
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Identifying bottlenecks and constraints
From the course: Operations Management Foundations
Identifying bottlenecks and constraints
- They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the same holds in the world of manufacturing. If you have an assembly line, the maximum products the assembly line could produce in a single hour would be the number of products that would run through the slowest workstation on that assembly line. Instead of looking at an assembly line, though, let's look at a set of interconnected pipes. Let's say you have a water source on the left, the water source is connected to a pipe through which five gallons per minute can flow. That pipe is connected to a pipe through which two gallons per minute can flow. The two-gallon pipe is connected to a pipe with a throughput of three gallons per minute. And finally, the three-gallon pipe is connected to a pipe with a throughput of four gallons per minute. In that system of pipes, what's the maximum number of gallons of water that could ever flow out of the pipe on the right?…
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